What can a voucher system achieve in the public domain? What types of agency might use or benefit from such vouchers? This research by University Paul Cézanne assesses the impact of public service vouchers, putting them in the wider context of the modernization of public services. It argues that while vouchers offer some interesting possibilities in terms of diversification of services, there are potential risks. In particular, such a system may undermine equal opportunity.
The public voucher system is a means of paying for a given public service. Public authorities issue vouchers to individual users to enable them to access any institution that is approved by the public authorities for a specific purpose. The provider of the service is paid back the amount of the voucher by the public institution that provides the funding for the voucher. This system provides a means of reviewing the relationship between the user and the public service in terms of efficiency and freedom. The voucher system is designed to improve competition among public service providers and to make public service offerings more flexible.
For the time being, the notion of using vouchers is at an embryonic stage. In fact, the idea has been implemented only very tentatively in the fields of housing and education. The use of vouchers offers both advantages and drawbacks. In particular, it has the following implications:
- Guarantee of public funding.
- Raised awareness of responsibility among beneficiaries of the voucher system.
- The enshrinement of free competition among the institutions (public or private) that use the system.
- However, vouchers do not create a genuinely free market, in particular a free ‘education’ market.
- Instead, they perpetuate a situation in which the beneficiaries are dependent on new forms of public funding.
- The more the parents are involved, the greater the savings for the community will be but also the higher the risk in terms of the social development of children as they can find themselves in the middle of a tug-of-war.
Any analysis of the voucher system should not be confined to technical issues concerning funding arrangements. Instead, analysis should focus on support for decision-making and updating and reforming the public service, particularly in the field of education. From this analysis:
- The voucher system appears to turn on its head the classic vision of the method of operation for providers of public services.
- Once introduced, the voucher system forces the authorities to develop a policy that is output-oriented (with the emphasis on results) rather than input-oriented (with the emphasis on means).
- The prevailing notion is biased in that the voucher system is linked to a dual inversion: inversion of decision-making power, from the centre to the periphery and inversion of the very philosophy underpinning administrative-type public services.
- By focusing on the results to be achieved, the advocates of the voucher system run the risk of losing sight of the basic purpose of such public services.
- The voucher system is means of training citizens to become better informed and conscientious. Participation encourages participation, enhances social cohesion and encourages people to move away from simply being consumers.
