One of the concepts that is vitally important to understanding why government services tend to develop low productivity is "the producer interest" - the tendency of those who provide a service to start thinking as much or more about their own interests as they do about their customers.
This is a concept that politicians themselves have had a tendency to brush aside. "Of course, doctors/nurses/policemen/teachers are far too decent and well-intentioned to behave like that," they say as if nobly defending the honour of individuals who have been unjustly slurred. Well, they can't pretend they don't understand the concept now. The politicians themselves have been found manipulating their expenses system to pay for the cleaning of their moats, the refurbishment of their houses and so on and on. They milked the system for their own benefit. The Daily Telegraph has been full of the gory details for the past five days or so. We paid more for our MPs than we realised. Their productivity was lower per pound. Money was wasted.
So my question is this: why do Members of Parliament expect doctors, nurses, policemen and teachers to be more upright, moral and public spirited than they are themselves?
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Waste in public services
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James,
I think that it is a general truth that most people who provide a service are as, or more, interested in their own interests as those of their customers.
What's different about the public sector, or government-endorsed closed shops such as much of the legal profession, or monopoly suppliers of any sort, is the ability to act in this way (and to continue to act this way) because customers can't take their custom (and money) elsewhere.
Posted by: HJ at May 13, 2009 02:27 PM