Public service reform - But not as we know it! (Picnic Publishing, 2009)

How democracy can transform public services

Hilary Wainwright

Matthew Little

March 2009

Public service reform - But not as we know it! (Picnic Publishing, 2009)

"A fascinating and lively account of how it is by strengthening democracy, involving workers and citizens we can transform our public services. It truly kicks privatisation into touch!" (Baroness Helena Kennedy)

Full book: Public Service Reform

You can download the book as a single file or by chapters (below)
"A fascinating and lively account of how it is by strengthening democracy, involving workers and citizens we can transform our public services. It truly kicks privatisation into touch!"
- Baroness Helena Kennedy QC

"This vivid and at times dramatic story shows how a positively public approach to our services is also key to an alternative economic strategy. If public services are improved and democratised like Newcastle's City Service, and increase inpublic spending would be money well spent meeting social needs and rebuilding regional economies. A telling story for all of us."
-- Dave Prentis, General Secretary of UNISON

Introduction: Mission impossible? (PDF)

Welcome to Newcastle – the way we were and the need for change (PDF)
‘The status quo is not an option’ (PDF)
Making it happen (PDF)
Financial means and constraints (PDF)
A new spirit of public sector management (PDF)
The union: making management accountable to the change (PDF)
Employing the private sector on the terms of the public (PDF)
Ch ch ch changes... (PDF)
The labour pains and potentialities for change (PDF)
Positively public QED(PDF)

ISBN:

9780956037053

Hilary Wainwright

Research Director of the TNI New Politics programme

Hilary Wainwright is a leading researcher and writer on the emergence of new forms of democratic accountability within parties, movements and the state. She is the driving force and editor behind Red Pepper, a popular British new left magazine, and has documented countless examples of resurgent democratic movements from Brazil to Britain and the lessons they provide for progressive politics.

As well as TNI fellow, she is also Senior Research Associate at the International Centre for Participation Studies at the Department for Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK and previously research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics. She has also been a visiting Professor and Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles; Havens Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison and Todai University, Tokyo. Her books include Reclaim the State: Adventures in Popular Democracy (Verso/TNI, 2003) and Arguments for a New Left: Answering the Free Market Right (Blackwell, 1993).

Wainwright founded the Popular Planning Unit of the Greater London Council during the Thatcher years, and was convenor of the new economics working group of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly from 1989 to 1994.