Elizabeth Truss: A new state

Elizabeth Truss is the Deputy Director of Reform.

Change seems to be in the air this year. In the US Presidential election we are told about epic struggles for control between the old and new generations. And from a seemingly benign economic environment in Britain, we are facing serious economic challenges. Just of course when the money is running out and the last of the Government’s spending increases hits the public sector.

The uncertainty which everyone is feeling from the British high street shopper to Hillary Clinton, I believe is reflective of genuine underlying change. That change is the coming of age of the internet, not least demonstrated by ConservativeHome. The internet’s influence has spread to every office, school and home. It is altering the way we live, the way we interrelate and our perceptions of the world.

Communication where leaders made decisions, communicated and then were lauded or rejected is being replaced by the continual iteration of thousands of individual transactions. The huge increase in available information has empowered the individual to make choices and direct their lives to a much greater extent. It has created alternative networks and increased horizontal communication, in many cases removing the role of intermediaries and middle management.

Big Government is out of step with this trend and unreconstituted public services will find it harder and harder to deliver people’s expectations. If the economy was difficult to plan and manage in the 1970’s – it is impossible now with the degree engagement required in a modern organisation. In spite of the money that has been pumped in, Britain’s public services are still working in a very old command and control style, characterised by targets, edicts and vast bureaucracies.

The challenges to the big state will not come as they did in the 1970s and the 1980s through public protests and letter writing campaigns, demanding better public services. Increasingly it will be through people opting out of engagement with Government and acting independently. There are signs already of greater participation in private education and healthcare. A generation of people schooled in the art of everything being available at the click of the mouse are not going to wait for months for an operation or hope that that child will survive an underperforming inner city state school. Whereas lack of delivery previously created an atmosphere of complaint, people will now supplement or go elsewhere.

Finally, there will be a growing divide between those who are benefiting from the state and those who are outside it. This will be particularly pronounced between young and old but will also reflect the vastly different levels of state engagement across the regions and social groups. Reform’s reports on the IPOD generation described a generation of people who are being short-changed in government spending which disproportionately benefits the old. With the technological divide, we can expect to see resentment grow from a group of people who don’t understand why the state’s services are so expensive relative to those they access on-line and why they should continue to pay for them.

Although change may be painful for the state, these developments also present a great opportunity to rebalance the responsibilities of government and individuals and get much more value from tax payers money.

Government needs to work with the grain of the way people now operate. It should rethink what it should actually be doing given an engaged and interlinked population who want to take more control of their own lives.

This means reassessing its role in provision, making use of the vast private and voluntary networks already in existence to get things done rather than clumsy replication and critically reducing its “footprint” on the lives of the individual.

The next generation are not disillusioned with politics; they just know that the ability to achieve is more in their own hands than it is in politicians’. The self expression and “Do it yourself” culture of the internet has been embedded in the media, business and the home. It must now impact the way we are governed.

Comments

[Mr Carbon]

This is a cogent piece of writing. Elizabeth has perceptively identified one of the underlying reasons behind the changing nature of social interaction and consumer expectation. The fact that Labour doesn't have a clue how to respond to these changes presents a teriffic opportunity for the Conservatives to connect, in particular, with younger voters (who will become increasingly engaged as they get older if this is handled correctly). However, what the Conservatived need is more people who recognise what is happening and can articulate the vision to the electorate.

[Ian Parker]

This is a fair description of some elements of on-going change, particularly with regard to the Internet. However, it is also important to recognise that just as apparent freedoms grow through the availability of independent information which the Internet provides, so governments are striving manfully to limit personal freedoms in key areas of our lives. Hence, what has really emerged for many is the illusion and mirage of choice, not its reality.

So, to balance Elizabeth’s apparent view of a more enlightened public pressuring change from within, consider the following. Freedom of speech is under intense pressure as is legitimate freedom of action in some vital areas. Governments have become autocratic monoliths seeking to impose their own doctrines. Hence, we are all paying for a green bandwagon which has spiralled out of control on the back of politics not legitimate science. In education, the very process of individual thought is being suppressed. Of course, certain thoughts are not to be entertained in the first place. Britain has become one of the most regulated countries in the World. We also hold the number one position for camera surveillance.

