Discussion of Principle 3
From Theconnectedrepublic
3) A Public Purpose Sector: The boundaries of Government 2.0 will be wider and more flexible, enabling creation of public value by a 'public purpose' sector which will be much broader and more diverse than the traditional public sector.
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General Comments
Most countries have a 'public purpose' to lift standards of literacy and skills as part of the drive for better education. The public sector in its narrow sense is only one player in achieving this outcome. It sets the overall 'rules of engagement' (curriculum, regulatory framework etc) and still has a role in actually providing education in the sense of owning buildings, employing teachers.
But many people do not use the public education system, but rather choose a variety of private or non-government schooling options. So, is it reasonable to include private schools, religious schools etc as part of the 'public sector'? Obviously not. But at the same time their work is instrumental in delivering the 'public purpose'result we want to achieve.
I use the education example partly because it illustrates the basic idea behind the concept of'public purpose' (ie that many more players than just the narrowly defined public sector have a signficant role to play in delivering the key outcomes we have determined we want as a society). But I have also used it to remind us that the public purpose idea is not new. In fact, prior to the growth of large-scale, institutionalised government in the 19th and 20th century, achieving pretty much all of the public purpose goals was done by private or civil society organisations. It was really only in the 20th century (think the rise of the welfare state and the growth of mass production public services - schools, hospitals etc)that we got into the habit of assuming that if the outcome we wanted was 'public' - that is, affected our lives in common - it had to be delivered by the state. More recently, we've seen a steady rise in the extent to which private companies and not-for-profit community organisations have been more or less willingly co-opted into the public management process, especially to deliver specific services and to create new assets (aged care, child care, welfare, education, building roads and hospitals etc).
But while the public purpose concept and ethic is not new, its salience to policy and public services in the 21st century is rapidly rising. In something of a 'back to the future' process, we are rediscovering that 'public' and 'government' are not necessarily the same thing and that many different institutions and organisations are involved in the mix of resources and expertise we need to achieve the public outcomes we want (reducing poverty, lifting education, improving health, reducing pollution etc).
Couple of other opening observations. One is that the shift to a 'public purpose' model is inevitable and unstopppable. I don't think, in that sense, that we have a choice. The complexity of the problems we're trying to solve, the manifest limits to effective action that a pure public sector model has encountered and the rise of an empowered set of citizens who have the tools, and the instincts, to assume a more active role as influential agents in their own lives all conspire to make this trend inexorable.
The second point is really linked to the last part of the last comment. A key distinguishing feature of a public purpose sector, I think, is the more active and sometimes leading role that is played by individual citizens or groups of citizens, often using new networked technologies to create powerful communities of influence. In that sense, I tend to agree with people like Tom Bentley and Charles Leadbeater that participation and engagement have become part of a new dynamic that both allows more influence from citizens and demands that they assume a more active role, in terms of their own behaviour and capabilities, in achieving the public purpose outcomes. As a simple illustration, there's little point the government struggling to reduce greenhouse gases or achieving water sustainability if people continue to live in ways that are profligate in their misuse of both.
Another illustration would be the FixMyStreet website created by MySociety and some of the other Web 2.0 based simple tools that allow citizens to monitor, respond to and take a more active interest in their community or the work of their local representatives. Another example would be the way the environment protection agency in the Phillipines is now encouraring people to send in pictures of polluting industries or places where pollution is bad, often using their mobile phones and then emailing them into the agency. If I take an active interest in my local community and monitor the poor performance of a local factory which keeps discharging into the local river, and i send pictures and reports of the problem into the government, does that make me a public servant? Does this more engaged and immediate interaction with government (in the past I might have sent a letter or made a phone call) change the nature of my contribution to the public purpose outcome?
Potential Benefits
The rise of the public purpose sector presents a range of potential benefits, some of which could be:
Strengthening of civil society: as government has come to progressively dominate the provision of public goods and services (especially in countries with strong welfare state traditions)the role of civil society has arguably been eroded. Characterised at its worst as the "nanny state", many argue that modern governments have operated in ways that have 'hollowed out' citizen's capacity for self-organisation, self-provision, self-dtermination and self-governance. In the process, they have arrogated a range and mix of responsibilities they are increasingly incapable of dischargng and which are costing too much anyway (see next point). People are far more likely to see themselves as clients of government rather than as stakeholders/shareholders in it. If the emerging idea of the public purpose sector takes strong root as part of government 2.0 then we might expect to see some reversal of this trend.
Coping with the looming fiscal crisis: as governments have expanded the scope and amount of public services they provide they have grown in size quite dramatically. In many countries there is now a looming fiscal crisis linked to the demagraphic problem of aging societies which will progressively demand more expensive services - especially health and ageing related - which will have to be paid for by a shrinking base of taxpayers. For example, within 20 years there are estimates that healthcare costs will consume 70% of the US federal budget. Affording this care while at the same time having to provide a wide range of essential services and deal with new challenges such as climate change leaves many governments facing a problem for which they have so far found no politically palatable answers, and against which administrative solutions (e.g. improved efficiency) will not be effective on their own. More direct provision of services by the public purpose sector, or greater engagement of citizens in deciding how to address challenges that sit in the public domain, may help alleviate this crisis.
Reducing "bounded rationality" and stimulating innovation:the world viewed from the ivory tower of public officials is not the same as it looks from the view of people in society. The idea of bounded rationality (i.e. that we cannot make perfectly rational decisions becuase of our inherent cognitive limits and lack of perfect information) affects everybody, but does not stop government from acting in what it claims are the best interests of society. Widening the scope of those engaged in public a ctivities increases the chance that better/more relevant solutions can be found to problems, or that better services more closely matched to actual needs may be found - "local solutions for local problems" etc. At the same time, it is likely that a broaded base of actors in the public sector will lead to more innovative ideas about how to address public issues, challenges and opportunities will emmerge across time.
--Russell Craig 03:47, 15 May 2008 (BST)
Potential Barriers
Couple of quick questions or risks I see (and there are many I'm sure). One is the issue of accountability. We still have trouble in the public sector fashioning accountability frameworks that can follow the contours of the more complex mix of players in achieving (or failing to achieve) a pubic outcome.
And another is the impact of this shift on people who work in government and the public sector. Seems to me the skills and attitudes of those who work in the 'old' public sector may not be well suited to the more facilitative, diploatic and orchestrating role that increasingly will be the public sector's stock-in-trade as it seeks to contribute to, and sometimes lead, the public purpose process.
