Neill backs place-based budgeting

5 October 2010

Total-Place style budgeting received a firm endorsement from local government minister Bob Neill at the Conservative Party conference yesterday.

Speaking at a fringe event, Neill said the coalition wanted to follow through with place-based budgeting, which was piloted by the previous Labour government.

He said: ‘Total Place is very much on the agenda, rebadged in its new iteration… Joined up public services should not be a question, I want it to be the norm.’

The ‘next iteration’ might be in the form of ‘community budgeting’, he said.

Neill added that there was not only a ‘financial imperative’ but he expected ‘we can get better for less’.

The previous government initiated 13 Total Place pilot projects. While they were largely heralded a success, the exact nature of its future roll-out will not be clear until after the October 20 Comprehensive Spending Review.

Neill said place-based budgeting would involve ‘much cleverer working’ with other sectors, with councils acting as ‘the commissioner, strategic drivers, and democratic voice’. He added: ‘The days of monolithic provision by a local authority are gone.’

David Parsons, deputy leader of the Local Government Association, told delegates that continuing with Total Place was ‘a no brainer’. He said that after meeting with Chancellor George Osborne, he was ‘hopeful’ that a reference to ‘prototype councils who will begin to develop in a place much more joined-up cost-effective services’ would be included in the review.

Paul Carter, leader of Kent County Council, one of the Total Place pilot areas, said place-based budgeting was breaking down barriers between services. He warned that the ‘big stick’ for councils to move in this direction was that they would otherwise go bust. 

But John Seddon, chief executive of Vanguard Consulting, said a cost-based approach to service provision would not lead to savings. He said councils should concentrate on measuring demand instead, adding that there was no evidence to suggest shared services and economies of scale led to savings. ‘The last government had this agenda that bigger is better and the current government is carrying it on and that worries me,’ he said.

Neill also told delegates that it did not matter that place-based budgeting was ‘growing up on an incremental basis’. He said: ‘There will be a bit of a patchwork quilt and I am relaxed about that as it will reflect the local demand and appetite.’