SPOTLIGHT

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Give us the freedom to lead


Public services need to be redesigned and reshaped and greater efficiencies realised. But unless the constraints imposed by the current system of funding streams, targets and inspections are removed, then these targets may prove to be impossible to achieve writes David Parsons, chairman of the LGA Improvement Board.

There is no doubt that whoever wins the general election is going to face the most difficult set of public finances any government has seen for 40 years. This year, we face a budget deficit of £175 billion, or 12.4% of GDP.

This structural deficit is not simply going to go away. From sustained growth in public spending over the last decade, most commentators are now predicting a lengthy period of spending constraint and real term cuts.

Nowhere will the impact of this be felt more sharply than at the local level – the point of delivery.

Councils are already responding, driving forward year-on-year service improvements and efficiency savings. Over 2005-09 councils made £5.5bn efficiency savings – way beyond Government targets.

But even this is not enough. The complexity of the social, economic and environmental challenges we face along with the severity of the economic situation demand radical new solutions.

Public services need to be redesigned and reshaped around citizens and consumers; further efficiency gains need to be driven out by greater joined up working across public sector partners at local level and innovation and creativity must be released by putting users and frontline staff at the heart of service design and delivery.

Locally-elected politicians are committed to achieving and the Total Place pilots, of which my own authority, Leicestershire County Council, is one, are exploring some of the practical barriers and solutions. It is already clear from Total Place that there is huge scope for improvement – numerous organisations are spending public money in the same area and often on the same things; there is evidence of significant overlap in management and administration costs and that there can be excessive waste on reporting and performance regimes.

But it is also clear that this potential will not be realised unless we can remove the constraints imposed by the current system of funding streams, targets and inspections.  Not only do they unnecessarily restrict the way councils and their partners can respond to the challenges they face locally, but the compliance costs they involve are huge and the resources could be better deployed.

The National Audit Office has estimated that the cost of monitoring and inspecting local government is in the region of £2bn. In my own area we have estimated the cost of complying with nationally required performance monitoring and inspection at over £7m per annum.

The way we regulate and inspect public services is simply unaffordable in the current climate and it has to be reformed. In its place we need a more cost-effective and streamlined framework that “frees up” local public sector partners to work together more effectively whilst at the same time ensures they are driven by and responsive to the needs of their communities.

At the LGA we think this new accountability framework involves:

- Arrangements that reinforce localities’ ability to set local priorities, with an emphasis on accountability to local people, rather than performance reporting to government;

- Rebalancing the focus of performance monitoring and reporting with a greater emphasis on locality self evaluation and peer challenge along with a resulting reduction in the burden of performance monitoring and inspection by government and the inspectorates – freeing councils and their partners to focus on local priorities and enhance local accountabilities;

- Local government’s direction of its own support to deliver ambitious efficiency savings and drive its own improvement. As we pursue the arguments for further devolution of improvement funding to localities we must also explore how best to coordinate and deliver improvement support to local partnerships.

Lack of legal powers

Within this broad framework we also need to ensure that councils have the legal powers they require. The recent Court of Appeal judgement (the London Authorities Mutual Ltd or LAML case) has created wide concern within local government about the scope of the existing “well-being” power and served to renew interest in the idea of a power of general competence for local government.

This would be broader and create greater certainty. It would support the role of councils as government and not simply administration, in taking distinctive decisions to provide for the needs of the place the council represents, and not simply to administer the decisions of central government.  

A wide permissive power is essential to encourage innovation by councils, including new approaches to better value for money. At the LGA we are now involved in more detailed work about the form it would take but it is also vital that we see action from government and Parliament on this soon.  

As the general election approaches we have a real opportunity over the next few months to streamline the current system of targets, performance monitoring and inspection, to secure real freedoms that will help us respond more effectively to the challenges we face locally.

The recent LGA publication “Freedom to Lead” describes the work we are doing to develop this new accountability framework and sets out some of the key issues we are considering. The proposals we develop need to be informed by your knowledge, experience and ideas – they will be the stronger for it.

Please send your views to me at the LGA at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Cllr David Parsons CBE is chairman of the LGA Improvement Board