Just as the case for an EU referendum is now compelling, before Brown condemns Parliament to irrelevance, so assessments of public sector reform reveal that the Prime Minister reverses time.
The new administration has introduced a deeply divided policy programme. It is based on a positive approach to competition and financial management in the economy but a significant retreat from reform across the most important areas of the public sector:
- the NHS – a twelve-month review of health policy when urgent decisions on cost control and reform are already one to two years overdue; and delays and cancellations of contracts to allow private sector companies to compete for NHS-funded treatment;
- student / university finance – an increase in taxpayer-funded maintenance grants which contradicts the principle of tuition fees;
- schools – an increase in the regulation of city academies and an explicit rejection of school choice; and
- housing – a Green Paper proposing housebuilding according to central priorities.
This has already resulted in more financial commitments in three weeks, at a time when the government is grasping for money and quite likely to put up taxes. As disposable income is already falling, this will result in further entrenchment of the consumer. Reform retrenchment can be witnessed in the structure of new Cabinet government:
In this culling, some of Mr Blair’s personal interests have disappeared, such as antisocial behaviour, animal rights and serious organised crime and drugs, along with subject committees on NHS reform, schools and welfare reform.....
Mr Brown will chair the committee on life chances (covering social exclusion and talent and enterprise), plus the new committee on national security, international relations and development – in effect a national security council covering foreign, defence and antiterrorism policy. Mr Brown chairs two of its subcommittees, as well as the committee on security and intelligence services.....
The minister to watch is Ed Miliband, who has a coordinating role in the Cabinet Office, as well as drafting the Labour manifesto. He chairs subcommittees on community cohesion and equality, delivery of public services and social exclusion. He will be a big influence on the Brown Government’s policies.
The hallmark of Labour's new 'big government' is becoming clear. Despite calls for decentralisation, Brown has moved away from reform and wishes to use the existing bureaucracies to deliver service. A bonfire of the targets is a shift away from that particular mode of control, but Whitehall (Treasury) again exerts control over all aspects of expenditure and delivery. With the emphasis on social cohesion and communities, we an expect Labour's policies to employ social controls that shore up the effects of welfarism and dependency. We also know that they will fail, accelerating failures of governance and the cracks within our creaking social fabric.