Social Contract: outcome-based planning

Our David Mackay memorial lecture on 10 December 2018 was entitled “Practical Implementation of Sustainable Smart Cities”, presented by Christopher Choa, AECOM, who considered this from the point of view of the social contract.

The Contract

Mr Choa first considered the nature of a contract as providing mutual benefit to the parties and involving a ‘meeting of minds’. There have been contracts involving obligations and cooperation between different levels of society since medieval times but the concept of the ‘social contract’ was introduced by Rousseau: institutions and people had mutual benefits and rights. Under this type of contract, if the institutions abuse their power then the people overthrow them. Rights are gained in return for respecting and defending the rights of others. Freedom is surrendered in exchange for protection of the remaining rights.

The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality in society. At 0, all have equal wealth; at 1 a single person has all the wealth. A smart city contains lots of technology but we need to ask why it is there and whether it works for all. We can map the technology and see how each part affects the others. We can rate performance for various aspects such and energy or water and check these against outcomes. Our criteria can be outcome-based for example raising reading ability or environmental performance. Then we work backwards to see how to plan the smart city.

Models

Chris Choa then considered the links between the different players. For example, the ‘commissioner’ such as government provides funds but expects programme delivery. The beneficiary provides social outcomes. Another model includes investors, making results-based payments and giving cash to providers for programme delivery. This can be a virtuous circle where cost savings and benefits are shared.

The model of a representative democracy is now being questioned and other models could be considered. In Switzerland there is direct democracy via plebiscites and part-time parliamentarians. In Singapore there is a technocracy with a meritocratic civil service providing scenario planning to Government. These could be combined in a direct technocracy with plebiscites providing the means to deliver outcomes.

What is the role of the professional in this? The legal definition is “having a client and putting the client’s needs above your own and public needs above both”.

• View accompanying presentation (pdf 1.5MB)