Political Ideas and Change in Britain Affecting Public Service - Essay Example

Political ideas and Political change in Britain that have effected Public Service Task Introduction Citizens of any democratic country occupy two main positions in a democratic society, mainly as members of the society or as bearers of the political office. The members of the society may fall under the category of employees, consumers, taxpayers, and clients of the state. They depend on the systems of government to meet their needs. Public service is the administrative structure created by government to achieve political goals and to provide services to the citizens as individuals and collectively. Political ideas play a major role influencing the thinking and conduct of the leaders and when such leaders who when in power institute different approaches to governance which also shapes the public service used to achieve the goals of the electorates. The leader and his or her dominant political ideology determine strategies used handle the human nature and all the challenges facing the society. Government policies therefore originate from the main ideas of the political party that forms the government. At times, a government may modify or create radical change to the existing structure of governance and society as perceived suitable for achieving the desired outcome. Political ideas and Public Service An ideology is a as a set of ideas, visionary images and thinking patters that shapes how an individual or a class of people view society or other matters such as economic, political and governance systems. Political ideologies are therefore a set of ideas that provides a basis for organized political action, whether it intends to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power. Ideas give a world-view, provide a model for the future, a vision for a good society, and outline how a political change can be brought about. Although democracy is a common system of governance worldwide, it is ideal governance approach but not an ideology. Ideologies are underlying principles that guide political action of an individual or a political class (Heywood, 2007). A political ideology may describe and interpret the past and present and define what the ideal future should be like, plus the appropriate strategies and policies for achieving the goals. Such political ideas therefore explain the human nature and history about the state in a way that steer political action and provides a plan for action. It also cut across political parties and may a leader may use different ideologies to support their policies. Identifying personal ideology involves having an understanding of the human history that may have shaped the past and adopting a personal approach to shaping the world in future. This is important in any leader since human beings are controlled by motivation and events and at times structures. The ideas of the leader adopted to solve any situation may change the event and the condition and produce the desired change (Hoffman and Graham, 2006). Public service is an instrument used by the political leadership to achieve political goals and to serve citizens who pay tax to enjoy the common good. The public service therefore changes with the political ideology of the political party, which forms the government. Britain has had a number of ideologies brought by different leaders each of which introduces specific approaches to public service over the years. This is because public service is directly under the control of the political leadership and therefore the agenda of a political party, has to influence the structure and systems adopted by the public service (Heywood, 2007). The main political ideologies The major political ideas, which have shaped the post war Britain to the present, include Liberalism, Socialism, Conservatism, Welfarism, Neo-liberalism, The Third Way and The Big Society. Each of these varies between two extremes of left which is also known as communism dominated by socialism and liberalism at the centre, then moves to conservatism the extreme right of either fascist or neo-liberalism. The left advocates liberty, equality, fraternity and progress, while the right hold principles like authority, order, hierarchy and duty. Each of these ideologies influences the nature of government and public service (Clarke and Newman, 1997). The underlying governance structures and the mind-set adopted by the public service usually take the pattern provided by the dominant political ideology of the leadership. Liberalism is a political approach that gives general freedom to the citizens, which results in positive or negative liberty. It assumes that the role of government is to protect the common good and private rights of the individuals in society. Citizens may have freedom have from external restrictions and limitations that if overcome by the leaders make the lives of the citizens better. Positive liberty on the other hand involves helping individuals to be autonomous and developing the capacity of the individual. Individualism is very important by setting individuals free from tyrannies and fulfilling individual potential. Liberalization as a political approach seeks to help the individuals to achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Change for the better is brought by giving political and legal equality in which equal opportunity to all and reward reflects talent for all individuals in the society (Budge, McKay, Newton, Bartle, 2007). Liberalism changed the public service in many ways especially by creating systems that set individuals free and uncontrolled by assuming that they are rational and knows what is best for them. The public institutions such as education sector allowed private institutions and professional bodies to allowed individuals to pursue