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Miliband’s public services reform welcomed by business body

The Labour leader’s proposals for a new culture in public services in England have been welcomed by the CBI, who say public service reform is more important than ever.

Ed Miliband set out his intention to introduce powers for public services users in a speech last night; including powers to allow parents to intervene in schools they think are failing.

He touched on the failings of private sector involvement in public services.

A copy of Mr Miliband speech, published ahead of his lecture in London last night, read: “Replacing one large public sector bureaucracy with a large private sector bureaucracy doesn’t necessarily make the system less frustrating.

“Once a government contract for the Work Programme is signed or a train franchise is confirmed, people themselves have no choice over which provider to use because the choice has already been made by the government.

“And it turns out that the Serco/G4S state can be as flawed as the centralized state.“

Katja Hall, CBI chief policy director said: “The State is often unwieldy and hard to deal with, which is why we need to break down barriers to better information sharing between providers.

“Someone who is out of work because they are unwell should be able to go to one point of contact with the Government joining up the dots to the other providers required to deliver a 360 degree service.

“To empower people to hold the services they use to account, all providers need to publish more performance information, more often, in an accessible format.

“As Ed Miliband suggests, councils can be best-placed to be local champions for competitive, accountable, and transparent public services but we need to determine the practical steps to deliver this agenda, including whether they have the skills and autonomy to carry out this role.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .