Suffolk County Council agrees radical plan to divest bulk of services
Councillors at Suffolk County Council last night agreed radical plans for the authority to become an “enabling council”, with the focus on being a slimmed down strategic body that commissions the private sector, the voluntary sector and community groups to deliver services on its behalf.
If implemented, Suffolk’s New Strategic Direction will lead to the transfer of the vast majority of services it currently provides. The scheme is designed to cut the local authority's £1.1bn budget by 30%, and could see thousands of jobs put at risk.
A report prepared for the meeting claimed the characteristics of the new council would include being:
- Smaller: “employing less staff”
- Focused: “achieving the Suffolk Story and giving up non-priorities”
- Collaborative: “invisible organisational boundaries with health, other councils, police and voluntary sector”
- Leaner: “less tiers of middle management, a smaller strategic centre [and] less ‘process maintainers’ across all directorates”
- Able to support area based working: “particularly in deprived communities”
- Bolder and less risk adverse
- More customer focused: “less time spent in partnership meetings, more time spent face to face with customers”
The next stage of the process will be to develop the exact shape and functions of the “Strategic Council”, the approach to engaging communities and developing community capacity, and a strategy and programme for divestment.
The report before the council said no alternative to the New Strategic Direction was recommended as the principles within the model were still at a conceptual stage. “However, there will be choices to make in future about which services to divest early, how and in what type of enterprise,” it added.
The “Strategic Council” is expected to have a number of roles: enabling communities to do more for themselves “through local budgets and decision-making”; providing strong political governance and leadership; taking strategic decisions on the future of Suffolk, including determining priorities and funding; influencing national government; supporting people “to help themselves”; and supporting “the growth of markets in what have up until now been public sector services”. The papers also suggested that Suffolk was keen to pioneer place-based budgets.
The county council plans to encourage a supplier to develop a solution providing back office functions to divested services and other organisations such as GP consortia, the newly elected police commissioner, academy schools, social enterprises and so on.
In relation to statutory duties, the background report said: “The council will retain a range of statutory duties across a range of policy areas – including in education, adult care, children’s services and so forth. Where the council retained statutory duties, it would need to ensure it retained the expertise and the levers to be able to ensure it met those duties through management or contractual arrangements, enabling us to fulfil our statutory duties. For example, an effective commissioning function would need to be maintained in the Strategic Council.”
A number of services have been identified as potential early adopters for divestment. They include transactional property, registrars, Suffolk traded services, libraries, highway services, independent living centres, and early years and childcare.
Cllr Jeremy Pembroke, Leader of Suffolk County Council, said: “This decision was made with consideration to the financial deficit in the public sector and the coalition government’s priority to reduce the deficit and the size of the state. The coalition requires lesser government and a bigger society, and Suffolk County Council has responded to this change.”
He added: “Now that Full Council has debated the issue and agreed with the future model for the county council, we can begin to talk with the people of Suffolk so they can be involved in the shaping of services for the future.”
Unions reacted angrily to Suffolk’s decision. Dave Prentis, Unison General Secretary, said: “This is not the way to run council services. There will be no democratic accountability. It is a disgrace that the council has not asked the public, or council workers, what they think.
“Leaving vital services like child protection, home care and support for young people to the vagaries of the market is very dangerous. Services will be sold off to the lowest bidder, starting a race to the bottom. People using local services, and those working to provide them, will pay the price.”
Prentis vowed that Unison would work “with the local community to challenge these damaging plans.”
