Liberated Public Services: A new vision for citizens, professionals and policy makers

The crisis in public services is visible to everyone in Britain today. Waiting lists, crumbling buildings, exhausted professionals. This is affecting our wellbeing, our health and our economy. It’s increasingly clear that Britain cannot get back on the right track without a public services renewal. The aim of Demos’ Future Public Services Taskforce is to help deliver that renewal.

In this paper, the second paper of the Taskforce, we introduce a new vision for public services, which we call liberated public services. This includes public services being liberated from New Public Management across four domains:

• Citizens are liberated to bring their whole selves to services and seen as a resource to be worked with,
  not a problem to be fixed.
• Professionals are liberated from tight specifications defined from the centre.
• Communities are liberated to partner with public services, whether formally or informally.
• Policy makers in central government – ministers, advisors and civil servants – are liberated from day-today micromanagement of services and providers to a broader, strategic role supporting learning and best
  practice.

Liberating public services will require the central state to think less about imposing a view from Whitehall and instead ask itself: how can it provide the conditions for public service renewal across the country?