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How needed reforms may damage trust

How needed reforms may damage trust. Peter Taylor-Gooby p.f.taylor-gooby@kent.ac.uk. The issue: e.g. NHS reform. Public sector reform. Keynote of reform: transfer of responsibility state → individual For excellent reasons spending constraints/ growing demands limits on state authority

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How needed reforms may damage trust

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  1. How needed reforms may damage trust Peter Taylor-Gooby p.f.taylor-gooby@kent.ac.uk

  2. The issue: e.g. NHS reform

  3. Public sector reform • Keynote of reform: transfer of responsibility state → individual • For excellent reasons • spending constraints/ growing demands • limits on state authority • assertive (and richer) citizens • Cf EU Social Agenda 2001 → 2008

  4. UK approach • Labour market activation; pensions • ‘New public management’ • competing providers • consumer choice • budget allocation • targets, regulation, information, from top • Implicit theory: people as social actors → individual rational action

  5. The trust malaise • IRA: alignment of interests • Social: shared values/ commitment • Combination: both contribute • Reforms pursued on good grounds, and which (often) achieve targets, may damage trust for reasons not obvious to reformers • [NB: many other factors influence trust]

  6. Why do we want trust? • Trust as a trap (and a commodity) • But helpful for legitimacy of government and continuing public provision • Pressures from future challenges • Critical trust, informed trust

  7. Solutions I • O’Neill/ Neuberger: reassert trust in professionals, but how to go back? • Furedi: embrace individual self-confidence, but where is public provision? • Seldon: face-to-face trust, but limitations • FSA I: improved information, but hard in a diverse, plural society

  8. Solutions II • Giddens/ Weale/ Renn: reform democracy, citizens’ juries → deliberative institutions • Much interest, many expts, more concerned with informing rather than directing policy • E.G. Bristol health, BC constitutional reform, Wenling, Rowntree experiments, Newcastle centre, ‘people and participation’, etc • Central and local govt interest – GM Debate • OECD, IRGC, Risk Agenda

  9. No easy solution? • All initiatives address particular issues, and are consultations • Not clear this will rebuild trust • Involves elements of information, subsidiarity, engagement exercises etc. • Has to be continuing and embedded • Can’t be cheap - • which returns us to cost-effectiveness!

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