Have you heard?

"Hey Stan, put the beef back in the oven, they're talking on the telly about those...".

When I worked on On the Record - the old Sunday lunchtime programme - that's how we used to talk about ideas we feared might not instantly grip the imagination of the Great British public.

So it is with the business plans the government is publishing today.

However, those inside Number 10 who've driven the process could scarcely be more excited.

Today the prime minister will claim that they will produce "a power shift - a radical redistribution of power from governments to communities and people - and a horizon shift, so that we govern for the long-term".

It's quite a claim for the 700 dense pages of tables and promises which were first published in draft form in the summer.

Today's departmental business plans will spell out a series of detailed timetables of what the government will do in order to allow the public sector to "self improve".

In other words, instead of setting targets for schools, hospitals, police forces and the like, ministers will set themselves targets to ensure that they free up teachers, doctors and police officers to take the decisions about what needs to be done.

Progress on these targets will be published monthly.

What, you may ask, will ensure that the services themselves improve?

That's where - according to coalition philosophy - you come in, dear reader.

Each business plan will promise to publish data - some of it never published in this form before - to allow parents, patients, victims of crime and so on to monitor standards and demand improvement.

So, for example, crime maps will be published showing crime stats street-by-street and reoffending rates will be shown prison-by-prison as part of what one insider promises will be "an avalanche of information".

David Cameron will claim that:

"Instead of bureaucratic accountability to the government machine, these Business Plans bring in a new system of democratic accountability - accountability to the people.
 
"So reform will be driven not by the short-term political calculations of the government, but by the consistent, long-term pressure of what people want and choose in their public services - and that is the horizon shift we need."

Oliver Letwin is fond of recalling how in the days before privatisation, ministers used to be asked questions about why someone's telephone line had not been installed on time.

His aim is that in future it will seem equally bizarre to ask a minister about the performance of an individual school or police force.

He - and the coalition - are banking on transparency, customer power and the restoration of professional autonomy to drive change in the public sector.

The question hanging over today's launch though is whether the public are yet ready to abandon decades of habit which has led them to say "we elected you - so why's our school/hospital/police force so hopeless?"

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/11/have_you_heard.html

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