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Last updated: 08 December 2009
Excellent public services lie at the heart of any civilised society. They express our core values of fairness and common endeavour and they underpin a strong economy. But more than that, they are essential if we are to meet our commitment to improve social mobility – supporting every family in Britain as they strive to make a better life for themselves and their children. That is why putting in place the investment and reforms necessary to create world-class public services will always be a key priority for the government that I lead.
When Labour came to power in 1997, we were faced with the impact of decades of under-investment. Standards were unacceptably low in most of our secondary schools; crime had been at record levels; and waiting times for treatment in many hospitals were longer than a year, leading some to question whether the NHS and other public services could survive.
So our first task was to put in place a programme of investment and repair to remedy years of neglect and to establish, at a national level, basic standards below which no school, hospital or other service would be allowed to fall.
These national standards, together with big increases in the numbers of front-line staff, meant that we could then focus on a greater diversity of supply – more providers from the voluntary and private sectors, more choice and, in many areas, more competition – in order to foster innovation and strengthen incentives for high performance.
As a result of these changes, together with the hard work of millions of public servants, we have seen major improvements. We have more and better qualified teachers than ever. Children no longer have to use outside toilets at school. Patients do not have to wait months on end for operations. Police numbers are at a record high and every community has its own neighbourhood police team. Overall, we have restored our nation's pride in our public services and they are more firmly than ever part of the fabric of British national life.
Some of our public services have done even better. Our top schools, hospitals, universities, and police forces – as well as our armed forces – are admired around the world. But we should also not shy away from the fact that in some places public services are still not good enough. And if we are to build a fairer Britain, we must extend to everyone – not just those who pay privately – the advantages of personalised public services.
Our first objective for reform must be to combine excellence with fairness. Everyone has a right to expect a first-class service, wherever they live and whatever their background. It is unacceptable that those in our most deprived communities too often experience our worst public services, or that hard-working families cannot always rely on the services they depend on.
So we will act to end unfair postcode lotteries by enshrining universal entitlements to basic standards, for instance, through a new NHS Constitution. We will guarantee minimum standards for neighbourhood policing. And we will do whatever it takes to eradicate the remaining pockets of serious underperformance – with radical proposals to ensure that when a hospital or other health care provider falls below acceptable standards new powers will be used to turn them around, just as our National Challenge programme will tackle low attainment in secondary schools.
Having ensured the removal of underperformance, our second objective is to respond to people's rising aspirations for high-quality services that are shaped by them, available when they need them and tailored to meet their individual circumstances. So as we set out our plans for the next phase of reform over the forthcoming weeks our priority will be to put citizens in control:
Our third goal is to unleash a new professionalism in our public services. If there is one lesson from around the world it is that the standard of a public service can never exceed the quality of the staff working in it. Just as being Chancellor for ten years taught me that economic strength depends on the hard work and talent of all of us – from the shopfloor to the boardroom – the lesson of public service reform is that real excellence depends upon liberating the imagination, creativity and commitment of the public service workforce.
This will not mean giving up on reform – as some would encourage us to do. But instead requires us to create new opportunities for professionals to take control of the process of change – with less top-down control and a greater say for front-line staff. So we will learn from the approach taken by Lord Darzi's unprecedented Next Stage Review of the NHS which has drawn on the ideas and inspiration of over two thousand clinicians from every part of the country, and work with professionals in new ways – enabling them to take the initiative in increasing quality and meeting citizens' needs.
Building on the success of the Foundation Trust model in the NHS, which now sees a million people actively involved in the governance of their local hospitals, I believe that over the next decade we will see a growing role for independent public service providers, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. We have only just begun to harness the potential of these kinds of non-profit organisations and in the coming weeks we will set out how we can promote a new wave of innovation led by social enterprise whilst protecting the values of publicly funded services free at the point of use. Not a return to the most vulnerable in our society depending on charity but a genuine openness to new ways of delivering services to the benefit of all.
Greater citizen empowerment and a new professionalism must not mean that Government leaves people on their own. Government must provide strong leadership, clear direction and sustained investment for public services; it must stand up for citizens, challenge vested interests and take a long term view – identifying the strategic challenges for the decade ahead from the creation of a comprehensive early years service to the fundamental reform of social care for the elderly.
But government must also know its own limits and become more strategic. It must step up its efforts to cut unnecessary targets, strip out waste, and devolve responsibility to communities, councils and local service providers. We must continue to strive for efficient, high quality services – by the end of this year the number of civil servants will be the lowest in sixty years. And above all, government must embrace a new culture that celebrates local innovation and ends once and for all the view that the man or woman in Whitehall always knows best.
So this is my approach to achieving excellence in our public services: real and lasting change driven by the users of public services themselves, backed up by professionals with the freedom and responsibility to be responsive to service users and supported by an enabling government that is prepared to lead, invest and put in place the necessary reforms.
I want world class to mean what it says: every element of our public services to be the best in the world. I know this is a huge challenge. But if we make the right choices I believe this goal is now within our reach. And if we succeed, Britain will be a fairer and more prosperous country, with rising social mobility for all its citizens in the decades ahead.
Gordon Brown
Prime Minister