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.

Localism: Liberator or fraud?

A fair question perhaps, but not one expected from Tony McNulty MP, whose Ministerial portfolio has previously included housing, planning and transport (he is currently Home Office Minister of State for Security, Counter-terrorism, Crime and Policing).

McNulty: Devolution my ass, Major.*

McNulty wasn't shy in stirring the pot at ippr's first event in Manchester, strongly challenging the effectiveness of public service devolution in practice and citing example upon example of the shortcomings of localism in public services over the past decade.

Firm in the belief that public service localism doesn't actually matter the majority of people in increasingly autonomous communities, he also added that devolution of public services often benefits public service professionals far more than the public service users.

Anna Coote, Commissioner for Health, Sustainable Development Commission, suggested that with the economy dipping into possible depression, the Government needs to find other resources within local communities to boost public service outcomes. She said the Government must re-engineer public services and draw more heavily from the 'core services' in local communities: skills, knowledge and time from the individuals in the community.

She said the state must invest in mechanisms to allow new partnerships and co-productions with community groups to improve public services.

Susan Anderson of CBI spoke of the need for improved access to public services and a stronger emphasis on customer satisfaction. She also addressed the need to build new and better relationships between private service suppliers and government.


*Gratuitous reference to The Wire because I can't be at The Wire Weekend at the Curzon Cinema in Soho. One McNulty in exchange for another.

If the Lib Dems are all about fairness, why is everyone pushing in front of me at the bar? (also: debate on children's issues and education)

Another standing-room-only event tonight, this time with debate centred around children and education.

The UK's first Children's Commissioner Al Aynsley-Green opened the event, combating David Cameron's 'broken society' rhetoric. He says the 'traditional family is ancient history' and that quality of parenting is far more important than family structure in outcomes for children. He added that some communities are locked into the cycle of low aspirations, low skills, low wages.

A major theme running throughout tonight's debate is the lack of aspiration in young people from deprived backgrounds. This often is fueled by a knock-on effect that families themselves have no aspirations for their children.

David Collins from the Association of Schools said the national curriculum is a complete disaster, as it does not take account to the fact that children learn best when the subjects are relevant to them. He said that students are not seeing relevance in what they are studying, and that curriculum should relate to the world around them.

David Laws MP also says we don't have a "broken society", just a broken part of society (the bottom 25%, who are 'fragmented and dysfunctional'). He also discussed the importance raising aspiration among young people.

ippr: 20 years of panel lols

Then it was over to the Marriott bar to wrestle our way towards getting served a few pints. Always a joy at conference, especially considering everyone in front of you orders about 30 pints at once, so by the time you actually get back to your colleagues you find everyone flying around with jet packs, and that humans have in fact evolved into two distinct species.

fried breakfast #1, and debate on public services policy

Equally quintessential to cheap conference wine and canapes is the process of rolling out of bed 5 minutes before they stop serving breakfast at the hotel. So after the first of what I'm sure will be many, many fried breakfasts on the conference trail, it was over to the Marroitt for the first panel of the day... on Public Services.

Excuse me, what time do they stop serving breakfast?

Our panel today agreed that future of public services will be based around decentralisation of funding and decision making.

Shadow Health Secretary Norman Lamb commended ippr's work on public services, very nice of him, and went on to discuss the benefits of devolving power to local communities and service users.

Julian Astle from the Centre Forum thinktank agreed that the Liberal Democrats are in the right place with this policy, but notes that they are lagging on the issue of further devolution from the local communities to the individual.

Astle said that policy based on diversity, provision, and choice is putting the Liberal Democrats in the the right place, but the Conservatives are also using this sort of language. According to Astle, it's essential for the Lib Dems to bring fairness to the forefront of this debate in order to differentiate their policy.