Direct Delivery and the Reform of Governance

In our information economy we have become used to the direct delivery of whatever we want. In politics, delivery remains slow and indirect. The contrast is one factor feeding an anti-democratic populism that promises immediate results. Overcoming the difference will require governments to make some fundamental reforms

Direct delivery in the market
 
Goods
 
We have become used to a world where if we want something we go on-line, make comparisons, look at ratings, read reviews, order what we want and get immediate delivery to our doorstep. As a result of our search, algorithmic feeds to other sites offering similar products will appear on our screens. 
 
Services
 
Not everything can be delivered in this way. Services remain the main exception. We still need to go to the local high street or shopping centre to get our hair cut. We still may want a face-to -face meeting with a doctor. But services involving information, for example, about travel or an educational course, are usually immediately available online. Knowledge-based information, including health enquiries, is also readily available. If we have a question, we can Google it or go to Wikipedia or Google Scholar or to ChatGPT. We may need to check the reliability of the information that is fed us and its sources. But often we are simply looking for information that is adequate and sufficient rather than full and complete.
 
Delivery in politics
 
By contrast, delivery that comes from the world of politics and collective choice is inevitably slow and indirect – the end result of electoral calendars, party political compromise, and long delivery chains with multiple intermediaries. Even if the government of the day reflects our own electoral choice, and our own public spending priorities, nevertheless between our vote and the actual provider – the road builder, housing provider, health hub and school, there stand multiple layers of commissioners, certifiers and inspectors as well as regional and local authorities. Private and public insurance of provision may not mesh. Choice may be limited. The symbol of non-delivery is the unfilled roadway pothole or the cordoned-off roadworks where no-one is actually working on-site.
 
The costs of delivery
 
In the information economy the delivery of information is not only direct but it appears costless to the consumer. Information is monetised in ways that the consumer does not see. The costs to us that we notice are those of paying attention. We economise on those costs by looking for opinions supportive of our own and by networking with like-minded people and sources. We follow the feeds our networks provide. If we are buying goods we return and get reimbursed for what we do not like. 
 
By contrast, the costs of obtaining delivery in politics are highly visible. Civic and political activism is costly in terms of our time and attention. The tax payments we make are visible and felt. There are no returns for poor product.
 
Speeding up political delivery
 
Efforts in the public sector and politics to produce a world of collective provision more immediately responsive to our demands range from the good to the bad and to the ugly.
 
The ugly: populism
 
The ugly face of the response comes from politicians who indeed offer immediate solutions. Instead of the hard task of encouraging interculturalism for modern culturally diverse societies the response is to ban immigrants and reduce mobility. Instead of investing in collective provision in education their answer lies in home-schooling. Instead of investing more in science-based approaches to the health of vulnerable groups, there is denial of the relevance of science-based diagnoses. They try to evade or twist the arms of local authorities. Simplified responses are also given to questions around economic competitiveness. Instead of looking at how to reduce the costs and increase the incentives for entrepreneurship and venturing, while helping those on low incomes, the answer comes in the sledgehammer form of tariffs from the US or border taxes from the EU regardless of who pays.
 
An equally ugly response comes from those politicians who access and make available the personal information collected and stored on official sites. Personal information is weaponised rather than privacy respected. 
 
The bad: attitudes and the erosion of norms
 
Discontent with collective delivery is also expressed in the negative imagery and narratives increasingly attached to the world of politics. Particular politicians and political parties may be the legitimate target of well merited criticism. What crosses a different boundary is the disregard and abuse of democratic processes themselves. These processes may stand in the way of the immediate gratification of our wishes but they are there for a reason. They include the need for accommodation of those with different views, the need for moderation in expressing our own desires and the need for tolerance if things do not go our way. 
 
Imagery that blames ‘conspiracy’, ‘the deep state’ or ‘insider elites’ may symbolise something that has gone wrong in the system of collective choice and representation. But relying on negative meta-narratives to mobilise public opinion erodes qualities that systems of democratic choice must display. It avoids the hard choices around reforming electoral and voting systems and institutions that need to be more representative.
 
