The need for local government to prove itself
Author: Steven Howell, Localis, in The MJ |
Local authorities have demonstrated many times over that they are able to deliver year-on-year efficiency savings and improve the performance of local services.
As a sector, local government has shown its ability to take on new responsibilities and to successfully integrate these within existing services.
The next big function to transfer to local government is public health, with staff in the process of moving across to councils in preparation for formal handover in 2013.
This should be a cause for celebration – an opportunity to integrate a key element in improving the general wellbeing of residents with council services established for this purpose.
It conjures up images of Joseph Chamberlain-like interventions, of cross-departmental thinking, and the melding of local authority pragmatism with clinical expertise.
Indeed, it is surprising that local authorities weren’t more vocal in welcoming the move.
But, perhaps their cynicism was deserved. Earlier this year, the Department of Health (DoH) announced funding allocations which fell far short of local government’s expectations. Only two-fifths of primate care trust budgets will go to local authorities.
The remainder will be centralised.
More recently, the Local Government Association has been critical of the DoH’s failure to engage with local government in discussing how this budget would be allocated.
Not only that, but there have been rumblings in some quarters about the number of public health staff transferring across to local government, varying massively from area to area, arguably hampering councils’ ability to innovate and integrate public health staff with other teams.
Given that the transfer is supposed to be a big step forward for localism, this lack of local flexibility is disappointing.
Despite the best of intentions, it seems that creeping centralisation has tarnished a positive policy move. Better to have some functions localised than none at all, but questions remain over whether there is enough resource being devolved locally to cover statutory responsibilities, let alone make the most of opportunities to improve local public services.
Ultimately, the transfer is a work in progress and the sector can but hope that this is the first step towards further devolution.
To avoid a repeat of the public health transfer saga, initiatives such as community budgets and City Deals, if successful, might just change attitudes in some corners of Whitehall.
For this to happen, the various pilot areas will need to demonstrate that ability to deliver locally once more, with feeling. Hopefully, Whitehall will be watching.