In July 2011 the Coalition Government published its long-awaited Open Public Services White Paper which sets out their agenda to give better access to public services for more people. The Government set out their vision for public service reform with five guiding principles:

• Choice and control

• Decentralisation
• Diversity
• Fairness
• Accountability

The updating paper(1), published last week, aims to set out the actions already undertaken by the Government across a whole range of public services including health, local government, welfare and education. The 96-page document contains a series of progress updates on 280 commitments made in the original paper. A statistical analysis is below on page three.

The government has included within the paper, the announcement of around two-dozen consultations. These are on top of the numerous consultations announced in the Chancellor’s Budget making for a busy summer and autumn for Whitehall consultation teams!

Measures to promote greater transfers of power from central to local governments are of interest to the Institute and, in particular, further transference of powers from higher levels of local government to neighbourhoods.

In May there is to be a consultation on detailed proposals to make it easier to establish new Neighbourhood Councils. The Government will ask the LGA and the NALC to help develop model schemes for Neighbourhood Councils by summer 2012. They intend to make clear and address: what powers can be devolved to neighbourhoods; the kind of assets that can be managed at community level; the roles and responsibilities of Neighbourhood Councils and local authorities; and the challenge of how a Neighbourhood Council can become more involved in local service delivery.

Furthermore, the paper outlines the Government’s intention to create an open, easy-to-use mechanism for residents to record their experiences, identify any obstacles, and create new social networks.

Reaction to these proposals has been mixed with the chairman of the Local Government Association, Sir Merrick Cockell, arguing that much of the proposed work regarding councils working with Town and Parish council is already going on across the country and additional red tape from government is unlikely to help. He continued, “town halls are leading the way in making [public] services more responsive to local people and better value for money for the taxpayer.”

Tom Gash, programme director for the Institute for Government expressed his concern to the online magazine, LocalGov.co.uk, saying that a ‘right to choose’ is potentially appealing to the public but unlikely to work in practice.

The Content

 Open Public Services 2012 is categorised into five specific sections: Individual services; Neighbourhood services; Commissioned services; Ensuring diversity of provision; and Enabling open public services. The paper contains 280 progress updates on commitments made by the Government. So far, only 47 (16.7%) have been completed with 180 (64.3%) are now in progress.

Over the coming weeks the Institute intends to undertake an analysis of all 280 commitments to identify those that have implications for public engagement and consultation. Here are some of the key commitments highlighted:

• A ‘right to choose’
  • The government will ensure that citizens have more powers to demand choice
  • They have launched a call for evidence(2)to decide whether there is, or might be, value in enshrining a ‘right to choose’ into legislation

• ‘Choice Champions’
  • The government intends to establish ‘Choice Champions’ to promote choice, provide scrutiny to providers and commissioners, and to support citizens, particularly those considered disadvantaged and vulnerable, to make effective public service choices

 The Institute View

• The initiative is in danger of inadvertently drowning with 280 commitments! With so many commitments it will be difficult to absorb which are the key measures.
• Public bodies will use the Open Public Services programme at their peril, for the underlying policies will have far reaching effects. Despite the difficulties we all be need to watch this space.
• The plans need to be viewed in line with other Government policies (e.g. Localism, Health reforms, Police reforms and Big Society). As proposed by a number of previous Parliamentary reports, Ministers need to do a better job joining these policies together

Further insights
This Briefing was written by Sam Cranston, Head of Policy for the Institute who may be available for discussion. Telephone the Institute Centre of Excellence in Biggleswade on 01767 318350

• Open Public Services 2012, along with all relevant legislation with implications for public engagement and consultation will be covered in Davy Jones’ latest training course, Public Engagement 2012 which is being held London on 26 April. For details visit the website www.consultationinstitute.org or call the office.
• The best way to avoid mistakes in a consultation is to invite the Institute either to conduct a Risk Assessment or a fully comprehensive Compliance Assessment of a consultation. This not only provides quality advice to consultors on meeting Best Practice standards but also includes a public endorsement of the exercise.
• For further information on our public training courses, in-house courses and workshops, Contact Martin Roach

(1) Open Public Services 2012, HM Government, March 2012 – Available at http://www.openpublicservices.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/Briefing Notes are published by the Institute in good faith as a member benefit, but the information provided cannot be relied upon as constituting advice giving rise to any legal or other liability whether express or implied.

(2) The call for evidence can be viewed at http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ops-calltoevidence/

This is the 3^rd Briefing Note; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement