“Helping, fixing and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul…
Serving is different from helping. Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. The danger in helping is that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity or even wholeness. When we help, we become aware of our own strength. But when we serve, we don’t serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences.”
Rachel Naomi Remen [1]
I know I wasn’t alone in observing the emphasis on service in Keir Starmer’s first speech as Prime Minister in Downing Street last week. On Twitter (sorry – still can’t call it ‘X’), Councillor Sarah Smith – Cabinet member for Adult Social Care in Doncaster said, “Loved this quote: Service is a precondition of hope 💜”.[2] And Brigid Russell posted “I’m relieved to hear the words “public service” spoken so many times in relation to our politics today. There’s so much restorative & healing work to be done in so [many] places across our country. It’ll take a lot of humility, listening, grace, & care. I dare to feel a wee bit hopeful.”[3]
Keir Starmer referenced ‘service’ multiple times in his speech, including mentioning the “return of politics to public service.” He explicitly stated that “my government will serve you” and talked of “a determination to serve your interests”.[4]
It’s a commitment he’d made throughout the election campaign, and he repeated it again in his first message to the Civil Service and in his first speech to the Commons as prime minister.
Within a few days of the election, he had appointed numerous Cabinet members with lived experience of the brief they now hold and invited regional mayors to meet with him and his deputy Angela Rayner. In that meeting he stated, “I’m a great believer in devolution. I’m a great believer in the idea that those with skin in the game, those that know their communities, make much better decisions than people sitting in Westminster and Whitehall.”[5]
Labour’s landslide victory came as national co-production week drew to a close, and since then I’ve been reflecting on the concept of ‘service’ and how important it is in terms of thinking about, and describing, the relationship between government and citizens.
Service implies the humility, listening, grace and care Brigid mentioned in her tweet. It invites a focus on ‘what matters to you?’, a dynamic where people – not process – take a lead role. It requires a shift in power, the transfer of control. Necessitates vulnerability, honesty and curiosity. And it emphasises the importance and value of equal and reciprocal relationships.
All this does, of course, apply just as much to local government too. As Lord Justice Munby famously said, “the local authority is a servant not a master, a truth which on occasions is too easily overlooked” – a quote beautifully stitched by George Julian, prompting Steve Broach KC to say ‘I’d like it stitched on every town hall door…”
In a related blog post, George includes this longer Munby quote:
“Moreover, the assertion or assumption, however formulated, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the relationship between a local authority and those, like A and C and their carers, who it is tasked to support – a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between the State and the citizen. People in the situation of A and C, together with their carers, look to the State – to a local authority – for the support, the assistance and the provision of the services to which the law, giving effect to the underlying principles of the Welfare State, entitles them. They do not seek to be “controlled” by the State or by the local authority. And it is not for the State in the guise of a local authority to seek to exercise such control. The State, the local authority, is the servant of those in need of its support and assistance, not their master.”
Lord Justice Munby [6]
The concept of service and the relationship it implies is something that has been overlooked in too many aspects of local government. Too many public servants have assumed the role of expert / gatekeeper / master, with learned experience eclipsing and trampling lived experience. Too many citizens – people we serve – have been relegated to the anonymous, passive role of ‘service user’. To consumers of ‘care services’ delivered like pizza (but without the choice). Too many decisions have been made about people, without them. Too many relationships with individuals and families and communities have been damaged or destroyed.
I do however believe the tide is slowly turning. The cynic in me may well suggest that this is largely due to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) requirement that ‘coproduction is embedded throughout the local authority’s work’.[7] In fact, I’ve already suggested as much in this blog post: Co-production: words that make me go hmmm… But even if the stick is sometimes bigger than the carrot, I do think there is an increasing recognition of the importance and value of replacing doing to and for, and focusing instead on working with – and even better, ‘doing by’ – people and communities.
There’s a danger though, that we put all our energy into writing transformation strategies and co-production charters, appointing leads and creating boards and steering groups, and still retain our comfortable and controlling role, distant and detached. That we forget that it’s equal and reciprocal relationships that matter most. The relationship between worker and citizen that ‘sets the scope’[8], and the connections and relationships within families and communities that ensure people thrive.
If we really want to shift to more human, relational ways of working, we’d do well to reorientate our thinking and our practice back to service. And to adopt Cormac Russell’s concept of ‘serving while walking backwards’ – fulfilling our role as enablers and connectors, creating the spaces for listening, and joining the dots “in a way that reveals community abundance, not abandonment.” [9]
In a way that offers hope to us all.
“Service is a relationship between equals: our service strengthens us as well as others. Fixing and helping are draining, and over time we may burn out, but service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will renew us. In helping we may find a sense of satisfaction; in serving we find a sense of gratitude.”
Rachel Naomi Remen [10]
References
[1] Helping, Fixing or Serving?, Rachel Naomi Remen, Shambhala Sun, September 1999 (reprinted with permission on dailygood.org).
[2] Gosh, Starmer’s speech was spot on… Sarah Smith, Twitter, 5 July 2024
[3] I’m relieved to hear the words…, Brigid Russell, Twitter, 5 July 2024
[4] Keir Starmer’s first speech as Prime Minister: 5 July 2024, Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street and The Rt Hon Keir Starmer, GOV.UK, 5 July 2024
[5] “Economic growth is the main mission of this Labour government of 2024…”, Sky News, Twitter, 8 July 2024
[6] Stitching Lord Justice Munby – a collective #craftivism action, George Julian, 10 April 2018
[7] Assessment framework for local authority assurance, Care Quality Commission, November 2023
[8] ‘Citizen/ Caseworker relationship sets the scope’ is one of the five principles of the Changing Futures Northumbria Liberated Method
[9] Rekindling democracy: the professional’s guide to working in citizen space. Cormac Russell, Cascade Books, 2020
[10] Helping, Fixing or Serving?, Rachel Naomi Remen, Shambhala Sun, September 1999 (reprinted on dailygood.org).
Rewriting social care 
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