CAMBRIDGE LETTER
Investing in public services
BILL KIRKMAN
In a prosperous country like the U.K. there is a strong antipathy to the idea of raising taxes to pay for services.
IN a devastating United Nations report on the wellbeing of children and adolescents, the United Kingdom was placed at the bottom of a list of 21 economically advanced countries. The study by UNICEF looked at different aspects of the treatment of children: material wellbeing; health and safety; educational wellbeing; family and peer relationships; behaviour and risks, and young people's own perceptions. It put the blame for Britain's dismal performance on underinvestment.
A culture of violence
The report appeared in a week when we have been coming to terms with a series of appalling murders of teenagers in south London. Inevitably, there has been much agonising over the reasons for the culture of violence, which forms the background to such crimes. The Conservative Party (opposition) leader, David Cameron, has claimed that they are symptoms of a badly broken society, a claim which the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, rejects. One should obviously be wary of leaping to simplistic conclusions, but it is certainly true that the region of London where the murders have occurred is an area of social deprivation.
Self-perpetuating
It would be simplistic to assert that we can buy our way out of all problems. Nevertheless, it is clear that basic facilities in some parts of the country are below standard. Schools are a good example of this. Housing is another. Families living in areas where housing and schools are poor face severe, and self-perpetuating, problems. Without good schooling, for example, children will have difficulty in obtaining good jobs, and without good jobs they will have little chance to move beyond deprivation.
Tony Blair's government has made significant investment in public services, notably education and health, but there has been criticism of the way in which money has been spent. It is of course easier to criticise policies than to implement them, but, that said, there are many cases of what can best be described as a lack of joined-up thinking.
A good example emerged in the past few days. As part of its effort to tackle the problem of grossly overcrowded prisons, the Home Office — the beleaguered and much criticised department responsible — has embarked on the building of new prisons to provide 8,000 more places. Serious doubts have arisen, however, about the provision by the Treasury of the money to run them.
It is of course questionable whether putting ever more and more people in prison is a sensible way to tackle the problem of crime. What is surely beyond argument, however, is that prisons which cannot be run properly are no solution to anything.
To return to the UNICEF report, it looks as if this is another example of underinvestment. In suggesting that, it is worth considering whether there is any root cause for underinvestment. The U.K., after all, is a prosperous country; if as a society we decide not to invest, that is a matter of choice. It is tempting to blame the government, but that is only part of the story. For many years there has been a culture of strong antipathy to the idea of raising taxes to pay for public services.
Tough balancing act
And yet, with the same breath that we moan about any suggestion that we might have to pay more, we moan also about any reduction in public services. Once again, the past few days have seen a good example of this. The Cambridgeshire County Council has announced that it will be making huge cuts in expenditure in order to balance its budget. Services to be reduced include in-house respite care, the provision of teaching assistants in schools, maintenance of roads and footpaths and mobile libraries.
The Central government imposes severe constraints on the taxation, and spending, rights of local authorities. The issue, therefore, is not that our county council is unfeeling. It is far wider than that. It is, in short, an issue which affects central and local government, and all of us as citizens, everywhere in the U.K. It can be stated simply: what sort of conditions should people in the U.K. — young and old, in all parts of the country — be entitled to expect? The Liberal Democrat leader of the County Council called for "a real debate" about our responsibilities as a society as a whole. The local newspaper, the Cambridge Evening News welcomed such a debate "so long as everyone accepts that, at the end of the day, it is going to come down to a stark choice of whether we are prepared to pay for quality services or not."
That applies to everyone, not just people in Cambridgeshire.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, U.K. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
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