Premium
Choice in Public Services: Crying ‘Wolf’ in the School Choice Debate
Author(s) -
GOODWIN MARK
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
the political quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-923X
pISSN - 0032-3179
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-923x.2009.01974.x
Subject(s) - school choice , public relations , consumer choice , equity (law) , service (business) , personalization , public service , public choice , element (criminal law) , strategic choice , sociology , marketing , economics , political science , business , law , politics , industrial organization
Choice, diversity and personalisation have been key to the New Labour project in public services. With the emergence of a reinvigorated Conservative party as a credible electoral threat, and the end of the Blair era, it seems appropriate to consider the continuing viability and longevity of the New Labour public service project. In this article, I approach the issue of choice in public services through an examination of the long‐running controversy over choice in the English secondary school system. I argue that the opponents of choice have been reluctant to engage with the notion of choice in public services due to concerns over the supposed negative effect that consumer choice has on the equity and quality of service provision. This paper aims to challenge the claim that any element of choice in education necessarily has deleterious effects on social justice. I argue that the case against school choice has not been decisively made and that school choice can, in principle, form part of a socially progressive educational project by redistributing power to service users and helping to maintain popular support for public provision of education.