A lot of times, residents will talk about public services like the decisions they make are the only ones that matter. We go along with that view when we talk about 'top down' or 'bottom up' approaches to serving, or managing services to, neighbourhoods. It's like we share the same picture in our mind's eye: the leader and chief executive of the Council or the Health Trust sitting at the top... ordinary residents sat at the bottom. But that view of society is mad, isn't it? I mean, there's nothing affects a neighbourhood so much as the day to day decisions of the people that live there.

There are at least two reasons why talking about 'top down' and 'bottom up' makes no sense. First, we the people - supposedly at the bottom of the heap - are voters. That means we are in charge. I admit, if you listen to politicians talking on election night about 'taking cities' and 'winning control', you might be forgiven for thinking that they are conquerors, or gangsters, rather than humble public servants. But remember those elections nights when a particularly puffed-up politician is given their marching orders by us - the voters. There's nothing so humbling as seeing the ballots stacked against you!

For another reason it makes no sense to talk of top-down and bottom-up, you need to go to well-off neighbourhoods - Edgbaston, Moseley or Sutton Coldfield. People in those places generally don't carry on as if the Council ran their lives. The Council is just the thing that sometimes doesn't empty the bins properly. But look, even if they never emptied the bins, people woul'd survive... they'd just chuck the bags in the back of the people carrier and take the rubbish down the tip themselves. Likewise: long waiting lists for NHS care don't have much sting when you can dip into your savings and go private. But people are people whether they are rich or poor. So, if well-off people see public servants as servants rather than masters than why shouldn't people in poorer neighbourhoods?

Of course, public servants do have more potential power over people who depend on their services. If you live in a council house then they decide when, and whether, your repairs get done, for example. But just because there is potential for abuse of power doesn't make such abuse inevitable. And it certainly doesn't make it tolerable, let alone morally OK. Let's be straight: treating people in poor neighbourhoods like public services are in charge sucks! It sucks for the people that live there. It sucks for the vast majority of dedicated public servants (including the politicians). After all,you can work hard but at the end of the day you know you need service users to take some responsibility and power into their own hands too. The abuse of public sector power sucks for people in well-off areas too. They pay, through tax, for public sector empire building.

So, let's stop talking about 'top down' and 'bottom up' for a bit and look at an alternative. I'd like to suggest 'inside' and 'outside'. 'Inside' means working in an office; being on the inside of a bureaucratic organisation; understanding its rules. 'Outside' means living in the real world. It means being a service user, a taxpayer and a voter. Often it means hanging around in waiting rooms or on the end of a helpline. I say there needs to be a balance of power and responsibility between inside and outside. Outsiders pay the wages of insiders - we need them to do a good job for us. Insiders can do it all on their own - they need us outsiders to pull or weight and take some responsibility too.

Instead of 'top down', we should think of things as 'inside out'. If the people inside public services appear to be running neighbourhoods, that's inside-out thinking. Now, if you find the top you're wearing is on inside-out, then you find an opportunity to take it off, give it a shake out and put it back on the right way round. It should be the same with public services: the ones that are guilty of inside out thinking should be taken up and given a shake out before being set back to work. Can you think of any services that show signs of being 'inside out'?