For 35 years now, “choice” has been the banner under which public services have been reformed. Choice means competition and competition means efficiency. Except that it isn’t working out that way. Our politicians never tire of telling us about the “hard choices” they are making. What they usually mean when they say this is: “There isn’t a choice.” Choice, after all these years of careful nurture, isn’t thriving.
The public accounts committee has warned that a small number of “quasi-monopoly” private contractors are dominating public services. Even now, as G4S and Serco are investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for overcharging taxpayers by tens of millions, Whitehall continues to hand them lucrative contracts. The reason, of course, is that they don’t have much choice.
The committee is clear about why this is. What these big companies are really good at is squeezing out competition from smaller companies. Their greatest expertise is in being able to withstand the upfront demands of the procurement process, which small companies can’t afford.
These behemoths find that the best way to win the competition is to annihilate choice. Now, there’s a glaring irony: a process that puts the promotion of choice at its heart necessarily puts organisations that see choice as a threat, an enemy to be beaten, at its heart.
The trouble with choice is that the bigger, stronger, more dominant, more able to command resources you are, the more choices you have. You can choose to limit choice.
The big guy wins and the little guy loses.
And the little guy is certainly losing. Much of the work of the companies that provide our so-called public services concerns itself with persuading people with next to no choices that even these are riches too generous.
There is no choice but to work for a wage that can’t cover a large rent. There is no choice but to pay a landlord that large rent.
Inequality of choice is rampant, so competition is so unfair that it’s entirely without meaning. Yet still the dangerous myth that everyone has choices prevails.
Whitehall is by no means alone in finding that their choice is between a rock and a hard place. A system with choice and competition at its centre is a system with advantage and ruthlessness at its centre. Choice and competition are easy to unleash. Fair competition? Fair choice? Those are much, much more difficult challenges.
