Comment

Bringing a fresh focus to public sector business

The Centre for Public Service Partnerships and the Local Government Information Unit have joined forces, calling themselves CPSP@LGiU. This new organisation will work focus on public sector areas such as local and central government, the NHS and education

The establishment of CPSP@LGiU creates a dynamic partnership between two leading thinktanks and research bodies.

The timing of this new enterprise is right given the key issues and challenges facing the public sector and its partners in the business and third sectors.

Increasingly, local authorities and other public bodies recognise that partnership and collaboration are going to be essential for the achievement of their strategies and for maximising their impact.

Andy Sawford

Total Place and inter-agency working, strategic commissioning and decommissioning, outsourcing partnerships and PPPs and third sector partnerships are increasingly high on the agenda of local authorities and their local partners.

Total Place is identifying the need for a new settlement between Whitehall and localities and the urgency of defining and emphasising the community leadership role of local government – using its democratic legitimacy to shape places and secure the best possible outcomes for communities.

The time is right for an evidence-based understanding of what makes for effective partnership working as the public sector responds to these challenges.

It is vital that the public sector avoids the mistakes of the past and finds appropriate ways of securing value.

Simplistic solutions

Simplistic solutions are unlikely to offer the transformational change required. Partnerships within the public sector and between it and the business and third sectors have to add long term sustainable value.

Democratic accountability and control needs to be strengthened and not thrown aside in the name of "economy and effectiveness". There are lessons to be learnt from other countries.

The public sector and others working with it need to be challenged and new constructive innovative solutions have to be developed, tested and evaluated. There is urgent need for practical ideas, policy and support based on insightful analysis, strategic consultancy and the development of practical ideas, policy and support which challenge under contemporary practice and vested interests.

John Tizard

This is the key reason that the Centre for Public Service Partnerships has moved from the University of Birmingham to partner with the LGiU. We believe that CPSP will better fulfil its commitment to work with the policy and practice communities to improve outcomes by addressing the issues that matter to them and which they have identified. CPSP@LGiU will undertake research, strategic consultancy, policy development and promotion; and work with others.

While it will br less academic in its approach it will continue to work with universities and the partners and retain its independence.

Some of the policy and practice areas that we have identified for early attention include:

• developing a framework for a new central-local covenant – looking at what resources and powers should be devolved to localities and how

• extending the concept and practice of Total Place and the necessary models accountability and governance for localities based on democratic local authorities

• the means of improving public service productivity improvement and outcomes

• strategic commissioning and decommissioning

• embedding personalisation into commissioning and into service provision

• how to engage the workforce and addressing workforce issues in partnerships
• developing new models of service delivery including social enterprise; employee and user cooperatives, mutualism, joint ventures between the business and third sectors, and public trading as well as new forms of outsourcing

• analysing the long term impact of the credit crisis and global recession on PPP and PFI, and identifying new models for capital investment

We hope our partnership will provide a new resource and source of expertise, ideas and challenges to all those focused on public service and public services.

Andy Sawford is chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit; John Tizard remains director of the Centre for Public Service Partnerships, now known as CPSP@LGiU

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