Nothing to fear in the star chamber

An axe-wielding chancellor. A public sector facing a death of a thousand cuts. Now star chambers, a political throwback to the 15th century. The new Con-Lib coalition, it seems, has come over all middle ages. The modern incarnation of the star chamber was announced by George Osborne last month, with cabinet members required to justify departmental spends before a scrutiny panel of senior politicians and public servants. The original chambers – set up to prosecute and punish the powerful – became synonymous with arbitrary justice, lacking juries, witnesses and rights of appeal. The government sees its 2010 version as an instrument of efficiency rather than oppression, but after June's emergency budget, both the ministers expected to preside over £9bn worth of cuts and the public sector expected to knuckle under them may be forgiven for thinking wistfully of the branding iron. Star chambers are having a positive effect in the wider public sector, however. NHS East Lancashire uses them primarily to assess and improve performance. Where targets aren't being met, members of a 12-strong panel of senior managers and executive directors meet with service leads to review and suggest improvements. Potential savings scheme are also assessed, with managers discussing proposed cuts in expenditure, their viability and risks, with executive directors and the finance directorate. Andy Pickering, associate director of development, says while star chambers are "not a panacea", their clear advantage for the PCT is the level of scrutiny they allow, providing assurance that recovery work is being undertaken with "a suitable level of rigour and robustness". Shining a spotlight on certain areas "They shine a spotlight on certain areas. Managers were initially sceptical, but scrutinising the work being undertaken allows us to provide them with support, as well as let them share ideas and get objective input in terms of ideas and approaches." Northamptonshire county council introduced star chambers in 2008, with the expenditure decisions of its six directorates filtered through a number of smaller ones before passing before a consolidated star chamber in the run-up to the setting of the annual budget. Damon Lawrenson, the council's assistant chief executive responsible for finance and commercial management, says these "essential tools" afford council politicians and officers the opportunity to do a fundamental line-by-line review of services and expenditure. "By the time the budget is tabled by cabinet, everyone involved will have been debating the issues for six months. It will be deliverable and ratified because every facet will already have been challenged. Star chambers enhance the robustness of decision-making." He adds that more informed and collegiate decision-making has helped alleviate feelings of guilt over making cuts. "We are effectively sharing out the burden of responsibility of making these tough decisions; there is no more setting of budgets behind closed doors. There is also cross-challenging, since cabinet members are welcome to sit in on star chambers for directorates that aren't their own." Such is the success of Northamptonshire's model – savings of approximately £25m a year – that Lawrenson says he has been approached by other county councils eager to learn more. Tony Travers of the LSE says assessing spending decisions on a case by case basis is a more intellectually coherent way of managing efficiency savings at a local government level than wholesale cuts across the board, but questions whether its implementation will be any easier. "People in Britain understand the need for a reduction in government spending, and there is probably a shared acceptance that some public expenditure will need to be reduced, but that's where agreement ends. Providing a major fundamental review of all that's being spent, the star chamber is a mechanism designed to make difficult decisions and to impose the logic behind them on the services concerned. It has quasi-judicial power and can override the normal rules of the game – crucially there is no right of appeal – offering a brutal capacity to function and deliver change."