Thread by @harry_qp

1/ Our public services are in a state. More money is definitely part of the answer. But we also need reform. Yet there is no consensus on what a new reform agenda should look like. That’s why @halima_khan1 and I are kicking off a new programme to fill this gap @IPPR

https://twitter.com/IPPR/status/1664176705827659776

2/ Why are public services failing? Firstly, increases in demand as our population ages and grows. Secondly contractions in supply of public services due to austerity. But, thirdly, we are failing to reform public services so they are fit for the 21st century.

3/ Why has public service reform gone out of fashion? We argue it’s because the last big theory of public service reform - New Public Management (NPM) - has run out of road. The core insight of NPM was that the big problem in services was weak or misaligned incentives.

4/ The answer, they claimed, was bringing better incentives into public services by giving a greater role for the private sector or finding ways to mimic market incentives. This drove choice and competition in schools and the NHS - and more recently the outsourcing of probation.

5/ Some of the innovations that this led to have had a positive effect on outcomes (eg targets in the NHS did drive better access, though at a cost) but others have been less effective (eg contracting out).

6/ Where did it go wrong? NPM was based on the idea that extrinsic motivators - financial incentives/ punishment - drive behaviour change. But evidence shows that intrinsic motivation is often a bigger driver of change - and this can be crowded out by NPM type approaches.

7/ This is backed up by a growing school of thought called Self Determination Theory (SDT) pioneered by academics Edward Deci and Richard Ryan.

8/ How do we correct this? We need to rebuild public services with the aim of unlocking the intrinsic motivations of staff and citizens. In the blog we set out a new Public Service Reform playbook that we think could help achieve preventative, personal and productive services.

9/ We argue that these levers would allow us to shift from low trust, skill and autonomy NPM playbook of top-down targets, regulation, financial incentives, choice and competition, and shift to a high trust, skill, autonomy alternative.

10/ This all may sound quite theoretical but there are places across the U.K. and abroad which are already doing parts of this agenda. We are now setting out to learn from them and others in order to test and develop this playbook!

11/ Here is the full blog: ippr.org/blog/great-gov… Shout if you have ideas, questions and critiques. All welcome!