Can personalisation survive the credit crunch?

One of the big ideas in public services reform in recent years has been the need for greater personalisation. A key driver for this was the sense that public services had to catch up with an increasingly demanding public that expects the same options, flexibility and targeted information from their schools and hospitals as they might get from their supermarket or mobile phone provider. But in such straitened times, that kind of individualism is beginning to sound both unfashionable and expensive. Can personalised services survive the credit crunch? And can they deliver on any of their promises – a more satisfied public, better outcomes, perhaps even a more equal society?

Over at the Department for Work and Pensions, James Purnell certainly seems to think that personalising services will help. Taking its cue from the Gregg Review’s vision of personalised conditionality and support, the recent White Paper argues that this ‘would be a significant change...moving from treating people according to their category to according to their needs, and at their pace.’ Rejecting claims that the economic downturn makes it an inopportune time to personalise, the Minister argues the opposite: ‘we should increase the pace [of reform], because that means offering more support to people and matching it with the expectation that they should not fall out of touch with the world of work.’

In other sectors, however, there is a risk that personalised services may come to be seen as a costly venture at a time when cut-backs are being demanded left, right and centre. Detractors may point for example at last year’s report on user-driven services from the Public Administration Select Committee, which suggested that an evaluative evidence base on such services was only just starting to emerge and there was ‘little evidence as yet on their cost-effectiveness’. Many decision-makers may start to question whether this is really the time to get personalising.

So where does this leave us? One of the problems with the word ‘personalisation’ is that it can cover a range of different activities with different methods and possibly opposing goals. Is it about choice, about giving people the chance to pic’n’mix how they use public services in the way that best suits? Is it primarily about harnessing the power of IT to improve how people interact with public services, as much of the transformational government agenda seems to suggest? Or is it about tailoring services such as long-term care or education so that they are more effective in helping those that need such services the most?

Some of the more ambitious attempts at personalisation may indeed have to be put on hold for now, but it would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The idea that personalised services could improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged and thus reduce inequality is an important one, particularly as we enter difficult times. The challenge is to work out how we do that in the best – and most cost-effective – way possible.

ippr north’s Commission on Public Sector Reform in the North East is looking at the prospects for more local, more personalised services and considering whether they can help the region to address persistent inequalities both within the region and between the North East and other parts of England. It is trying to establish what kind of personalised services are required, and what, if anything, would be distinctive about how we personalise public services in the North East. The answers it comes up with should tell us something about whether personalised services are indeed value for money as we all tighten our belts.

Duncan Hiscock is Senior Research Fellow at ippr north and author of Prospects for more local, more personalised services published this week by ippr north’s Commission on Public Sector Reform in the North East, free to download at www.ippr.org/north.