By Tash Shifrin
20 November 2009
Ministers are seeking ways to reduce ring-fencing of public service funding as documents to be released with next month’s Pre-Budget Report reveal a tangled web of funding streams.
The scale of the restrictions on local service spending emerged in preliminary findings from the 13 Total Place pilot areas. These were established to investigate how resources are channelled to different public sector bodies covering the same local area.
A report on Total Place is expected to be published alongside the PBR on December 9, with full reports from the 13 areas due in February 2010.
But agenda papers produced for the Local Government Association’s executive meeting on November 19 have revealed initial findings.
The papers, which will feed into the PBR documents, said: ‘Countless organisations are spending public money in the same area and often on the same things; for example, in one of the pilot areas, [there are] 25 social housing providers for 19,000 homes with 47 funding streams for housing, 18 of which come from one funder.’
Most of the money spent locally is under centralised government control, the papers note, ‘more than almost any other Western country’. Just 5% of all money spent locally is discretionary spending by councils, the papers said.
Ministers discussed the findings at a meeting chaired by Communities Secretary John Denham, with the LGA also represented. They aim to focus discussion at their next meeting ‘on how government might get itself in a position to significantly reduce ring-fencing’, the LGA papers noted.
The LGA has urged the government to use the PBR to begin a ‘bonfire of bureaucracy, unnecessary targets and red tape’ to save £4.5bn a year. It said potential savings include £1.5bn from a 20% cut in administration costs for seven government departments with close links to local authorities.
Another £1bn could be saved by reducing ‘unnecessary policy activity’, the LGA argued, while £900m could be saved by giving councils greater spending flexibility.
LGA chair Margaret Eaton said: ‘Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent on needless bureaucracy. Things need to be done better and cheaper. If we are to repay the large public debt, we simply cannot afford the same amount of excessive central activity and control of local services.’
‘Things need to be done better and cheaper. If we are to repay the large public debt, we simply cannot afford the same amount of excessive central activity and control of local services.’
20 November 2009
Ministers are seeking ways to reduce ring-fencing of public service funding as documents to be released with next month’s Pre-Budget Report reveal a tangled web of funding streams.
The scale of the restrictions on local service spending emerged in preliminary findings from the 13 Total Place pilot areas. These were established to investigate how resources are channelled to different public sector bodies covering the same local area.
A report on Total Place is expected to be published alongside the PBR on December 9, with full reports from the 13 areas due in February 2010.
But agenda papers produced for the Local Government Association’s executive meeting on November 19 have revealed initial findings.
The papers, which will feed into the PBR documents, said: ‘Countless organisations are spending public money in the same area and often on the same things; for example, in one of the pilot areas, [there are] 25 social housing providers for 19,000 homes with 47 funding streams for housing, 18 of which come from one funder.’
Most of the money spent locally is under centralised government control, the papers note, ‘more than almost any other Western country’. Just 5% of all money spent locally is discretionary spending by councils, the papers said.
Ministers discussed the findings at a meeting chaired by Communities Secretary John Denham, with the LGA also represented. They aim to focus discussion at their next meeting ‘on how government might get itself in a position to significantly reduce ring-fencing’, the LGA papers noted.
The LGA has urged the government to use the PBR to begin a ‘bonfire of bureaucracy, unnecessary targets and red tape’ to save £4.5bn a year. It said potential savings include £1.5bn from a 20% cut in administration costs for seven government departments with close links to local authorities.
Another £1bn could be saved by reducing ‘unnecessary policy activity’, the LGA argued, while £900m could be saved by giving councils greater spending flexibility.
LGA chair Margaret Eaton said: ‘Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent on needless bureaucracy. Things need to be done better and cheaper. If we are to repay the large public debt, we simply cannot afford the same amount of excessive central activity and control of local services.’
‘Things need to be done better and cheaper. If we are to repay the large public debt, we simply cannot afford the same amount of excessive central activity and control of local services.’
