Barnet Council's easyJet Approach

Cllr Mike Freer might like to reconsider Barnet Conservatives' new easyJet approach to Council services after reading this POST in the Economist's Gulliver blog. Essentially, easyJet did its level best to stop a pregnant woman from embarking, and try to charge her a fee for sorting out her journey.

I wonder whether Barnet Conservatives will have a similar approach in public services? If so, it would certainly make a radical change, where most Council's currently supply a fairly standardised service and a standard fee (if its not provided free).

For example, the amount spent per pupil can be as much as £100,000 per year for a child with severe needs. That would be many times the average. If Barnet Conservatives are going to break the existing cross party consensus on basing such decisions on the needs of the child, some families are going to have to shell out an awful lot to look after their child. Less dramatically, suppose you had two sixth formers; one specialises in arts, and the other specialises in science subjects. The scientist will probably cost more to educate than the arts student, because scientists need expensive things like laboratories. Will the scientist have to cut back on (say) sports to afford the physics course?

What about people who are difficult to deal with: people with severe anti-social behaviour difficulties say. If Social Services encounter somewhat who is disruptive will they at some point decide that person has used up their personal budget and stop dealing with them?

Will Council officers have incentives to avoid difficult issues in order to process as many units within a given budget as possible?

And what about buying privilege? I see there is a suggestion that those prepared to pay extra charges should be able to jump the queue for planning permission. That sounds like a policy designed to help property developers and rich individuals at the expense of the poor/average. Would it apply in other areas? For example, will areas that pay more get a better service? Say an extra warden for the local park. That would change the criteria for where money is spent from social need (often the poorest areas) to wealth.

I also wonder whether this might become socially divisive. For example, in Brent and (I imagine) Barnet meals on wheels will give you a choice of what you eat. I think in Brent you can have kosher, vegetarian, Indian, British and something else. Suppose kosher food costs more than the vegetarian option, will Jewish people be asked to pay more? Would this affect community relations?

Finally, I think the really big issue with Cllr Freer's warmed over Thatcherism will be the same as it was in the 1980s. Local government is about to go into an area of very limited budgets. All this "choice" will become synomynous with cuts. As 25 years ago, Conservative marketisation proposals will be discredited as just spin with "efficiency" meaning not improved services but a worse service with less money spent on it in an effort to keep the Council Tax as low as possible.