The Internet has done an excellent job in exposing the bias and dissemination of false information by the established media. However, if you had any notion that access to the truth might “set you free”, think again. But, just in case it might one day, how about regulating (i.e. controlling) the Internet, as more and more government agencies are threatening?

[Tony Makara]

One area where less could definitely be more is education. Thats where Conservative education policy will prove to be a winner. The big monolithic state schools are old-fashioned and do not meet the educational needs of children. Smaller independent schools is the way forward.

[David Parker]

I agree with the comments made by Ian Parker, who, so far as I am aware, is no relation of mine and whom I have certainly never met.
Some of the points made by Elizabeth Truss are valid, however, I despair at the 'management speak' tone of her contribution, which is uncomfortably redolent of that of those indoctrinated by Quangoes, NGOs or the civil service, or, even worse, by a sense of political correctness.

[David Sergeant]

Elizabeth Truss's last paragraph says it all. I don't think this is new, for a long time "democracy" to me has not just meant placing an X against a name every so often but choosing my own requirements when they suit me. If I want a car I can choose a second hand one or any from a range of new ones, to-day or next month. That's democracy. There have been attempts to arrange cars like Brown runs his government, the state makes one car for people of a certain level in society - yes - it was called the Trabant! And we have a Trabant health service which is better than the Trabant was only because of huge amounts of tax payers earnings, over which tax payers have no choice .

[Athelbald]

"vast private and voluntary networks"

Vast? Numbers, please. They're important, and never more so than when formulating policy.

[John Leonard]

Oh dear. Whilst I don't disagree with the observations on why the state needs to change (although some key points like population growth are missing and the uncontrolled advance of technology is as much damaging as beneficial), this doesn't seem much of a vision for a new state.

The big change seems to be some vague idea that Government should think more in tune with the rest of us (didn't Blair do this when he offered a referendum on the EU Treaty?) and that we should dole out contracts to the private and charity sectors.

It doesn't seem like much of a change but more of what is currently failing.

Successive goverments have invited the private sector in. Postal Services, Gas, Electric, Water. Rail, public owned IT Services, Telecoms and what did we end up with under a Labour Government?

Overpaid management, higher costs, lack of investment and less reliable services from often detached profit orientated foreign business interests and the risk in many cases of the country being held to ransom by external influences. They never had it so good.

Good idea, shame about implementation. I think we can do without more of that.

The bottom line seems to be that we should increasingly hand our fates out of the democraticaly elected hands of the Government into the unelected self appointed claws of the private sector and their shareholders and charities and their donors.

Out of the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.

Nope, the change needs to be something far more effective, radical and favourable to the public than that.

Before we involve private organisations the hold of centralism must be broken for good.

So how about this for starters:

Recovery of domestic policy from supra-national organisations

More and consistent devolution of real power from central government to regional and local government;

More democracy (referendums,more elected officials) and less quangos, politically appointed officials and privately controlled essential public services;

More self sufficiency (in terms of consumer products and services);

The break-up of large goverment organisations into smaller regional and local organisations reporting to regional and local government;

Far greater support for small and midsize domestic business;

More effective limits on the domestic influence of large organisations and their lobbyists;

If Government wants to be taken notice of, then it has to meaningfully engage the electorate and give individuals a voice rather than make decisions in spite of them.

Until it does the decline in the influence of government will continue.

That is the New State that I believe many are looking for. Indeed the change may be painful but if we are to do it then we need to do it properly and not timidly. Then we may have a worthwhile State again.

[Matt Wright]

Society was changing in this direction before the Internet came along and sometimes too much mumbo jumbo is read into "the Web". Younger people just see it as what it is with pros and cons. The real issue that does have some resonance with the article is choice and diversity and the need to really localise deceions again and claw back power to communities and away from the Euro-state and the Brown-state. Real devolution never happened but is needed.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I was interested in Ian Parker's comments that the internet as well as an enabler of the individual can also be potential tool of Government attempting to impose its will on society. I think it is an interesting question whether or not increased communication is going to create a more conformist society, which may be more amenable to direction or alternatively whether “a thousand flowers will bloom”.