Make England clean again!

Last week John Ware wrote on this site about the parlous state of the public environment where he lives. According to Ware “bins often overflow with rubbish. Roads, parks, … hedgerows are pockmarked with plastic bags, bottles, cans, fast food detritus …. Pavements are speckled with grey splats of chewing gum, the second most commonly dropped litter after cigarette butts.”

I don’t know anything about Ware’s area – but I was a local Councillor in Hammersmith & Fulham for eight years. I sympathise with Ware’s despair over the inadequacy of the levers for change that he identifies: “a few extra quid on council tax”, “new laws, notices and circulars”…”fixed penalty fines that are barely enforceable”. Ware is right that none of these will make much difference. Most will only make matters worse in their own way. Higher council tax! More regulations! New bossy street signs! These things don’t improve our lives nor do they pick up litter.

The problem is that local councils often involve not just one, but two, layers of monopoly. The services they provide generally have the economic characteristics of monopoly (high fixed costs and low marginal costs) and are most efficiently delivered by a single provider. And then, in any local authority, where election after election the same political party wins, you have a political monopoly as well.

Monopolies provide poor services. This is not the fault of anyone who works in them. Without competition to keep you on your toes, it’s hard to stay on your toes. That seems to be human nature. With too little to motivate us, we find ourselves slouched behind our desks, looking at the emails popping onto our screens, yawning, and noting that it is nearly time for lunch.

So how do we get the rubbish out of the hedgerows?

Economic monopoly is much studied. Over the last decade many local authorities have attempted to create competition and improve incentives by contracting out services to private providers. These include street cleaning, rubbish collection, parks maintenance, IT services. But this does not change the monopolistic nature of the services. Contracts will generally be years long because of high start-up and capital costs. Lazy lunches creep back in. So the contracts have “Performance Metrics” against which providers are supposed to be monitored, and the incentive for good performance maintained. Directly or via their paid “council officers” it is councillors who are supposed to do the monitoring…

That brings us to political monopoly. What happens when one party has been in charge for years? A mixed bag of people step forward to be councillors and some stay on too long. That time when one of them, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, peered at the fine print of the Street Cleaning Performance Metrics? With the convoluted detail explained by the Street Scene Lead Officer who was himself running a little late for a long lunch… A general slough of despond settles over the public realm and rubbish spreads through our streets and hedgerows…

I am afraid there is only one way for us to collectively step out of this state of affairs. That is for the general public to re-engage with local politics. As part of the last local election – which I fought and lost – I spent hundreds of hours pounding the streets talking to thousands of people. In the week after the election I got an email from a chap who had decided it was time for him to re-engage in local politics. The content of his email: “You did a great job as councillor. So what the @#@# do you think you were doing? Where were you? How could you ..? Why didn’t you ….” I invited him to the next Local Party Ward meeting – and never heard from him again. When I say re-engagement with local politics, this isn’t what I mean.

Here is how, in places where our streets are dirty, we might make them clean again. It will take an enormous re-engagement, on the part of many people, with our public realm and our democratic processes. I’ll start at the beginning – the process of selecting councillors – and work my way to the end, when the rubbish is finally picked out of hedgerows. Stick with me.

First, there needs to be a lively intelligent bunch of people who want to help choose the candidates to stand as councillors in local elections. This means joining a political party – and becoming active in it. Then there needs to be a lively intelligent bunch who put themselves forward to be council candidates. When candidates have been chosen, and eventually find themselves out on the street campaigning, they need to find that they are welcomed on doorsteps – even if it is suppertime – and have lively intelligent conversations with local residents. As they pound the streets they need to come across lively intelligent councillor candidates from other parties who they are standing against. Local people also need to make a note of the election day – and come out to vote.

After an enormous amount of conversation, engagement, effort, and energy, hopefully the best candidates win the local ward elections – and overall the best party wins the borough. They are then put in charge of the Council for the next four years and are kept on their toes by the knowledge that they might lose again in four years’ time.

The winning party chooses their brightest and best for “Cabinet roles” – one of which is called something like “Street Scene”. The new “Street Scene Lead” gets stuck in and meets with the “Street Scene Lead Council Officer” who dimly remembers another such bright-eyed character turning up and ruining their lunch plans. This time the newcomer is not so easily brushed off.The “Street Scene Lead Officer” feels a tingling he hasn’t felt in years – and remembers when he, bushy-tailed himself, entered public service and hoped to make the world a better place. Between them the Street Scene Lead and the Lead Officer recognise that the Street Scene contractor has become a bit shoddy. Together they look at the Performance Metrics that the contracter is meant to deliver against. Very likely they find that they are inadequate and could do with a great deal of tightening up when the contract is next tendered. However they recognise that the contractor would like to win the contract next time round, even if it is five years away. On that basis they decide to meet with the head of the service to persuade him to pull his socks up. The meeting is set up and the head of the service sheepishly agrees that things have got a bit shoddy.

However, it mustn’t stop there. Because we understand human nature and we know that his socks will slip back down again. The new Street Scene Lead says that she wants to come out and monitor some real live street cleaning. She enjoys being out with the early morning crew and recognises that she has the chance to make a huge difference to her neighbourhood. An achievement of which she will always be proud. She knows how proud her Gran will be too. She decides that she is repeating the early morning visit once a month. She also compliments the street scene “Operatives” on the job they are doing.

However, it mustn’t stop there. All those residents who did or didn’t vote for the new Street Scene Lead need to notice a tangible improvement in their streets. They thank the local street cleaners next time they run into them on the street. They send an email to the new Street Scene Lead thanking her for the difference she has made (which she later shows her Gran who shows her care-worker who feels proud to work in such a good Council). Some of the residents make a mental note that they wouldn’t mind their local councillor’s job – they’d love to make a difference locally. Maybe they will look into what it takes to be a local councillor – or at least, join the political party that helps to select them. As they walk home they absent-mindedly pull a bit of rubbish out of the hedgerow that their now friendly street cleaner whose name is Jim has overlooked.

As you can see there are many layers to this – much work to be done – and everyone has a role to play. Roll up.