The good: the strategies
 
More than fifty years ago the political economist Albert Hirschman wrote an influential treatise distinguishing between three strategies: exit, voice and loyalty. According to this terminology, populism represents an exit strategy from democratic systems of public choice. It states that what matters are results and not how we get there. 
 
By contrast, the strategies that are good from the perspective of a democratic system of collective choice are those that focus on ways to strengthen ‘voice’ and those that show ‘loyalty’ to the system by trying to reform its delivery system through remodelling governance and the way things are done.
 
The good: strengthening voice
 
Ways to strengthen ‘voice’ are in part specific to particular democracies. Those that are relevant to all include limits on electoral expenditures, compulsory voting and the greater use of referendums with high majorities required for major decisions. Specific to the US is the need to halt gerrymandering. Specific to the UK is the need to replace the House of Lords with a chamber drawn from the different regions and nations. Specific to the EU is the need to transfer the so-called ‘right of initiative’ from the Commission to the Council of Ministers and to strengthen the role of national parliaments.
 
The good: loyalty: remodelling governance
 
‘Loyalty’ in this context means embracing the behaviour supportive of democracies, such as moderation and accommodation in the expectation of what democratic politics can delivery. At the same time, it also means a preparedness to remodel the administrative state in order to address the disparity between the direct delivery of the information economy and the indirect delivery of public provision. This means moving away from the so-called ‘New Public Management’ with its roots in the 1980s to a model more supportive of direct delivery. 
 
It is tempting for governments and the public sector to assume that the introduction of AI and portal-based apps can themselves achieve the directness of services expected by citizens. In practice they may have the opposite effect. They draw attention to the multiple intermediaries involved in delivery and replace the directness of face-to-face contact with the anonymity of BOTS. Remodelling governance requires much more.
 
Remodelling governance
 
There are three components of a direct delivery model of governance that stand out. Simplification and the need to shorten intermediation; the need to structure the delivery of public services on a platform basis rather than a sector basis; and the need to shift from general tax and spend policies towards a greater alignment between life-cycle delivery and payment. 
 
Simplification and removing intermediaries
 
In July 2025 the UK Prime Minister announced the intention to get rid of over 200 intermediaries involved in the delivery of health services in the NHS. The problem of excessive intermediaries stretches across all democracies and many public services. Drastic reduction is needed. ‘Simplification’ is now a regulatory objective for all members of the OECD. 
 
Platforms not sectors
 
Many public services, notably those involving regulation, are provided on a sector specific basis. In the information economy delivery is increasingly organised on a platform basis that crosses traditional borders between products, services, companies and sectors. A similar cross-boundary form of delivery is needed in respect of government delivery. For example, community libraries can be delivery hubs for other social services; health services could be offered in super-markets. Regulation should be organised across sectors so as to encourage platform rather than sector delivery.
 
Life-cycle delivery
 
Thirdly, collective provision needs an overhaul so that there is a closer connection and more easily visible link between collectively funded welfare provision and personalised need. Europe’s welfare systems are showing their age with their origin in the early post war period and responding to the problems of the 1930s. 
 
In today’s world collective provision needs to be tuned to a more direct connection with personalised life-cycle earnings and balance sheets. For example, to reflect the longer life expectations of societies, welfare benefits could start later (say not before the age of 25). Education benefits could cover the need for through-life updating and reskilling. In health, publicly funded support should focus on the very young (the under 5s) and also be concentrated more on security against large end-of-life expenses on health and home-care (say for those above the age of 70). Between these ages the connection between collective provision and individual payments could be made more visible by modest threshold payments for access to all collective services such as education and health with exceptions only for the very low income earners. 
 
It is relatively easy for democratic governments to tackle simplification. Adapting sector-based regulatory systems to the platform economy and post-war welfare states and social markets to the shape of today’s earning cycles and personalised balance sheets are much more difficult. Yet the frustration caused by the contrast between the direct delivery of information-based markets and the indirect delivery of politics will remain to feed anti-democratic sentiment unless the contrast is addressed by these more fundamental reforms.