By David Williams
08/06/2010
Councils will be able to promote financial discipline across a range of organisations as part of the Total Place programme, influential local government figures have predicted.
Joe Simpson, director of politics and partnerships at the Leadership Centre for Local Government, said the new ‘star chamber’ system for Whitehall, announced this week, could be a template for the new role. The star chamber will force government departments to justify their expenditure to a panel of leading ministers and officials, headed by the chancellor.
Simpson told the conference workshop on the lessons of Total Place yesterday that the role of councils would be as ‘champions of outcomes’ in an area. But, he added, it was unlikely that a single authority such as a council would take complete control of a budget covering the full range of locally provided public services.
‘Think of the model that the government is bringing forward nationally, and think about how that would work in an area,’ said Simpson. ‘You [would] have to be transparent to the citizen, and to the other players in that area so everyone is agreeing that there’s an efficiency of spend.
‘That discipline, which is what the government is going to be asking for nationally, is where the next step of Total Place is going to be locally.’
Referring to Simpson’s comments, Graham Hutton, the Total Place programme manager at Bradford City Council, said the authority’s new minority Labour administration was ‘very much interested in driving that forward’.
David Williams is the news and features writer for Public Finance
08/06/2010
Councils will be able to promote financial discipline across a range of organisations as part of the Total Place programme, influential local government figures have predicted.
Joe Simpson, director of politics and partnerships at the Leadership Centre for Local Government, said the new ‘star chamber’ system for Whitehall, announced this week, could be a template for the new role. The star chamber will force government departments to justify their expenditure to a panel of leading ministers and officials, headed by the chancellor.
Simpson told the conference workshop on the lessons of Total Place yesterday that the role of councils would be as ‘champions of outcomes’ in an area. But, he added, it was unlikely that a single authority such as a council would take complete control of a budget covering the full range of locally provided public services.
‘Think of the model that the government is bringing forward nationally, and think about how that would work in an area,’ said Simpson. ‘You [would] have to be transparent to the citizen, and to the other players in that area so everyone is agreeing that there’s an efficiency of spend.
‘That discipline, which is what the government is going to be asking for nationally, is where the next step of Total Place is going to be locally.’
Referring to Simpson’s comments, Graham Hutton, the Total Place programme manager at Bradford City Council, said the authority’s new minority Labour administration was ‘very much interested in driving that forward’.
David Williams is the news and features writer for Public Finance
