By Vivienne Russell
22 October 2009
Local government should be in the vanguard of public service reform and can look forward to enhanced freedoms and flexibilities to provide it, Communities Secretary John Denham has said.
In a speech to the Royal Society of Arts, Denham sought to establish Labour as the only true party of localism.
The present government had begun five ‘significant’ programmes, which had the potential to transform the provision of local services, he said. ‘It is only when you put them together that you understand how radical the government agenda is,’ Denham told his audience on October 21.
The programmes included Total Place, which aims to improve services and save money by viewing the totality of all public funding coming into an area, and the extension of councillors’ scrutiny powers to all local public services.
An ‘open data policy’ would help improve standards by placing information in the hands of service users, and could generate savings of as much as £1bn, he said.
Denham also called for a ‘renaissance of municipal enterprise’, with councils taking advantage of their trading powers to generate surpluses.
‘We might also explore more innovative ways of funding investment – and consider new vehicles for local government to invest, for example, in social housing,’ he said.
There were other hints that local government could look forward to greater liberation from Whitehall. Public services needed to be underpinned by a system of national entitlements to minimum service standards. ‘As we start to develop the concept of entitlements in practice, we will need to go further still in freeing councils from targets and inspection, to give them the flexibility they need to respond locally.’
The provision of social care, for example, could vary between inner-city areas and rural settings. ‘It is possible to promote innovative and creative approaches to service delivery without resulting in an unacceptable “postcode lottery”,’ he said.
Denham attacked Tory pledges on localism for failing to include national minimum standards, which would make postcode lotteries a ‘founding principle’ of Conservatism in local government.
‘David Cameron’s commitment to allow local councils to do whatever they want as long as it is within the law turns out to be the green light for [Conservative-run] Barnet’s Ryanair council, in which citizens have to pay twice – once in tax and once in an extra tax – to get a decent service.’
Commenting on the speech, local government expert Tony Travers told Public Finance that Denham was ‘the right minister, too late’. He added: ‘People are going to look at the litter of initiatives over the past 13 years and say it doesn’t look like localism. The removal of school and planning powers from local authority control are two massive counter examples.’
22 October 2009
Local government should be in the vanguard of public service reform and can look forward to enhanced freedoms and flexibilities to provide it, Communities Secretary John Denham has said.
In a speech to the Royal Society of Arts, Denham sought to establish Labour as the only true party of localism.
The present government had begun five ‘significant’ programmes, which had the potential to transform the provision of local services, he said. ‘It is only when you put them together that you understand how radical the government agenda is,’ Denham told his audience on October 21.
The programmes included Total Place, which aims to improve services and save money by viewing the totality of all public funding coming into an area, and the extension of councillors’ scrutiny powers to all local public services.
An ‘open data policy’ would help improve standards by placing information in the hands of service users, and could generate savings of as much as £1bn, he said.
Denham also called for a ‘renaissance of municipal enterprise’, with councils taking advantage of their trading powers to generate surpluses.
‘We might also explore more innovative ways of funding investment – and consider new vehicles for local government to invest, for example, in social housing,’ he said.
There were other hints that local government could look forward to greater liberation from Whitehall. Public services needed to be underpinned by a system of national entitlements to minimum service standards. ‘As we start to develop the concept of entitlements in practice, we will need to go further still in freeing councils from targets and inspection, to give them the flexibility they need to respond locally.’
The provision of social care, for example, could vary between inner-city areas and rural settings. ‘It is possible to promote innovative and creative approaches to service delivery without resulting in an unacceptable “postcode lottery”,’ he said.
Denham attacked Tory pledges on localism for failing to include national minimum standards, which would make postcode lotteries a ‘founding principle’ of Conservatism in local government.
‘David Cameron’s commitment to allow local councils to do whatever they want as long as it is within the law turns out to be the green light for [Conservative-run] Barnet’s Ryanair council, in which citizens have to pay twice – once in tax and once in an extra tax – to get a decent service.’
Commenting on the speech, local government expert Tony Travers told Public Finance that Denham was ‘the right minister, too late’. He added: ‘People are going to look at the litter of initiatives over the past 13 years and say it doesn’t look like localism. The removal of school and planning powers from local authority control are two massive counter examples.’
