Making the Case for Universal Basic Services

Wednesday 9 December, 2pm to 3pm

The case for universal basic services and how it has a huge role to play in helping achieve positive change, will be put forward by Anna Coote, Principal Fellow at the New Economics Foundation, in this Our World Reimagined: big ideas for a better future (OWR) session.

Anna, a leading analyst, writer and advocate in the field of social policy, will be in conversation with broadcaster and journalist Pennie Taylor.

Anna is co-author of The Case for Universal Basic Services and has written widely on social justice, sustainable development, working time, public health policy, public involvement and democratic dialogue, gender and equality.

We are delighted to welcome Anna to the Our World Reimagined series of conversations. Being at the forefront of universal basic services, she will bring her ideas around how the approach offers a principled framework, which can be applied across many essential areas from healthcare to housing. We look forward to hearing how it can bring real gains for the people and communities we support in terms of equity, efficiency, solidarity and sustainability.Talking about her OWR session Anna has said: “The central message of universal basic services is that we can only flourish as a society, especially beyond this COVID-19 pandemic, if we act together and take collective responsibility to meet the needs we all share.

“That means more and better collectively provided services that are universal, so that everyone can access them according to need and not ability to pay. Building on our experience of healthcare and education, we can then branch out to other essentials, including housing, transport, care and digital inclusion.” Our GCVS series of OWR conversations features global leaders and key thinkers with innovative ideas that can help reshape society, improve lives and build a better world post COVID-19. View recordings of previous sessions on our YouTube channel at:

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLROegpExP9x6GjAl83NYZwUndb8Ek6MGT

Anna Coote is Principal Fellow at the New Economics Foundation (NEF).

A leading analyst, writer and advocate in the field of social policy, she has written widely on social justice, sustainable development, working time, public health policy, public involvement and democratic dialogue, gender and equality.

Earlier posts include Head of Patient and Public Engagement at the Healthcare Commission, Director of Health Policy at the King’s Fund, Deputy Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, Editor of current affairs television at Diverse Productions and Deputy Editor of the New Statesman. She was Commissioner for Health with the UK Sustainable Development Commission from 2000 to 2009.

Her recent publications (with sole or co-authorship) include The Case for a Four Day Week (2020 Polity Press), The Case for Universal Basic Services (2020 Polity Press), Universal Basic Services: Theory and Practice (IGP: 2019); Universal Basic Income: A Union Perspective (PSI: 2019); Building a New Social Commons, (NEF: 2017); Local Early Action: how to make it happen (NEF: 2015); People, Planet Power: Towards a New Social Settlement (NEF: 2015;) and Time on our Side: why we all need a shorter working week (NEF: 2013).

The Case for Universal Basic Services - co-authored with Andrew Percy, Co-Director of the Social Prosperity Network at the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity - delves into the idea that healthcare and education should be provided as universal public services to all who need them and that this is widely accepted.

But why leave it there? Why not expand it to more of life's essentials?

Anna and Andrew argue that this transformational new policy - Universal Basic Services - is exactly what we need to save our societies and our planet. The old argument that free markets and individual choice are the best way to solve pressing problems of poverty, inequality and environmental degradation, has led us to catastrophe and must be abandoned. The authors show that expanding the principle of collective universal service provision to everyday essentials like transport, childcare and housing is not only the best way of tackling many of the biggest problems facing the contemporary world: it's also efficient, practical and affordable.

Pennie Taylor is an award-winning freelance journalist and broadcaster who specialises in health and care issues. Based in Glasgow, she was BBC Scotland’s first Health Correspondent and has also worked on the newsdesks of national newspapers.

A former Head of Communications for the Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust in Edinburgh, Pennie has inside knowledge of how public services work. This gives her a uniquely informed perspective from which to approach and stimulate debate.