Public services and the consumer: Empowerment or control?

This discussion provides a critical perspective on the growth of consumeris m in social policy and Public life. Debates around consumer and producer in terests are examined before suggesting that a "responsible consumer" has em erged: a service-user increasingly expected to take on a greater role in ma naging the conditions under which services are provided. It is argued that such consumerism, far from empowering the individual consumer, has served t o co-opt service-users into the management of scarcity, rationing, and/or t echnological change. It is further argued, on the basis of empirical observ ations in three public service areas, that different groups of people diffe r in the degree to which they are able, or willing, to take on the new resp onsibilities of the consumer. This is linked to an outline of how further e mpirical research may be developed. A typology is offered which seeks to il luminate the act of consumption-including the importance of language, the i ntroduction of technology and the widening physical separation of producer and consumer. It is suggested that the boundaries between producer and cons umer responsibility are far from settled However, as consumers have been ex pected to take on greater responsibilities, and as the public organisation has become more flexible, we have witnessed a process of producer empowerme nt rather than consumer empowerment.