By David Williams
12 November 2009
A Right-leaning think-tank and leading consultancy have recommended that councils cull spending by 20% by 2011 through doing less, outsourcing more and becoming more financially innovative.
As they did so, Conservative leader David Cameron launched a sustained attack on ‘big government’, championing outsourcing to individuals and local providers.
The bottom line: a vision for local government was published jointly by Localis and management consultancy KPMG on November 9.
It set out a vision of councils working as ‘commissioning and procurement hubs’, arguing that a 20% cut in expenditure was feasible, but only through ‘fundamentally reassessing the services councils provide’.
The report called on authorities to manage their estates better, evaluate all services against cost, and immediately stop all ‘marginally beneficial’ services.
No examples were given of services that might fall into that category. However, the study listed swimming pools and libraries as ‘extra’ services that councils are not required by law to run. It said these could be operated more effectively by businesses, social enterprises and charities.
Localis and KPMG did not call for a new system of financing local government, but recommended councils show more financial ‘courage’, suggesting 10% of revenue should be raised locally. This would be achieved mainly by making more innovative use of existing prudential borrowing powers, and tax increment financing, in which authorities fund schemes through the revenue gains they are likely to produce.
A Local Government Association spokesman rejected the assumption that councils were ‘frittering money away’, arguing that they were the most efficient part of the public sector. He added that outsourcing might not always be an appropriate way to improve services or save cash.
On the 20% spending cuts figure, he said: ‘For savings of that level you have to take into consideration the whole of the public sector in an area – you have to take it in the context of all the quangos, the police and health services.’
The Localis report resonates with the tone of the annual Hugo Young lecture at the Guardian, delivered by the Opposition leader on November 10.
Cameron said ‘big government’ was failing the poorest in society.
‘In the fight against poverty, inequality, social breakdown and injustice, I want to move from state action to social action,’ he said.
‘Because we believe that a strong society will solve our problems more effectively than big government, we want the state to act as an instrument for helping to create a strong society.’
The Tory leader outlined his belief that power should be removed from the state and transferred to individuals, community groups and small companies, which he said were more flexible and more able to respond to local needs.
12 November 2009
A Right-leaning think-tank and leading consultancy have recommended that councils cull spending by 20% by 2011 through doing less, outsourcing more and becoming more financially innovative.
As they did so, Conservative leader David Cameron launched a sustained attack on ‘big government’, championing outsourcing to individuals and local providers.
The bottom line: a vision for local government was published jointly by Localis and management consultancy KPMG on November 9.
It set out a vision of councils working as ‘commissioning and procurement hubs’, arguing that a 20% cut in expenditure was feasible, but only through ‘fundamentally reassessing the services councils provide’.
The report called on authorities to manage their estates better, evaluate all services against cost, and immediately stop all ‘marginally beneficial’ services.
No examples were given of services that might fall into that category. However, the study listed swimming pools and libraries as ‘extra’ services that councils are not required by law to run. It said these could be operated more effectively by businesses, social enterprises and charities.
Localis and KPMG did not call for a new system of financing local government, but recommended councils show more financial ‘courage’, suggesting 10% of revenue should be raised locally. This would be achieved mainly by making more innovative use of existing prudential borrowing powers, and tax increment financing, in which authorities fund schemes through the revenue gains they are likely to produce.
A Local Government Association spokesman rejected the assumption that councils were ‘frittering money away’, arguing that they were the most efficient part of the public sector. He added that outsourcing might not always be an appropriate way to improve services or save cash.
On the 20% spending cuts figure, he said: ‘For savings of that level you have to take into consideration the whole of the public sector in an area – you have to take it in the context of all the quangos, the police and health services.’
The Localis report resonates with the tone of the annual Hugo Young lecture at the Guardian, delivered by the Opposition leader on November 10.
Cameron said ‘big government’ was failing the poorest in society.
‘In the fight against poverty, inequality, social breakdown and injustice, I want to move from state action to social action,’ he said.
‘Because we believe that a strong society will solve our problems more effectively than big government, we want the state to act as an instrument for helping to create a strong society.’
The Tory leader outlined his belief that power should be removed from the state and transferred to individuals, community groups and small companies, which he said were more flexible and more able to respond to local needs.
