The Reform of Public Services Under New Labour

Drawing on interviews conducted by the author with politicians, bureaucrats and citizens, alongside content analysis of government documents, this book explains how New Labour has consumerized public services and contributed to the anti-politics that it has widely decried.

The New Labour governments have rebuilt public services around the citizen-consumer: a choice-wielding individual disconnected from the political context of the welfare state. In their interactions with central and local government, citizens are recast as customers in search of satisfaction. Drawing on interviews conducted by the author with politicians, bureaucrats and citizens, alongside content analysis of government documents, the book explains how New Labour has consumerized public services and contributed to the anti-politics that it has widely decried.

CATHERINE NEEDHAM is a Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary, University of London, UK. She is the author of Citizen-Consumers: New Labour’s Marketplace Democracy (2003).

Introduction: Citizens and Consumers * Public Service Reform: Narratives and Regimes * A Consumerist Citizenship Regime * Public Services before New Labour: The Path to Consumerism * The Context of Public Service Reform under New Labour: Marketising the Welfare State * Tony Blair: Consumerism and Community * The Consumer in Whitehall * Local Government: The Customer in the Community * The Citizen Perspective * Conclusion: Coproducing Public Services