Government sets out public sector reform vision
The government has reiterated its vision for radical reform of public services, bringing in competition and choice into education and health.
In a speech delivered to the Social Market Foundation, cabinet office minister John Hutton outlined the government’s Blairite plan for the future that would see change in public services but secure the values on which the welfare state was forged.
The move precedes the launch of white papers on education and health, and follows a summer dominated by measures to combat terrorism.
Mr Hutton paid tribute to Labour’s post-war government but said that despite progress inequalities in health and education remained.
“It is these stark facts alone that make the case for public service reform. They are the powerful arguments against accepting the old model of top-down, monolithic public services run from the centre,” he said.
He gave specific examples of inequalities – the fact that wealthier people live longer, that universities are “packed with the children of more affluent families” and that children of poorer families do worse at school.
He said that progress had been made the eight years of the Labour government but the model of public services was now somewhat out of date, and was not “responsive enough” to combat social divisions within society.
This was why reform was needed, he said, making the goal of “customer satisfaction” central to the project.
Mr Hutton’s speech comes as a new report from the Office of National Statistics, suggests the income gap between the richest and poorest has grown since 1997.
