This is astoundingly innocent. Instances of a status quo preferable to destructive, unnecessary reforms are not hard to find. German Labour laws in January 1933, for instance, were infinitely preferable to the “reforms” which the newly elected Nazi government introduced. That does not make Weimar Germany a “utopia”, but it does serve to illustrate that reform is not always and automatically a good, positive and beneficent alternative.

Other generalisations by the Prime Minister are equally dubious. He claims that “In the early days of universal services the standard of service provision, in all aspects of our lives, was poor”. This is a definitive and damning statement for which he provides no evidence at all. All public sector universal provision was poor? Health? Education? Welfare? Not mixed, even, but simply and completely poor. This is a ridiculous argument, which nobody with any knowledge of the welfare state from 1945 would dream of making (leave aside the gratuitous insult offered an entire generation of dedicated, low paid public sector workers).

As ever, the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm for new technology unbalances his argument. He moves from the obvious need for improved service delivery to exploit the benefits of new technology — changes that can and should be introduced within a properly funded public sector model of public service — to conclude that public services must therefore be provided through an entirely different model of public services based on increased private sector provision, outsourcing and a variety of other delivery methods, none of which on their own necessarily enhance or integrate new technology into service delivery any better than adequately funded, well managed public sector provision.

Nevertheless the Prime Minster asserts that the alternative to reform “according to our values” is not no reform at all, but reform lead by the values of “another political creed”. He leaves unclarified what “our values” are, and why they differ from that of “another political creed”. As well he might, as there is no serious difference between the current Labour public sector reform agenda and that of the Conservatives’ rather vague visions for the same. As we know, David Cameron’s Conservatives have pledged to maintain current levels of public service spending and there is no reason to believe that is essentially untrue. What then? Methods of delivery? Labour is keen to press on with its programme (already far in advance of John Major’s government) of privatisation and outsourcing of public services. So are the Tories. Labour favours use of the “Third” (voluntary) sectors in public service delivery. So do the Tories. All use “choice” and “contestability” as their mantra, leaving aside what that might actually mean.

But these polices are hardly immune from challenge. To take but one example, my own union (the Public and Commercial Services Union — PCS) have already established from discussions with management in the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) that not only do the skills required to fulfill the tasks envisaged in the DWP reform programme not exist in the private and voluntary sector, but their decision to use only private and voluntary sector providers for the proposed Pathways to Work programme is driven by the Treasury’s demand for a reduction in staff numbers in the Jobcentre Plus network, arising from the implementation of the Gershon “Efficiency” programme.

In reality, the evidence supporting a move to further private and voluntary sector provision in employment services is weak or non-existent. It is unfortunately the case that many of the advocates of such involvement have a vested interest in accruing a profit-making business for their sector, which will generate funding to support their existing infrastructure, or in plugging the gaps left by a mechanical pursuit of staff cuts in the DWP.

The Treasury maintains that greater labour-market “flexibility”, and the increasing use of the private sector in the public sphere will produce efficiency savings and improve the overall performance of public services. However, there is no reliable evidence that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector. Private companies are not producing the anticipated improvements in delivery time or cost, nor are they meeting quality standards, as the record of companies like Balfour Beatty have evidenced.

Privatisation does, though, mean massive profits for multinational companies such as Fujitsu and Siemens. Since 1993 these two companies have won contracts in areas such as taxation, defence research and the Driving Standards Agency. These profits made by private companies are out of all proportion to the risks taken, which — especially when providing a basically monopoly service such as water supply or a train service — are minimal.

It is of particular concern to PCS that despite previous assurances from the government, core frontline services in the DWP are now being privatised. For example, after the closure of Jobcentre Plus Action Teams (previously praised for their high performance) the government announced that their replacement would provide employment services exclusively from the private sector. No in-house bid was allowed. This is simply political dogma riding roughshod over “what works”.

Similarly, over 20 000 MoD civilian staff currently faces job cuts and privatisation, which PCS fear will adversely affect the current high quality of logistical support to our armed services. Areas under threat of privatisation include specialist and basic training, and most of the defence supply chain — including procurement and delivery of frontline equipment, IT and military communication systems, and maintenance of military vehicles. PCS believes these plans will make the MoD less accountable to Parliament and weaken the cohesiveness of Britain’s defence forces at a critical time for those forces. But, again, such wider considerations are being ignored in the rush to impose a simplistic model of private sector provision, despite the clear need for an integrated approach.

