My chief executive thinks the Total Place initiative is a total waste of time and he is not alone.
We already acknowledge the total public sector budget in a locality is an impressively large figure and that it would be a good idea to better coordinate services, agree priorities and pool recourses. We don't need to spend time working out how large that figure is, nor exactly how it is spent.
I can see why central government is so keen on Total Place. Knowing exactly how big the total public sector budget pot is in any given locality allows them to boast of their generosity. Mapping services provides example of duplication and allows them to claim the best use is not being made of the money they provide.
If public sector agencies like the NHS and local government can't get their act together locally, runs the argument, then let's take out of the local budget the money that would be saved by better coordinated services and thus force local bodies to work together. This also has the benefit of reducing overall public sector spending.
Do the local authorities involved in the Total Place pilots really believe they can use the "evidence" to persuade Whitehall to devolve more power to them?
We know Whitehall operates in silo, with each Whitehall department holding different sections of the public sector accountable. It does this by designing performance indicators and setting targets and ringfencing funds. In so doing, individual departments pull and push in their own way, irrespective of what other departments are doing.
We also know that when budgets are tight the tendency is to retreat to core business and shunt costs across service, department and agency silos.
Perhaps it is not surprising that viewed from the front line, Total Place seems a total waste of time.
