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Important report on public services to be launched 30 June
23 June 2010
The 2020 Public Services Trust launched Equality, Cohesion and Public Services on 30 June. The report brings together contributions from three respected authors to look at the role of public services in reducing inequality and promoting cohesion.
The trust, which includes Runnymede director Rob Berkeley as a commissioner, is a major inquiry into how our public services can respond to the significant challenges of the next decade.
The report asks whether the reform principles suggested by the Commission on 2020 Public Services could take us forward, and how they might be put into practice.
Public service policies have never been more focused on tackling damaging inequalities and promoting social cohesion. As researcher Zubaida Haque remarks in describing these changes, the extent and rapidity of legislative reform has been ‘remarkable’. Yet as Peter Taylor-Gooby points out, the changes experienced by citizens have been far less dramatic. Despite some notable achievements in the face of formidable obstacles, services have generally struggled to reduce outcome gaps.
Polly Vizard suggests that the capability approach, developed by Amartya Sen, might offer a better way to determine public action and drive progress. Equality in the central and valuable capabilities to enjoy healthy and legal security, for example, need to be understood and supported with reference not purely to outcomes (what people are actually doing and being), but in relation to their treatment (discrimination, dignity and respect) and autonomy (empowerment, choice and control). Rights and human rights frameworks may provide important new sources of ‘bottom-up’ pressure for improvement.
