Julian Le Grand, Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and a former Senior Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister (2003-2005) gave a seminar entitled ‘Trust, shove or nudge? Reflections on public service reform’ at HSMC on 14th May.
![Julian Le Grand](/Images/college-social-sciences-only/social-policy/hsmc/2014/julian-le-grand-2-cropped.x3fefd302.jpg?q=80&f=webp&w=1440)
Julian drew on his time in the PM’s Office to reflect on different models of public service reform – trust; targets; voice and choice- outlined in his book ‘The Other Invisible Hand: Delivering Public Services through Choice and Competition’ (Princeton University Press, 2007). He argued that trust-based models are too paternalistic and open to manipulation by providers; target-based models demotivate staff, stifle innovation and encourage gaming, while voice-based models rely on protest channels that are dominated by the middle classes and easy for monopoly providers to ignore. Julian argues that choice-based models are the best or ‘least worst’ ways to organise public services.