Total Place: is it for everyone?

Senior public managers have welcomed changes in the budget that will "really help" in managing tough times - but there is still debate about how much the government's Total Place programme will contribute to cost-savings. As politicians, including Edward Leigh, who has chaired the Commons public accounts committee since 2001 and who has written an open letter on how Whitehall could save "billions of pounds", continue to insist that savings in public budgets can be made with no harm to frontline services, senior public managers are assessing measures in the budget and the government's Total Place programme that may help in managing tough times ahead. In an interview in today's SocietyGuardian , Stephen Hughes, the chief executive of Birmingham city council, outlines his organisation's "list of principles" that will guide how the council implements its next stage of cuts. Hughes says Birmingham has to find savings of £74m on top of the savings of £67m already identified. But Hughes has also said that several new measures will make a difference in how local authorities manage their long-term finances. This includes the announcement that commissioning powers for skills and employment will be devolved to the city region of Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country. The city region's multi-area agreement already specifies that the central government departments for business and skills and work and pensions will work "to guide" the development of a regional employment and skills strategy and commissioning plan - and last week's budget extended this to include commissioning powers. New freedoms for councils Hughes also welcomes the announcement of pilot schemes for accelerated development zones and new freedoms for councils around the Total Place initiative. Last week, the Treasury announced its plans to conduct a further round of Total Place pilots and to grant more freedoms to the best-performing councils, with plans to remove centrally-ringfenced spending from grants worth £1.3bn, starting in 2011-12. The proposals have been broadly welcomed, but some still want more. John Tizard, director of the centre for public service partnerships at the Local Government Information Unit, said last week that reform needs to move "much further much faster". Lord Bichard, executive director of the Institute for Government, acknowledged last week that some will feel the Treasury announcement does not go far enough. "It does, however, show that government is listening to the feedback from the Total Place pilots (and parallel initiatives) and takes the initiative to a new level," he said. Scepticism remains, however, in some parts of the public sector. Angus Doulton, director of public sector consultancy CDW & Associates, says that what works in one area will not necessarily work in another. He points out that identifying possible savings through Total Place in Birmingham, for example, may not offer much of a carrot to other authorities. "Birmingham could always have saved itself that amount of money just by managing itself more efficiently," he argues. Similarly, some councils will be better-placed than others to save money by selling assets. Doulton has come up with a list of 10 cuts councils could make to save money - but are unlikely to implement. (see below). Council cuts by Angus Doulton As the cuts regime begins to bite, there are major things local authorities could do to save money now and for ever. Here is a list of 10 they could do, but won't. 1. Scrap county hall. Despite the fact that they are constantly talking about new 'cheaper' ways of working, the vast majority of authorities work from buildings that are not, in all modern terms, fit for purpose and are hugely wasteful. County hall is at the top of the tree. Town halls and civic centres follow. 2. Stop having meetings. Local government has a culture of holding unnecessary meetings that decide nothing. In terms of 'people time' the cost is enormous. 3. Use technology well. Almost no local authority uses the technology they have already got as well as it could be used. 4. Design work by starting from what customers need. Doing that effectively requires change. Abandon top-down hierarchies in favour of cheaper, more effective ways of working. Cutting one, redundant, senior manager is more effective than cutting 10 frontline workers. 5. Stop outsourcing to the private sector. Whatever else it may be, history has shown that it is never cheaper nor more efficient. Unless you fudge the figures. 6. Stop behaving as if the way to manage a budget is to make short-term cuts irrespective of their effect on the rest of the system (if there is a system). 7. Stop thinking that the only way to save money is to cut staff – especially in areas where doing so will add to the long-term unemployed. 8. Cancel all planned procurements that do not improve the system. Only procure things that do. Concentrate harder on making fewer procurements deliver more. 9. Take on frontline service delivery from central government, for example, Job Centres Plus (It's true that the main saving here would be to central government). Prove that local government could do it better. 10. Make local area agreements and local partnerships count. Angus Doulton is director of CDW & Associates, which has been in involved in local government since 1991