There's more to increasing contestability than simply business taking over the provision of public services

At the heart of the CBI's recent five point plan for radical transformation of public services is the need for more contestability in the provision of public services and the benefits that would bring both to ordinary citizens and the public purse. But there’s more to increasing contestability than simply business taking over the provision of public services: it presents a real opportunity to deal with some of the difficult issues that have bedeviled our country in the recent past:

• Developing democratic dislocation
• Increasing concern over anti-social behaviour
• Recognition that much of public service is focused on individuals and misses out on community support
• Growing un-affordability of ‘post box’ public services
• Upward expectations of public service responsiveness
• Services becoming more like commodities.

Addressing all of these issues requires current thinking to move substantially forward, but putting contestability at the heart of the new model is a good starting point. By increasing the volume of contested services, at a stroke it creates the space for the historic boundaries between public, private and third sectors to be melted and can thus encourages local community enterprise in environmental and other services. As services become more local, community accountability and responsiveness will improve and then we will begin to tackle the issues above.

But this requires change from business, too. It needs to adapt to the new challenges of locality and generic (rather than functional) service provision and seek economies through more innovative means than simply seeking ever larger, and thus less community-responsive, front-line service contracts. For example, by providing a framework within which third-sector organizations, public interest companies and community enterprises can work without being burdened with overly-bureaucratic contracts.

Much needs to be done and the CBI’s submission shows they are on the right page.

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