Jon Rouse, chief executive of the London borough of Croydon, said recently that many people still viewed the latest local services initiative, Total Place, as nothing more than "the umpteenth weighing of the proverbial pig" [Click here for an account of a previous initiative in the 1970s]. They believed measurement, rather than genuine change, was the order of the day, he admitted.
But Rouse, as the leader of one of the 13 areas piloting Total Place, remains optimistic that bringing together local bodies in an individual area can identify wasteful duplication, and allow services to be delivered more coherently and more cheaply.
Doing so is vital if local bodies are to get more control over public spending, experts say. "Analysis alone doesn't help [devolution]," says Steve Beet, head of local government for accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, "but it gives confidence at the centre."
And as central government struggles to get the budget deficit under control, it will be looking to local councils to cut costs – and sharply.
"The point is the scale of change [needed]," says John Atkinson, the head of the Leadership Centre for Local Government, which is running the pilots. "The scale of potential financial difference is that strong, that the way to get at it requires looking at things really quite differently."
The pilots have just submitted their interim findings, and will in February next year present full reports to be fed into the budget. Each is focusing on just one small area of spending, hoping to identify lessons that can be applied more widely.
In the Manchester city region pilot, more than a dozen local bodies are looking at how to improve services for the under-fives. Katherine Fairclough, a director at Wigan Council, says "a lot" of different groups deal with very young children – health visitors, social workers, midwives, voluntary groups – and their work must be joined up.
So what does she expect the pilot to identify? "The least you should expect is co-location and joint working," Fairclough says. At the moment, that's limited to health and social services workers, but she wants fire and police officers involved as well.
The pilot could break down professional barriers, she says. "The other end, which is not well tested, is whether you could have generic professionals who could do a whole range of interventions." Outsourcing council services is also "clearly on the agenda", she says, although there is "no blueprint" in mind.
More ambitiously, Fairclough envisages a forum in which the heads of local bodies would jointly take procurement decisions. That doesn't have to go as far as pooling budgets – "but they come together to commission services".
Lost in transmission gaps
Up the M62 in Bradford, the pilot organisations are tackling what could be called 'lost in transmission' gaps – young offenders leaving prison, elderly people coming out of hospital, young people leaving care.
Becky Hellard, Bradford's director of corporate services, would, like Fairclough, be happy to see an overarching body commissioning services – but points out that handing over control of spending "does have implications for individual democratic organisations".
And, she warns: "Local government is used to working in partnership. It is not used to challenging central government.
"The big question in our mind is, when we challenge DWP [the Department for Work and Pensions], will it [the devolution of power] happen? When we challenge the Home Office, will it happen?"
Total Place may create winners and losers, she adds. A new way of delivering services could save the probation service £2m – but cost the local council £1m. "How do you get this real pooling across different agendas?" Hellard asks.
Beet admits such spending decisions are "a real dilemma" for the Treasury.
"There's a really important role here for the Treasury spending teams to say to Department A, 'Actually, we are going to increase your budget by a certain amount,' and at the same time, say to Department B, 'We're going to decrease your budget, because this other department is going to do things that will affect your area.'"
Some central targets will have to be reformed, Atkinson adds – so that, for example, the heads of health trusts can be fired for not collaborating properly with councils on teenage pregnancy, not just for missing their MRSA targets.
Then there's the eternal question of accountability, of how ministers, always in the firing line when things go wrong, can be persuaded to hand over control.
He admits that Whitehall must "play ball" or the pilots will fail, but points to the "active" involvement of a group of senior government officials, chaired by Sir Michael Bichard – and a ministerial group bringing together the Treasury, the Cabinet Office and Communities and Local Government – as proof of high-level support.
Total Place is, says Atkinson, "apolitical", equally important to Labour and Conservatives. "There is no doubt from both of them that this is exactly what we have to do."
Rouse agrees. In a recent newspaper column, he said either party would pursue "an almost identical agenda" at the local level. Pleading for Total Place to be given a chance, he added: "We might start by weighing a pig, but we might end up with a whole new animal."
From Whitehall Watch
From Bubb's Blog
From Flip Chart Fairy Tales