Perhaps the most alarming example of this approach was the government’s plans — unveiled in 2003 — to privatise the UK’s Forensic Science Service. Only a campaign by PCS and Labour MPs forced the government to pledge that the service would remain in the public sector for two more years. If privatisation now goes ahead, it will make the UK the only country in the world that considers the detection of crime should be a matter for private profit. The possibilities of miscarriages of justice are obvious.

PCS does not put its head in the sand. We have endeavored to engage with the government’s reform agenda, by acknowledging their criteria for debate and responding with constructive proposals of our own. A PCS sponsored conference in December 2005, attended by senior civil servants, business leaders and cross-party political figures, made a significant contribution to taking forward the debate. The conference launched a major publication by Professor Roger Seifert and Mike Ironside of the Centre for Industrial Relations, Keele University, The Case for Civil and Public Services: An Alternative Vision (PCS, 2005).

But engagement with the government’s reform agenda can not preclude serious and fundamental criticism when major planks of that agenda are so misconceived. PCS has grave concerns about the nature and impact of the Gershon Efficiency programme, announced by the Chancellor in the Comprehensive Spending Review 2004, which included a commitment to achieve 104 000 civil service post reductions by 2008. PCS is on record as opposing this headcount reduction as the very epitome of the top-down “diktat” model for public services that the Prime Minster now so strongly opposes, especially as the post reduction was not decided upon after a careful, evidence based analysis of performance targets, workloads and staff in post across individual departments and NDPBs from which appropriate “efficiencies” were concluded as practical and desirable, but rather a centralised imposition of broad brush targets on a wide variety of different bodies performing different tasks.

The result of this has been predictable — many front line services such as Benefit Offices, Pensions Centres, Tax Offices, Child Support Offices, etc, have cut back on delivery to the public in order to achieve their targets, with a subsequent negative impact on service delivery (to take but one example, the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee found that the DWP’s efficiency programme has led to many calls now going unanswered and benefit calculation taking much longer, resulting in a “catastrophic” level of service delivery). This flows directly from an ill planned and impractical programme that may have initially aimed for qualitative improvements in service delivery, but is now focused more on crude headcount reduction than reforming public services to become more effective, innovative and user-friendly.

PCS’s analysis and concerns are not based on a narrow view of “producer interest”, nor we do we suppose that the only required solution to better public services is a huge injection of cash, without efficient and accountable administration (including full and flexible use of new technology to meet the requirements of a diverse population) Yes, we seek to protect the interests of our members, but we see no contradiction between doing so and promoting the health and effectiveness of the services they devote themselves to delivering.

In that regard we are ready to engage with the government at any level about the future direction of public services, and to consider all options for reform, if they are necessary, fair, effective, and the product of genuine consultation with all stakeholders, including public sector trade unions. Sadly, the Prime Minster’s article hardly demonstrates that he is pursuing such options, and is not supported by very clear evidence of the failures of private sector provision of public services.

Charles Cochrane is Secretary of the Council of Civil Service Unions (CCSU), Head of the Protect Public Services Unit, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS).

1. David Grant suggests that I take free trade and the globalized markets that it is generating to be inevitable processes. This is not the case. They are the result of economic policy decisions and international agreements. Like him, I see free trade as an engine of development that has the potential to produce the wealth necessary to improve living standards and eradicate poverty in the third world. However, precisely because global markets, like all markets, are social artefacts rather than forces of nature, their design reflects the interests of the forces that control them. If they are shaped entirely by private capital and the political agencies which represent it, then the wealth that they produce will be concentrated in the hands of a small business elite. In order to achieve an equitable distribution of this wealth that serves the interests of labour and consumers, as well as producers and investors global markets must be constrained and socialized by political interests that also represent the former. Private business alone cannot promote social or environmental rationality. Moving from the robber baron capitalism of the nineteenth and early twentieth century to the welfare state of the post war years involved such a social rationalization of the market within western countries. This achievement is now seriously threatened by the emergence of global markets that bypass the constraints and redistributative mechanisms of the traditional welfare state. Refashioning them for the global market place is the primary challenge of a renewed social democracy.

