Give Total Place a chance

Potential gains from the Total Place pilots are jeopardised by Whitehall departments' refusal to work together, one of the government's most influential advisers has said. Sir Michael Bichard, who is speaking at the Guardian's Public Services Summit this Thursday, said the Total Place pilots, which examined how local bodies can work better together, could lead to radical reform of public services. However, he warned: "We all know that this is often prevented by the way in which government and government departments operate." The need for Whitehall departments to collaborate – and thus allow local joint working – must not be "lost sight of", he added. Bichard chairs the high-level officials group overseeing the Total Place pilots, as well as heading up the Institute of Governance. He also ran the local government stream of the operational efficiency programme. Speaking to a local government conference, he said policies, regulations and funding streams were too often designed by departments in isolation. Bichard, who said he had been "banging his head against the door" of central government reform for years, also lamented the absence of parliamentary select committees tackling cross-departmental issues. The public accounts committee had had over 40 meetings last year, but only two had involved questioning officials from more than one department. "The whole of our system is organised departmentally," he said. A recent report by the Institute of Governance, criticising the lack of departmental collaboration, "didn't go down a bomb, which emphasises there is still quite a lot of resistance", he admitted. But neither the looming financial crisis nor the main political problems – notably around climate change – could be dealt with by individual government departments, he said. "I think there's a very good chance now that things are going to change because they have to change. Whichever party wins the election, there's a commitment to change. "But it's not going to be easy," he warned. • Managing public sector information conference, click here for details