individual interests. The government recognized that people would naturally reject restrictions, which led to law reforms. The citizens were given natural right such as life, liberty, and opportunities to own property. The government recognizes the social contract between it and the people in that people give up our sovereignty to get social good and the rule of law. The public servants therefore reflected class interests of the industrial class. The government also believed that people were enlightened and needed to enjoy the growth of the industrial society and capitalism. The public service institutions created an environment, which allowed and supported by free markets and free trade. The anti-protectionist laws that limit importation of certain goods were eliminated (Kerr, 2002). Conservatism The government sought to maintain the status quo of the entire society and major social institutions and attempted to resist any attempts that could revolutionize society in this political approach. The Main interest of the political class under conservatism involved protecting the property of the upper class. However government tolerated flexibility and gradual adjustments of the institutions so that no radical change could be realised that could unsettle the society. The working class and their property were protected as a way of maintaining the systems that are dominated the society. The social order was therefore protected using the government structures and institutions. However, the later stage of conservatism viewed mutually dependent on a number of institutions and subsystems especially the social class and the working class, which supported each other. The nation was viewed as one and that human nature could be controlled as a way of maintaining social order. The government undertook economic planning and shaped the direction of the whole society (Gamble, 1994). Conservatism shaped the public service by creating a rigid culture that made public service managers to believe that changing government institutions was undesirable. They brought about privatization of nationalized industries and introduced tight budget controls for managers as a way of operating within acceptable economic limits. The public service was used by the state to do all the planning that could adequately meet the needs of all the people in the society. The government provided housing solution to the citizens and created guidelines for the police on how to maintain law and order to overcome any evolutionary initiatives that could undermine to social order (Goldsmith, and Page1997). Socialism This was a political approach that believed that the good for the society and all individuals could be realized when individuals in a society cooperated rather than competed. The role of government therefore was to ensure fair distribution of resources and to avail the same economic opportunities to all members (Dutton, 1997, pg.42). The public or the government therefore controlled the main factors of production and to ensured that the common good sought by all benefited them. This became possible by changing the prevailing system using radical change to create a new order. It challenged industrial capitalism, which only benefited the owners of capital, while the majority remained poor. Socialism supported equality for all in the society. This involved the call for practical improvement of wages and conditions of work so that economic situation of all improved. The gradual change and parliamentary system of governance was adopted to empower all people in the society. The trade unions also dominated every sector of the economy as a way of improving the economic position of workers in society. State capitalism was promoted to enable the state own the means of production and to give all citizens equal benefits (Thompson, 2007). Socialism created a government structure, which was meant to be productive and flexible leading to some huge achievements in the public sector industries. The public servant such as the welfare institutions and educational sector were made to embrace the consensus five giant evils namely ignorance, want, idleness, disease and squalors, as worthy reforms. Full public service also provided permanent employment in the nationalized industries. The state provided the social services to the citizens and it accommodated trade unions in all sectors. The trade unions became powerful and enabled formal and informal consultation with public corporations (Driver, Dunleavy, Hefferman & Hay, 2006). Welfarism/Neo-liberalism This is a political thought that involves bringing to life the ideas or liberalism, which had been left for some time in the past. The welfare state emphasized on social insurance and state housing. It is an economic theory and practice, which swept the world from 1970s after the fall of communism, as known as the Keynesian, or mixed economy welfare state system. It promoted free market optimizing the allocation of resources. Neo-liberalism promoted free market, democracy, and liberty. Neo-liberations gave the public service to be responsible for promoting interests of different groups in society. Neo-liberalism made trading between nations possible by removing all trade resections such as tariffs, regulations. Public services were privatised and deregulation to facilitate trade (Clarke & Newman, 1997). The welfare state shaped the public service to transfer power form the public sector to private sector, using devolved government to bring services closer to the citizens at lower levels. It also brought efficiency in public service using cost-effective methods and consumer orientation, which were introduced to achieve common quality standards in service delivery. The health care institutions were expanded to cover all social groups. The public servants like the ambulance