Total Place – Carpe diem!
Author: Tom Shakespeare, eGov Monitor |
Total Place is a big opportunity to radically shake-up public services, but we face a missed opportunity if the Treasury cannot be persuaded soon that the radical option is a political reality.
Failure to do so is likely to have long-term damaging effects for local residents.
Much ink has been spilled over the issue of Total Place, which has recently undergone its initial pilot phase to uncover the total costs of public services in local areas. Now, many are talking about it as the panacea for joined up public services in local areas, with ‘Total Place 2’ being touted as the next logical step.
Since its inception, Total Place has divided debate and caused much excitement and concern in equal measure over where it could lead public services and local government in the future.
The potential of the total approach is enormous with opportunities for pooled budgets, more control over local funding, a broader influence and commissioning role for local government, as well as room for experimentation and innovation around early intervention schemes, innovative commissioning models and local variation in the delivery of public services.
The real issue which underlines the future direction of Total Place is to what extent the Treasury is willing to let go of the purse strings, and what can be done to persuade them to do so. Underlining this point about making the case to the Treasury is the need for local government to provide unambiguous evidence about what can be done, and how much can be saved to the bottom line by doing so.
In a recent Localis survey of council leaders and chief executives, 56% thought that Total Place would help their Council achieve their strategic priorities, with 24% having mixed opinions, and 20% negative about its prospects. So while 80% are unsure or broadly in favour, there is a major gap between the excited potential and political reality. If it is to become a political reality the local government community must do more, quickly, to turn the vision into a reality.
If the Treasury cannot be persuaded about the next stage of Total Place, the consequences could be dire for local residents, and an opportunity missed for local government.
Those who have argued against Total Place have done so because they fear it is simply a cost counting, and ultimately a cost-cutting exercise. They fear that it will go beyond removing duplication and waste to undermine customer demand. In short, there is a fear that public services will be cut in the same way that they were created – through silos and economies of scale – ultimately leading to worse outcomes, and often for those most in need.
The need for cutting costs is not now a contentious issue, but how it is done and where the axe will fall is a key dividing line for politicians. Both Labour and the Conservatives have talked about protecting certain budgets, but without detailed figures on where other cuts will be made. This could have a hugely disproportionate impact for a whole range of other services in the local area, taking little account for what local demand actually tells them. It also has a potentially damaging effect on early intervention initiatives and other innovative approaches to deal with the fundamental problems facing society.
This is just one of the many challenges that the total approach faces. Others include dealing with the vested interests within the current system, the porosity of boundaries, and most importantly – whether economies of scale lead to more efficient public services in the long run, or whether they create end loaded costs somewhere else in the system.
Given the nature and scale of some of these questions it is unsurprising that the Treasury may be a little hesitant. With Sir Michael Bichard’s relative hesitance to talk about the future prospects of Total Place, it seems as though much persuasion is still to be done.
Therefore the question which remains is how the Treasury can be persuaded that Total Place can be more than a cost-counting exercise. It might be that the best way forward may not be a blanket uniform approach to public service reform, and different places might have different approaches. Or maybe reform can be phased in over time. We could, for example, see different forms of Total Place in different areas where the evidence was stronger. Or perhaps Total Place could become an opportunity to commission powers and hence funding from central government.
Clearly there is a lot up for grabs for the future of local government and the delivery of public services. Either local authorities seize the day and make the case for more powers and funding to be devolved to the local level, or the opportunity will be missed – or more likely, it will turn into a cost cutting exercise which will have damaging consequences for public service users and the long term health of the economy.
Carpe Diem!