The Citizen's Charter Programme
| Published date | 01 July 1992 |
| Date | 01 July 1992 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1992.tb00930.x |
LEGISLATION
The Citizen’s Charter Programme
Anne Barron* and Colin
Scott**
I
Introduction
The Government published
The Citizen
’s
Charter
White Paper
in
July
1991.
I
The
document sets out a programme of legislative and administrative reform directed
towards ensuring quality
in
the services delivered to the public by central government,
local authorities, the NHS and the public utilities. For some the Citizen’s Charter
programme is said to evidence a break with the ideologically driven obsession of
the Thatcher administration with constraining the public sector. The selection by
the Conservative Party of Mr Major as Prime Minister
in
November
1990,
and
the subsequent re-election of the Conservative government to a fourth term
in
April
1992,
is seen to represent a return to more consensual government.? However,
though
it
is said to be the personal initiative of the Prime Minister,
it
is fairly clear
that the White Paper reflects and adds
in
a modest way to changes
in
public sector
administration over the past fifteen years. Though the rhetorical style of the Major
administration may differ from that of its predecessor, the substantive policy of
public sector reform seems little changed. The Citizen’s Charter programme maintains
a
policy of fiscal constraint and of seeking to replace bureaucratic public sector
structures with marketised ones, and of replacing collectivised decision making
with
forms of individual choice. At least with regard to public sector reform, Mrs Thatcher
may be correct to assert that there is no such thing as Majorism.’ Furthermore,
the tendency on the part of all the main political parties towards adopting new
management techniques as instruments for making public sector service delivery
more effective and responsive, makes the Government reforms of the public sector
look less radical and distinctive. Thus,
if
we are witnessing a return to a more
consensual style of politics, then that consensus is located
in
policies designed to
‘marketise’ the public sector.
This article sets out first to explore the various aspects of the administrative
and legislative programme envisaged by the White Paper. While much of the
programme fits into a well-known pattern of public sector reform, the language
and techniques of the programme are of more recent application
in
the public sector.
We find here a blending of New Right concerns
with
restricting the power of
bureaucracy and extending individual choice,
with
more widespread concerns to
make government bureaucracies more responsive to the needs of users. Thus,
*University College London.
**London School of Economics and Political Science.
We would like to thank Dawn Oliver and Hugh Collins who read an earlier draft
of
this article
I
2
3
7he
Citizen’s Charter,
Cm 1599 (London: HMSO, 1991).
(All
parenthetical references
in
the text
are to this White Paper.)
Hutton suggests that there was
some
uncertainty
in
the Conservative Party at the 1992 election as
to ’whether “Majorism” was softer Thatcherism or something new,’
The
Gucirdicin.
13
April 1992.
Thatcher. ‘Don’t Undo My Work,’
Newsweek,
27 April 1992. p
14.
526
Tlic
Moderii
Law
Revieut
55:4
July
1992 0026-7961
July
19923
The
Citizen
‘s
Charter Programme
managerial techniques directed towards the pursuit
of
quality and consumer
responsiveness are as familiar within Labour local authorities and Labour Party
policy documents as within the Conservative Government’s programme. We then
examine the idea of citizenship that is implicit in the programme, and attempt
to
uncover the intellectual arguments which have influenced the New Right in
formulating a narrow conception
of
the citizen as economic actor. Thirdly, we
examine the way in which a policy directed towards the improvement of quality
in public sector services fits into a wider pattern of reform of the institutions and
practices of public sector administration over the past fifteen years. Reform of the
public sector has,
to
some extent, been driven by the perceived economic imperative
to control the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement. However, this trend has been
expressed both in the language of neo-classical economics and of public choice and,
more recently, in the language of managerialism drawn from the private sector.
All
these strands have played a part in shaping the reforms. The perceived constraint
on public expenditure, at a time when the overall tax burden is little diminished,
poses a threat to the legitimacy of state activity in taxing and spending generally.
We will argue that it is not surprising that public sector reform initially directed
towards financial constraint has now been directed towards concerns with securing
better quality of public services at lower cost. Fourthly, we
look
at the way in which
quality is defined within private and public sector management, and examine how
the patterns of service delivery envisaged by the White Paper
fit
into the wider pattern
of quality management which is being developed in the public sector. Finally, we
assess the way
in
which the government explains and justifies its policies for the
public sector by linking the issue of quality with that of citizenship, and defining
both in terms of the norms governing contractual relationships in the private sector.
While
it
might be argued that improvements in efficiency and responsiveness of
public sector service delivery could enhance the welfare of service users, we argue
that the way this has been done, by redefining the citizen as an economic actor,
tends to threaten the universality and uniformity of service provision and hence
to
diminish social ‘rights.’
I1
The Citizen’s Charter
The Citizen’s Charter programme may be seen as the culmination of a policy of
reform
in
public administration, particularly
in
those areas of government administra-
tion concerned with the direct provision of services to the public. In substance, the
programme represents the continuation of a trend towards tighter management of
the public sector on a private sector model. Its significance lies in its redefinition
of the citizen as an economic actor
-
a consumer
-
and
in
the
extent to which
it
imports private sector concerns with quality as the touchstone of successful service
delivery. There are four main areas covered in the White Paper: central government,
health care, local government and the public utilities. Each of these areas had
undergone very substantial changes to its organisational structure under the Thatcher
government. The White Paper reports on the advantages of these reforms for the
quality of public sector services and seeks to justify their extension by reference
to a particular conception of citizenship. It envisages much more thorough application
of
private sector management techniques concerned with control of quality and
consumer responsiveness in the public sector generally.
It
seems clear that there is little
in
the way
of
new initiative
in
the Citizen’s Charter
programme. The White Paper describes how management principles are currently
527
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