were given moral judgement needed to meet needs of the taxpayer’s expectations by taking effective decisions. This benefited the citizens through autonomous authority granted to public service institutions, which avoided political interference and other wasteful practises in the public service. The government also inspired the public service managers to cut spending as a way of relieving the financial resources to meet the costs that burdened the government from time to time. The government also encourage voluntary sector to assist in running the health care sector that could provide more services at reduced cost, while providing high quality services (Senior, Crowther-Dowey, Cand Long, 2007). The New Way This was a political idea that led to a new society because it favoured growth of entrepreneurialism and free enterprise that were meant to create wealth creation for majority in the society. It created greater social justice and added welfare to work as a way out of poverty. The working families-tax credit and elimination of negative effects of globalization were emphasized. The more devolution government was adopted after considering that the state was too big for small problems. The importance of the community in the process of personal empowerment was embraced (Clarke, Vidler, and Westmarland, 2007). The approach to public service involved new measures of performance, new regulations and new controls that controlled all the expenditure incurred by the taxpayer. However, excessive growth of public expenditure and grater-bloated public service overburdened the taxpayers. The ideology changed public sector and public sector employment and it affected the mode of public service delivery. The traditional ethos , the use of resources, the size, its responsiveness to the user and consumers; and in providing value for money from all the expenditure of public service which led to the shrinking the bureaucratic structures which dismantled the initially concentration administrative powers. The priority interests of public sector became service provision and promoting entrepreneurial initiatives in the economy, to empower the society (Driver & Martell, 2002). The Third way This approach favoured economic growth, enterprise and wealth creation for. It also favoured greater social justice, the state did not bring about this change, and making it the opposite of top down socialism, and it is not the traditional liberalism. It therefore bridged the gap between the haves and the have-nots. The third way acknowledged that the government can no longer control the destiny of the nation, but globalization and electronic money that move around the world faster than goods had a lot of potential if the right environment was created with the best infrastructure. The Third way acknowledges that devolution in government is critical because the state may be too big for certain small problems (Blair, 1998). Public institutions therefore created the right morals for the new demanding environment. The public administration must create a level playing field for all and give equal opportunity to all (Corby,1999). To create wealth the state set minimum wage and trained all vulnerable groups to find work that had dignity and worth. This brought accountability and commitment to implementation of policies that could bring the reforms that could benefit the society. Public servants therefore provided citizens with access to all services and gave them value for money. Public service therefore used measures of performance, many regulation and controls to ensure efficiency of service delivery (Beech and Lee 2008). The Big Society Is an approach that acknowledged that the citizens could do a lot in areas in which the government had failed. The people therefore engaged in providing voluntary services (Pollitt, 2003). The government supported voluntary grassroots organizations from community and other volunteer services. The approach sought to set people free from overdependence on government and to avoid over regulations. The individuals and communities were given power so that greater things could take place. Volunteers were allowed to run the local hospitals or libraries. The public service became innovative and productive to deliver services to the communities as needed. The big society recognized the unique ability in all individuals to achieve great things if provided with the right environment (Gamble, 1994). The coalition government of 2010 The government sought to promote the economic strength of the society in many ways. The spending in public services increased and approaches that were better than welfarism, neo liberalism and the third. Reliance on charitable and voluntary sector for delivery public service meant fairer and small. The wise approach to u approach to the economy made the. The Big society approach to stand for better anti-liberalism in which the restrictions that were initiated at the top were eliminated by the government to empower all the people in society. It also brought pro-market and capitalism in which smaller organizations ware used the focus for making society economically productive (Clarke and McLaughlin, 2000). The state also minimized the welfare approach by limit the amount of resources spent in giving benefits to those who could not afford the cost of living due to joblessness and dependency on the state. The government has also been pro-family and adopted policies that are meant to benefit the families in order to benefit individuals and households. The government is also pro-property as protect the interests of the working class and investors in a way that does not destabilize the economy. The approach therefore seeks to empower individuals and the enterprises and households as a way of promoting economic welfare of individuals (Miller & Rose, 