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In one of his few appearances before the House of Commons during his brief tenure as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws told Parliament that “we on these benches believe that those on the frontline know better than government Ministers how to spend money.”

He had been asked a question about protection for the previous administration’s guarantee of one-to-one tuition in schools. Laws response – refusing to defend the commitment – got right to the heart of the question of ‘entitlements’ as a mechanism for public service delivery, a subject addressed last week by NLGN’s report Making sense of entitlement: Improving public services without performance guarantees.

Our report highlighted the extent to which entitlements had become a key principle for ensuring minimum standards of public service provision under the Labour Government. By stipulating maximum waiting times in the NHS; the guarantee of one-to-one tuition in schools; or free care at home for disabled people they sought to create a framework that would ensure certain particular outcomes and service quality for citizens.

This new approach was undoubtedly well-intentioned. The Smarter Government paper of 2009 makes clear that one of its key drivers was to make service providers more accountable to the public. Citizens, armed with these new guarantees, would judge the standards of their local school, hospital, Police service or council, rather than civil servants reviewing performance against government targets from behind a desk in Whitehall.

However, the entitlement-based approach was also inherently flawed in many ways. Uniform national entitlements lacked the subtlety required in the current financial climate or the sensitivity to respond to different circumstances in different areas across the country.

It is questionable whether guaranteeing every older person in the country free bus travel, regardless of their ability to pay represents the most judicious use of limited public money.

What is more, in the NHS, maximum waiting times are susceptible to manipulation and can focus staff on processing the patient according to the centrally-ordained timeframe rather than giving them the best possible treatment.

Therefore, while entitlements make a convenient political narrative, there is debate about how much good they do. David Laws’ point in the House of Commons debate was that while the guarantee of one-to-one tuition is to go, the schools budget will be maintained for 2010/11 and thus the quality of schooling will improve.

If a school is given an identical pot of money to that which it had previously received but with no requirement that a portion of it is used to fulfil a government’s political commitment, then that should enable them to provide a better service, rather than a worse one. The same principle applies in the case of most entitlements: mandating uniform guarantees is an effective political narrative – “we will ensure no hospital patient waits no longer than 4 hours in A&E” – but it is tantamount to telling professional staff with a working knowledge of local needs how to use their resources.

Allowing greater local flexibility is a sensible stance to adopt, and the coalition’s position is to be welcomed. But if entitlements are to be abandoned, what safeguard of performance quality and accountability should emerge in their place?

NLGN’s report recommends a series of negotiated agreements between local authorities and central government, outlining the intended outcomes from public spending in their area based on the council’s knowledge of priorities on the ground, and the wider framework of national aspirations.

This should then be backed up by an effective scrutiny system based on openness and accountability. Using the internet to publicise public service commitments and an inspection process that takes user-experience as its starting point would be initial steps in the right direction. Extending local government’s remit to give it greater control over local public services such as healthcare and policing would also greatly strengthen both local providers right to determine their own priorities, and the public’s ability to hold them to account through democratic elections.

Such measures would give public service management a localist dimension, and ensure that services remain transparent and accountable to users. These are the key principles that the coalition must bear in mind as they seek to re-shape the future of public services.

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