Society vs State: "It should not be about â??moreâ?? or â??lessâ?? state, but about the state working in a different way to achieve better outcomes." Jonathan Clifton from IPPR explores this key debate.

One of the big debates in the coming general election will be over the size and role of the state. Ever since becoming leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron has argued that the expansion of the public sector under Labour has crowded out personal responsibility, leaving ordinary people without the power to have a say in how their services are run. His call for a ‘big society’ to replace the ‘big state’ was a central point in his party conference speech last autumn. It has informed Conservative policy announcements such as letting communities run schools, and giving public sector workers the right to run the service they provide as a co-operative.

Certainly the idea of giving more power to people over their services is a popular one. A recent poll found that 82% of people believe that communities should do more to help police tackle antisocial behaviour and crime, 54% also supported the use of personal budgets in social care.

But is handing ‘power to the people’ really the panacea it is made out to be?

At one level the answer is yes. There are plenty of examples where services that are ‘co-produced’ between citizens and the state can achieve better outcomes. Public goods are best delivered when government and citizens combine their time, money, energy and knowledge. We see this happening everyday, for example when parents read with their children at home, a teacher is able to improve literacy rates. Or when people sort their rubbish, councils can increase recycling. This principle can be extended further. Community courts, volunteers patrolling with the police, self-care courses for patients with chronic illnesses and older people being given care budgets to spend as they wish, are all examples of co-produced services at work.

While these examples show the real potential of empowering communities to play more of a role, they should not be mis-read as the state being replaced by society. The reason they are successful is that communities provide services in partnership with the state. If the Conservative Party win the next election they will find it hard to convert principled support for their ‘big society’ agenda into practice. There are four reasons for this.

First, although the public support being more involved in principle, they rarely believe that individuals, families or communities should be primarily responsible for providing services. While there is some support for the Conservative proposals for letting parents set up schools (42% support the idea), only 2% believe that individuals, families and communities should be most responsible for running local schools. Cameron’s push for a ‘big society’ may be popular, but the public do not share his scepticism about the state. They expect government to lead. This complicates any notion of simply handing power from the state to society - what is required is a partnership between the two.

Second, there is a question around the capacity of communities to respond to such a demanding agenda. With political participation at an all time low it might be naïve to assume people have the time and commitment to get more involved in running services. Officials regularly complain that when they do open-up opportunities for citizen participation they arrive to find deserted community halls or at best a handful of the ‘usual suspects’. There is a real danger that if the state withdraws and leaves society to it, it is the people who already have the loudest voices and most power that benefit.

A third problem is that public involvement varies enormously depending on class, income and gender. Some communities have more time, money, cohesion and trust than others, and are therefore much better placed to ‘pull together’ and deliver services. Ensuring that the benefits of greater citizen involvement are evenly and widely spread will be just as hard as attempts to achieve equality in other areas. There is a serious risk of such an approach leaving the very communities that are most in need of services – those that lack wealth and social capital – being hung out to dry.

Fourth, politicians must appreciate that this approach will work better for some services than others. The benefits will be greatest in services that depend on a relationship between the service user and provider, such as early years, education, chronic health conditions and social care. It will be less useful for services such as public transport and acute health treatments.

Involving communities more in delivering public services is therefore a much more demanding agenda than simply handing power from the state to society. It should not be about ‘more’ or ‘less’ state, but about the state working in a different way to achieve better outcomes. It requires the state to work in partnership with citizens and service providers. Simply rolling back the state will not be enough to release the potential of communities and individuals across the country.