All citizens except the very richest need access to decent public services to meet their needs and help to deliver their aspirations for a decent life for themselves and their families. How they should be delivered – in-house, by public private partnerships, or through outsourcing to the private sector – should be a matter of practical democratic choice, not one of top-down ideological fixation. Different countries have different traditions, and transnational learning and comparison is important.
Jeremy Smith has huge experience at local, national, European and international levels in the policy and legal aspects of public services. In addition to 14 years of direct management experience in London’s complex local government (6 as Chief Executive), he is one of Europe’s leading experts on the impact of European Union law and policy on public services – including Public Private Partnerships – across Europe.
Jeremy has drafted the European Charter on Local and Regional Services of General Interest (EU-speak for public services). In addition, he is experienced in UN standard-setting policy work, for example the UN Habitat guidelines on access to basic services for all.
Léogane is a medium-sized town in south-west Haiti where Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first emperor of Haiti (1804-06), is said to have married the future empress Marie-Claire Heureuse, with Toussaint L’Ouverture as best man.
Léogane achieved a far sadder fame on 12th January this year, as the town at the epicentre of the giant earthquake which devastated much of the country. About 80% of the houses and buildings of the town were destroyed or badly damaged, with probably thousands dead.
It was therefore logical that Léogane should be chosen, together with its three neighbouring communes, by Haiti’s Minister of the Interior and Territorial Authorities, Paul Antoine Bien-Aimé (great name for a politician) for a new international local government initiative. I am proud to play a part.
It’s nice when the light of understanding flashes in your brain – and yesterday I had to thank Professor Adam Tooze, an expert on Germany at Yale, for turning on my halogen bulb…
Though fully aware of the (how do I put it?) counter-Keynesianism of the German government and political establishment, I couldn’t help being puzzled by their approach to the Greek crisis, which seemed almost calculated to damage the European Union.
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Last Thursday I was back in Brussels, invited by the European Parliament’s special committee on the financial, economic and social crisis. My mission – to highlight the really serious financial problems now facing Europe’s local and regional governments, just as growing un-(and under) employment make their public services ever more essential.
I gave them the key points of the November 2009 survey of national local government associations which CEMR had conducted. The results were overwhelmingly pessimistic… three quarters said things had got worse for their members (the individual towns etc.) during 2009, and about half thought they would get worse in 2010 – under 10%, mainly in Scandinavia, thought they would improve this year. Over two-thirds thought that councils’ budgets would reduce in real terms in 2010, and a similar proportion said their income had reduced substantially in 2009.
By Jeremy Smith, 1st June 2010
