Total Place

Seamless services, local control and cost savings?

Author: Tom Shakespeare, David Parsons, John Seddon, Des McConaghy   |   06/11/2009

In this edition of Policy Platform we discuss how local authorities can deliver improved services around locally determined priorities. This is in the context of the ‘Total Place’ pilot initiative currently underway which is looking to examine the total spend of all agencies within an area to aim to reduce cost and bureaucracy.

The first article is by Cllr David Parsons, the leader of Leicestershire County Council, which is a pilot area for the ‘Total Place’ initiative. He suggests that a focus on partnership with fewer directives from central government is the best way to shape services around locally determined priorities.

Cllr Parsons argues that ‘count’ element of Total Place should not be underestimated as it has highlighted that funding passed down from central government through various quangos and departments accounts for approximately 20% lost to bureaucracy at each stage of funding allocation. He also estimates that approximately œ14m has been spent by both central and local government in complying with various assessment regimes.

In the second article by John Seddon, the author of a book on systems thinking in the public sector, he argues that a focus on costs alone misses the point. He suggests that cost savings will fall out of a focus on outcomes rather than a focus on costs in itself. He describes a system whereby organisations focus on the ‘demand’ of the user rather than structures. In a similar vein to Cllr Parsons, he argues that “the principal causes of sub-optimisation are in the top-down promulgated designs with their associated structures, budgets, requirements and measures.”

There is no dispute to that conclusion in the third article by Des McConaghy, a public servant who served under the Heath and Callaghan administrations. He suggests that the constitutional weakness of local government in the UK has undermined the kind of radical ‘total approach’ he argues for. He warns that the ‘total approach’ to the public sector is not new, and that when we were here before, nothing really changed.

There are a number of lessons to draw from these articles. Principally, we learn that whatever the benefits of the total place initiative in the coming years, we need to be aware that this is by no means the panacea for local government and the public sector. It may be able to highlight cost, but we are yet to see whether a focus on cost will deliver not only savings but improvements in outcomes and the kind of joined up approach many people at the local level are hoping for.