The recent snowy weather has perfectly illustrated a point raised before Christmas in the CIPFA /SOLACE report which looked at ways public services could cope with an economic downturn. One of their suggestions was to redefine the relationship between the citizen and the state or, to put it another way, suggest that certain things are personal responsibilities. The recent icy spell has demonstrated what people feel about this. Various commentators have lambasted public services for not being able to keep roads and pavements clear. They have compared this with other countries that do things so much better. However it is in these comparisons that this definition of what is the state responsibility and what is the individual’s responsibility is best illustrated. Writing in The Times, one correspondent suggested that, “In Finland when it snows we simply change the tyres on our cars and off we go”.  What he didn’t say was that the council brought around a set of new snow tyres so they could get to work. Furthermore, in Finland nobody would dream of going out in the winter without warm clothing, hot drink, a spade and various other accoutrements in their car. Here if one gets stuck, it is somehow the responsibility of the local authority.

 

This debate has been further played out in the pages of the York local paper, The Press. Two camps have been debating the tricky issue of clearing the pavements. On the one hand there are a group of people who suggest that the responsibility for the pavement outside your house is, and has always been, the responsibility of the householder. They suggest that in the past it was quite normal for people to clear the bit of path outside their house and to pop round and help out a neighbour. They suggest this is a good thing and that the council cannot be expected to do everything.

 

The second camp says that all pavements, roads and for that matter most other things, are the responsibility of the council and it is a clear scandal that every inch of the pavement, pathway and road has not been gritted and cleared on each occasion that it has snowed. For them the killer argument is, “I pay my council tax and that’s what I pay my council tax for, to have my roads cleared”. Of course it is not what they pay their council tax for but the idea that taxes are somehow direct payments for services received has considerable traction.

 

This debate is more important than simply one about icing. Was there ever a golden age where people were more community minded, more likely to see things as their responsibility and not expect the state to do everything? It would  come as an astonishment to any citizen of a Scandinavian country that somehow bad weather and our response to it is purely a state responsibility and not an individual one. As 2010 progresses I suspect there will be many more debates concerning that which the state ought to provide and that which we ought to do for ourselves. But the early cold snap illustrates the point well.