Introduction

Advocacy of participation by ‘the public’ and of service users in decision making about public policy and services has multiple origins. In the late 1980s it was claimed by sections of the Left as a radical idea that would renew the public sector in order to resist attacks from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and others who sought to replace public services with private markets (Deakin and Wright, 1990). In contrast, for the neoliberals of the political Right, consumerist strategies were a way of limiting the power of professionals and rolling back the state. Creating active consumers was part of the strategy of market making. For New Labour in government, initiatives to involve the public and service users have reflected aspirations to improve services, create more assertive consumers, enable more accountability and to generate greater legitimacy for public service decision making (Barnes et al, 2004). For users of welfare services and for deprived and disadvantaged communities the right to have a say about services and policies is a matter of civil rights and social justice (for example, Beresford et al, 1999). From whatever perspective, changes in public service governance and service delivery that have taken place over the last 20–30 years represent a substantially different way of imagining the relationship between the state and its citizens from that which characterised the first 20–30 years of the welfare state.