2008) The coalition government has brought changes to the public sector meant to deliver better value for the taxpayer money. The government has introduced decentralization, accountability and transparency (Miller & Rose, 2008). These efforts are meant to enable the government to deliver better services. Productivity of services and the productivity of all types of service the public service workers are given ownership to see the full result of their services. The payment by results is a tool meant to make consumers powerful (Vidler and Clarke, 2005). Public sector employees are allowed to join co-operatives to make them become their own bosses. Transparency is meant to give all stakeholders a value for their money and ensuring that all categories of salaries are published to create openness. The others changes include creating cost measures, empowering the managers to use resources more effectively, setting clear performance targets for all civil servants and having a strong financial management in government (Coxall and Leach, 2003). Changes to public service The economic and public service approach of the new government has been that of modernization of services like the army and educational sectors. The cutting of cost, especially in the light of the prevailing global economic recession has led the running of public service to be marked by strict budget controls in many services including the police, the military and local government. This is meant to reduce the cost of operation and to save taxpayers money (Horton, 1999). Attempts to boost efficiency by using voluntary labour to run some public sector organizations have led to empowerment of the big society. Perspective new approach to public services has dealt with fundamental issues that affect the society. The big society approach and it new approach to public service especially regarding crime and policing. It is almost a continuation of neo-liberalism and continued privatisation and classical economies. The government has continued with modernization of public service and made them to be managed more effectively (Flynn, 2007). Conclusion The occurrences in the Britain’s political landscape since 1945 to present have really influenced the state, the society and the market in general at every stage. Each government has made some achievements and experienced some challenges. Politics is about balancing the interests of conflicting parties that exist in society at any time. The achievement usually depends on the commitment of the government to the ideals of the political party, which comes to power. Whatever the political party and the political ideology, each political party has always been concerned with producing high growth and material well-being for the electorate. This is meant to give Britain a solid economic foundation. Britain has therefore witnessed different political ideologies by different political parties. These political ideologies formed government at different times and initiated changes in the public service from time to time. It has also become clear that new political ideas can be created in society to address the prevailing conditions Bibliography Beech, M. and Lee, S., Eds., (2008). Ten years of New Labour. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Blair, T., (1998). The Third Way: New Politics for the New Century. Budge, I. McKay, D. Newton, K. Bartle, J. (2007). The New British Politics. Harlow: Pearson/Longman (Chs. 3,7,17,25) Clarke, J. Newman, J. Smith. Vidler, N and Westmarland, L., (2007). Creating Citizen- Consumers: Changing Publics and Changing Public Services. London: Sage Clarke, J and Newman, J. (1997). The Managerial State: Power, Politics and Ideology in the Remaking of Social Welfare. London: Sage Clarke, J. Serwittz, S and McLaughlin, E. (2000). New Managerialism: New Welfare. London: Sage Corby, S., (1999)., Employee Relations in the Public Services: Themes and Issues. London Routledge. Coxall, B. Robins, L. and Leach, R., (2003). Contemporary British Politics. Palgrave (Ch4) Driver, S., Dunleavy, P. Hefferman, P. and Hay, C. (2006). Developments in British Politics. Modernising the Public Services (pp 272-292). Driver, S and Martell, L., (2002). Blair’s Britain. Oxford: Polity Dutton, D., (1997). British Politics Since 1945. Blackwell, Oxford. (Introduction and Conclusion are good. Other chapters are probably too detailed for this assignment) Flynn, N., (2007). Public Sector Management. London. Sage. (Chapters 1-3) (Pages 104-105, 110-111, 144-5.) Gamble, A., (1994). The Free Economy and the Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism. London: Macmillan Goldsmith, M.J. and Page, E.C. (1997). Farewell to the British State? In Lane, J-E. Public Sector Reform: Rationale, Trends and Problems. London: Sage Heywood, A., (2007). Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Hoffman, J and Graham, P., (2006). Introduction to Political Ideologies. Harlow: Pearson Horton, S. & F.D., (1999). Public Management in Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Kerr, P., (2002). Post-war British Politics: From conflict to Consensus. London: Routledge Miller, P. & Rose, N., (2008). Governing the Present: Administering Economic, Social and Personal Life. Cambridge: Polity. Pollitt, C., (2003). Essential Public Manager. Berkshire: McGraw Hill Education Senior, P. Crowther-Dowey, C and Long, M., (2007). Understanding Modernisation in Criminal Justice. New York, McGraw-Hill (Chapters, 1,2,3) Thompson, Neal., (2007). From Hayek to New Labour: the Changing Ideology of Public Sector Provision. in Dibben, P et al (ed) (2007) Modernising Work in Public Services. Palgrave MacMillan Vidler E. and Clarke J. (2005), Creating Citizen-Consumers: New Labour and the Remaking of Public Services, in Public Policy and Administration 20 (2pp. 19) Read More