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Douglas Alexander MP - Former Minister of State for E-Commerce and CompetitivenessDemos Address |
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| (Left DTI 29/5/02) | |
| Thanks Tom,
It is refreshing to hear – as Charlie's remarks reflected – that there are the green shoots and a growing discourse about learning that can be shared between public and private sectors – on everything from delivery, to innovation and reputational management to values. So today's discussion reflects my optimism that we are now leaving behind the familiar but dated political discourse between those who say `Government is the enemy“ and those who say `Government alone is the answer“ is steadily less relevant to the challenges that we face at home or abroad. Indeed, I would argue that amidst discussions such as today it is all too easy to be blind to the scale of the shifts that are taking place, in the relationship between the public and the private sectors. Let me explain my point. Probably the two most significant turning points in recent geopolitical history were the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the World Trade Center Towers. And Professor Klaus Schwab has argued that the fall of the wall was seen as a triumph of capitalism over communism, which altered the balance decisively in favour of the market over the state. The result, he argues, was a decade during which "the emphasis on economics over politics led to unreal expectations about the role of business and economics in promoting the public good." September 11th altered that political argument. Even those on the right who had previously decried government as irrelevant and ineffectual witnessed its vital role in providing emergency services, national security, and economic stability. The second and related point is that the concept of public service has remained remarkably resilient, to use Gary's phrase, in the face of its ideological and economic challenges. People may Bowl Alone, or seek the emotional fulfilment of consumption, amidst a brand laden, experience economy, but they still hold to the view that there is such a thing as society, and as evidenced by the response to last weeks Budget support the ethos of the National health service or the principle of educational opportunity for all. And while that may be grounds for optimism there can be little ground for complacency. As Ian Hargreaves argued last week "there's not an institution you can think of which is not touched by this popular frustration about delivery, about effectiveness. Parliament, Whitehall, the Monarchy, the European Union, the NHS, Railtrack, our schools and universities: all are being forced to adapt to the fact that the modern citizen is also a modern consumer: demanding, selective and capable of taking his business elsewhere. The reality - that we want good service, low prices and choice as well as public services which are fairly distributed, accessible and run by people we trust to behave with integrity and does not mean we are turning our face against public service. Indeed, the fact that amidst the final days of last year's General Election Campaign, when we chose to build support around the theme "Schools and Hospitals first" evidences the fact that the revitalisation of public service, far from being something on which we have turned our collective back, is something which we have insisted be placed at the very centre of contemporary politics. Our real challenge therefore is to reform our public sector, on the foundation of the ethos of public service – or in time we will see those public services dismantled by those who oppose them. So, are there lessons we can learn from, or pass on to the private sector as we undertake that endeavour. Given the constraints of time – let me just identify two particular possible dialogues. First, the contribution that ICT can make to the modernisation of our public services. Now I am conscious that politicians – not least those on the left have suffered difficulty with technological forecasts. One need only remember that the credibility of Harold Wilson's professions that Britain could be re-made in 'the white heat of the technological revolution' collapsed along with his Government. Yet it is incontestable that the spread of computing power has radically reduced the costs for companies of collecting, analysing, retrieving, and re-using information. The growth of voice and data communications means public services and companies are increasingly able to share and spread this information at great speed, over large distances. So as computers become cheaper and more powerful, the business value of computers is limited less by computational capacity and more by the ability of managers to invent new processes, procedures and organisational structures that leverage this capability. This is why I enjoyed Charlie's contribution for I would argue that there is, and must be, a renewed intellectual discourse around such organisational issues. Take, for example, the refocusing by Will Hutton, of the Work Foundation's work, around issues of management and organisational behaviour. It allows us to move beyond the old view that the only organisational expression of the public interest is public ownership – to embrace insights from management as well as political theory. The second possible route to innovation I want to touch on is the role of devolution – not in terms of our country's constitution but in terms of our public policy making. An under commented upon feature of the emerging Devolutionary settlement is the extent to which it allows for diversity of policy responses. The Federal Structure of the US has for many decades allowed individual states to become laboratories of policy innovation and we are not witnessing similar developments here. Let me give an example from my own Department, following Gary's biological analogy. We face the challenge of extending Broadband coverage across the UK – Last month I detailed allocation of £30 million to the Devolved Administrations and RDAs on the basis of need. The criteria for the use of the fund was, in essence, two fold. a) Provide a local tailored solution to a local problem b) Be scaleable – in order that in future we can spread and share the policy solutions that prove most effective I can see this approach to policy making developing in the years to come. The other aspect of Devolution that I would highlight however is actually what we can learn from private sector organisations who for many years have been devolving decision making. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Charles Handy argued that highly devolved decision making in organisations like BP has fundamentally altered the role of the centre in general and the CEO in particular. Handy argues that in such a devolved organisation the centre has to work far harder at sustaining common values amidst an organisation of far greater diversity, perhaps what Charlie called central imagination. Indeed he argues that the centre of the organisation must articulate with greater clarity the values that unite the organisation in a common way of doing business. As someone who cut his teeth in electoral politics campaigning against nationalism I think there are interesting lessons here that we can learn. So on one hand we have a reaffirmation of the importance of the state and secondly the enduring endorsement of public service – despite real frustration from the public about delivery and despite real institutional strain in both the public and the private sectors. My third point is does this offer an unique opportunity for a progressive Government to advance the kind of innovation and entrepreneurialism that Gary advocates. Traditionally, the left has been hampered from grasping this opportunity by tending to assume that public ownership is the only effective organisational expression of the public interest. So in conclusion, of course we need to embrace innovation in advancing the public realm. Yet I think it is a fallacy to argue that public institutions have been and are inevitably under greater strain than private ones. Look at the periodic crisis Gary spoke of and the shifting composition of the FT list of the top one hundred companies. Recall the turbulence at companies like BT, Marks and Spencer, or Marconi, before leaping to the conclusion that times are uniquely hard for the Health Service, Parliament, Railtrack or the BBC. The challenge is great, but so too is the opportunity. |
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Other speeches by Douglas Alexander MP - Former Minister of State for E-Commerce and Competitiveness
(the following are available from the archive) |
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