Public sector employees are the foot soldiers in the battle to ensure that everyone receives adequate health care, a good education, a safe and healthy environment and access to a range of essential and beneficial services. It is imperative that these objectives remain the focus of public service, irrespective of their method of delivery.

The current government policy however, of embracing a private sector approach to public sector provision is putting at risk the very raison d'etre of public services. For those who believe that current policy is driven by principles that often contradict those of public service, there is an urgency to arrest this drift. This is a particularly onerous objective, however, as the Government presently enjoys a unique political consensus where, for the first time, both they and the opposition implement and endorse the principles of the private sector without any real challenge.

It is therefore important to bear in mind that public services were established to ensure that certain basic rights were available to all and not simply to those who could afford to pay for them. Most people would consider this to be a reflection of a caring and socially aware society whereby the community ensures that, even those who are most disadvantaged have genuine access to these essential services. Although the private sector has always been able to provide such services, it is their inability to meet the needs of the whole of the community that has necessitated the creation of a non-profit making public sector. The principles that deliver meaningful public services therefore, can never be replaced by those that are driven by profit. The overall management of public services however, has long been an area of concern for many people, not least for local government employees themselves. Established practices have often remained unchanged and unchallenged for decades and many are inappropriate for a modern public service provider. This in turn has led to a reappraisal of public service provision with an emphasis on how it can be made more accountable both in terms of cost and effectiveness.
Regrettably however, instead of looking to see how improvements could be effected by developing approaches that apply the principles underlying good established public service practices, the Government has sought to apply private sector principles to public service provision. This has manifested itself in two distinct, yet closely related, service delivery approaches. These are the application of a performance management framework (PMF) for direct service delivery and the controversial use of private finance initiatives (PFI) to support public private partnerships (PPP). While there has been some debate surrounding the latter, there has been little or no reference to the imposition of an all embracing performance management culture.

The essential element of any PMF is accurate and meaningful performance indicators. Meaningful public sector indicators however, require a more imaginative approach than the current one of setting unrealistic targets and generating statistics which rely, to a large extent, on the expectation that people will produce accurate information against which they will subsequently be assessed. This approach, in effect, redirects public service away from the needs of the service user and focuses on inappropriate and artificial mechanisms for measuring both the organisations themselves and the individual employees. In addition, the avalanche of information now required to shore up these tiers of performance indicators has created a publicly-funded bonanza for management consultants. A stark contrast to front-line professionals who struggle to cope with bureacratic initiatives and suffer increasing stress and demoralisation. The origins of most of the public sector's PMFs can be found in the private sector, where everything is ultimately measured against profit. Within public services, the accurate measurement of performance is considerably more challenging than the superficial approach currently undertaken. The impact of environmental health services in particular can usually only be measured retrospectively within a broad historical context. The obsession with generating statistical information for assessment diverts the focus away from the primary objective of facilitating those we are employed to serve.

Already we are seeing how the health service and the education of young people is being seriously compromised by this approach. For example, as the Government seeks to meet its education targets there is concern about easier public examinations, as well as documented allegations of "altered" exam results to produce more passes. The culture of competition between schools, now manifested through school league tables and integral to any PMF, encourages the exclusion of borderline pupils from sitting examinations. In short, some educational standards are being compromised by a policy that relies on the private sector principles of competition and comparison.

The concept of competition, as a presumed mechanism for improvement, has now been cemented into public services via the Government's best value regime. The only drawback with this is that competition does not guarantee improvements. Indeed, where the presumed measures of success are not directly linked to improvements then there is a much greater likelihood that standards will fall. Those who believe that the successful marketing of a product, including public services, is consistent with improvements simply fail to understand the actual purpose of competition within this context.

While it is nonetheless imperative that publicly funded services do provide best value, any measures of success must be clearly linked to genuine improvements. The attempts of the Government to set "meaningful" indicators to justify their approach will not succeed unless it accurately and demonstrably reflects real improvements resulting from front line service delivery. And there is little evidence to suggest that it is any closer to achieving this. Local authorities are now immersed in this "performance" culture which, in its present form, will result in creating similar problems to those of other public sector providers. This will involve a general lowering of standards, while simultaneously deceiving themselves and others that things have improved, and it will all be justified by a host of indicators of questionable reliability. Those professionals who believe that the effectiveness of public service provision can not simply be reduced to an audit of unreliable statistics should be prepared to challenge the Government's approach and should be prepared to ask those pertinent questions that are now ignored in the party political arena.
Ian MacArthur, the CIEH's policy co-ordinator, recently expressed concerns about environmental health services being "driven by national edicts and performance management frameworks" (EHJ October 2001, page 306). Those who share these concerns should not be afraid to speak out against the tide of spin that is now the central tenet of political information. They should ensure that government policy puts people, rather than public relations and statistics, at the centre of genuine public services.

The decision makers must accept that public services do not exist as a resource-intensive alternative to the private sector which must fight to survive in a competitive world. Society has effectively created public services to fill the gap left by the private sector. It is nonetheless important to realise that there are many opportunities whereby public services can benefit from the approaches of other service providers. These, however, must be seen as tools in the continuing development of public service and should never be used as an excuse to undermine the long established values that delineate the public from the private sector.
If we hesitate in challenging the contemporary view because it may be unpopular, then we are failing those people in society for whom an effective public service is essential and we are also failing to live up to those principles first established by the founders of our profession.

These are the personal views of the author and do not represent those of the author's employer or of the CIEH.