2. Grant asks about how I envisage the role of the state in a globalized social democracy. On the model that I am sketching nation states do not disappear, but they enter into federative structures that define open, socialized markets. The EU provides a precedent for this approach. However, to work on a genuinely global scale such a federation will have to include underdeveloped countries and provide for significant investment in them. The emergence of an integrated socialized market of international dimensions will require an extended and complex historical process, as did the transformation of the European Common Market into the European Union.

3. Grant requests that I clarify the grounds and extent of my opposition to the obsessive campaign of privatization that is the focus of much neo-liberal economic policy. Clearly I am not proposing nationalization of industry and finance on the Soviet model. My concern is with the destruction of the robust public domain of services, infrastructure, and utilities that have formed the backbone of the modern welfare state. These have been steadily eroded by the juggernaut of neo-liberalism that has dominated many western economies for the past twenty-five years. These policies have produced disasters like the privatization of British rail and the water companies, the steady decline in British higher education through underfunding, the undermining of the NHS by internal markets and cuts in primary care staff, and the widespread dissipation of municipal services. Neo-liberalism has promoted a massive shift in public policy away from social investment in order to achieve low taxes on business and capital. This has generated a sharp rise in social inequality and a significant reduction in economic mobility for the poor and the middle classes. Wealth is increasingly monopolized by a shrinking economic elite that represents a diminishing proportion of the population. The emergence of global markets has greatly facilitated these patterns. Mobile investment capital and production can maximize profit by moving to low wage countries that impose minimal burdens of corporate taxation and regulation. Neo-liberal trade negotiators seek to use the World Trade Organization as an instrument for undermining public services and social investment in the markets that free trade agreements open up to external competition. They construe these services as a form of government protection that prejudices the interests of private companies looking to enter the fields of heath, education, transportation, and energy. A social democratic approach to free trade will formulate trade agreements and regulatory mechanisms to protect public services, equitable taxation, fair labour practises, and environmental concerns as part of a socialized open market.

4. Celso Rocha points out problems with global unions. In fact, I indicated that such unions would emerge only after vigorous local unions were first established in the low wage economies of the new emerging industries. These will engage in protracted industrial struggles which, if successful, will contribute to a rise in the standard of living in those countries that will contribute to the convergence of economic conditions in the developing countries and in western economies. This process will require a considerable amount of time. On the approach that I am proposing it will also be facilitated by the social investment and regulatory constraints of the international free trade agencies designed to promote a socialized global market.

It should be clear that I am sketching a general approach for redefining the social democratic project, rather than a set of detailed policies. This sketch is intended to provide the basis for ongoing discussion through which the viability of this approach can be tested and clarified. I am grateful to Grant and Rocha for raising important issues as part of this discussion.

Shalom Lappin is Professor of Computational Linguistics in the Department of Philosophy, King’s College, London

Second, workers in different countries have different interests in many important regards. In poor countries, the main attraction for foreign companies is the large reserve of cheap labour. Workers in poor countries would lose not some, but all their jobs, if they were to receive wages that even resembled those of workers in countries that offer much better conditions for investment. Therefore, Global Trade Unions would only be possible if workers in rich countries had such a highly developed level of class solidarity that they accepted to have their wages cut, or lose a significant proportion of their jobs, to workers in poor countries. It is obvious that, for any leftist at this day and age, no claim by workers in rich countries could prevail over the need of Chinese, Indian or Ethiopian workers to earn their survival.

There could be some ways to overcome, or minimize, these problems. For instance, basic income schemes could be implemented in rich countries to compensate for the wage reduction implied by fair trade. Or similar schemes could be implemented in poor countries, partially or completely funded by rich countries, to increase the reservation wage there. We cannot be sure whether any of these schemes would be economically, or politically, feasible.

If GTUs are to become a reality, major steps will be necessary, radical reforms will be needed. It is questionable whether labour anywhere has the political capital to make such an investment.

[Celso F. Rocha de Barros, celso.barros, works at the Central Bank of Brazil and is studying for a DPhil in Sociology at Oxford University.]