And Repeat – Ed Miliband’s Public Service Reforms

After tackling energy companies and big banks Ed Miliband has now shifted his attention to what is always a tricky subject for Labour, public service reforms, but like Michael Gove on education is this little more than hot air?

Labour is to the public sector what the Conservative party is to private companies, a vital part of its political identity, a non-negotiable aspect of its philosophy, a singular defining element.

This in particularly true of Ed Miliband who was elected to the party leadership largely based on the backing of the trades unions, not to mention the party rely heavily on the political and financial backing of public sector workers and those who use government services.

However, in the same way as Gove’s education reforms, Miliband is in danger of simply saying the right things without any reasoning.

Essentially his argument was for a more consumer-focused approach to everything from education to health care to pensions.

This sounds fantastic, in the same way it has done every time an opposition leader has stood-up and said it, which is every parliament for as long as anyone can remember.

Putting parents are the forefront of how schools are run sounds wonderful because it is parents who truly care about how their kids are educated, not politicians.

Giving patients control over their medical records and adding choice of hospitals and doctors similarly gives 

those who care most control over the system.

Like Gove, Miliband is saying all the right things.

However, unlike the Education Secretary’s reforms this will attract floating voters to the party, although it is very much in the same dangerous ball-park of talking the talk, but not walking the walk, because fundamentally both have similar flaws.

The reason for this is because in most cases the only people who know how to reform these services are the people working in them, be they teachers, nurses, doctors, social workers or refuse collectors.

Most parents are not teachers and even fewer patients have any medical training above a first-aid course.

When you feel unwell you go to a doctor to find out what is wrong with you because they actually have the training assess your complaints, perform diagnostics and provide a cure.

Why would you want to be in control of your own medical records? Is this ever going to lead to anything other than people assuming they know better than professionals?

This trend continues with this idea of parents being able to oust head teachers and have greater involvement in how education is provided in their children’s schools.

Parent power in this situation could be counter-productive to what is trying to be achieved because the percentage of parents who know anything about teaching is negligible.

If you want proof of this fact just go and stand by a school sports pitch and listen to the ill-informed comments coming from certain sections of parents.

Gary Linker has even had to put up with this kind of nonsense with other parents at his children’s school thinking they know better than England’s second highest goal scorer according to an article he wrote for the New Statesman.

Many people agree with the need for reform of these vital public services which are all too often inefficient, bureaucratic and staggeringly expensive, but while people-power seems like a great idea and is certainly popular with the voters it is not necessarily the way to make things work better.

Even more worrying is this idea was touted at the last election by David Cameron and his Big Society idea, which is yet to manifest itself in any serious manner.

So while this might give Miliband a political bat and ball on this difficult issue and might even gain the Labour party a boost in the polls, his ideas will certainly need to be developed a lot further to convince anyone this is anything other than the same idea trotted out by any other opposition leader.