By Richard Johnstone | 24 October 2011
Local government made the case for greater independence from Whitehall at all three party conferences as representatives wrestled with finding ways to alleviate the effects of spending cuts. Richard Johnstone reports
Calls for local government to be given greater autonomy from Whitehall were made across the political spectrum at Public Finance and CIPFA’s fringe events at the autumn party conferences.
The events examined whether the spending cuts planned by the government to eradicate the structural deficit by the time of the next election would ‘kill or cure’ public services.
The session held at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on October 4 heard a defence of the coalition’s deficit reduction plans from one of the most senior Tories in local government.
Gary Porter, the party’s group leader at the Local Government Association, said that the plans to cut state spending were ‘not draconian’, and represented an opportunity for councils ‘to prove to their citizens why they need to be working in a different way’.
He called on the government to move forward with plans for Community Budgets, which he said would save money and improve services at the same time.
Sixteen Community Budget pilots are currently under way and a further 110 will be in place by 2012/13. They involve pooling various funding streams into one pot. In the current pilots these are targeted on families with complex needs. Another four pilots of different types of schemes, including two covering whole areas, are also planned.
But Porter said the initiative needed to be speeded up. ‘The place-based budgeting agenda, which we’re trying to lead through local government, is a serious area where the state can reduce the spend and give citizens greater control over where money is spent, and still have the democratic mandate by pushing it through councils,’ he said.
‘We do need more ambition from central government to be even more aggressive about this.’
The event also heard from Conservative MP Matthew Hancock, a member of the Public Accounts Committee and a former chief of staff to George Osborne when he was shadow chancellor.
Hancock called on councils to sell property, estimating that town halls could free up £7bn of property by moving services and offices, of both national and local government, into the same buildings. This rationalisation of the public sector estate is being encouraged by the government through place-based property management. Hancock called for councils to examine what could be sold as he argued that property is a cost not an asset to any business.
Lisa Harker, head of strategy and development at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, backed Porter’s call for greater use of Community Budgets, saying that using them to turn round the lives of 120,000 families with complex social needs was the ‘right focus’.
A call for greater use of the budgets was also made at PF’s event at the Labour party conference in Liverpool on September 27.
Clive Betts, chair of the Commons communities and local government select committee, backed calls for Community Budgets to be given cross-Whitehall support that would match the mood in Parliament for a ‘real localist approach’.
Like Porter, he said that these could save money and improve services at the same time, but worried they had been ‘put on the back burner’.
He also singled out ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions as having ‘no idea about a localist agenda’. He added: ‘Other central government departments are not signed up to joined-up thinking at local level – they’re certainly not signed up to pooling resources at the local level.’
The Labour event also heard a call for local government to ‘get off its knees’ and demand independence from Whitehall.
Leading Labour backbencher Graham Allen, MP for Nottingham North, and a former councillor in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, said local bodies should be free from ministerial control.
Allen also chairs the Commons’ political and constitutional reform committee, which is examining the relationship between central and local government. He said that there should be a constitutional settlement between the two and that local government should not be in a position where it has to ‘be the victim of what central government wants to do’.
He added that a centralised executive had ‘stifled’ local innovation, emphasising that councillors were best placed to know what would work in their communities.
At the Liberal Democrat fringe meeting on September 20, the government’s spending cuts were criticised for front-loading reductions to councils. Chris White, deputy leader of the LibDems at the LGA, told delegates that the fact that the majority of cuts were taking place this year and next had reduced the chances of councils ‘saving efficiently’.
The government’s public sector reforms were also debated, with CIPFA chief executive Steve Freer warning delegates that the government didn’t have ‘total focus’ on reducing the deficit.
He said that the coalition was ‘trying to do a lot of reforms that do little or nothing to address this huge financial challenge’.
He highlighted the government’s changes to the health service as one example where reforms to an important service were diverting management attention from the problems posed by much tighter finance settlements.
‘If we continue to do these big reforms then the financial challenges aren’t going to get our full attention,’ he said.
Other speakers at the event in Birmingham said that the deficit reduction plan and increasing demand for services means that the UK welfare system was changing.
New Local Government Network director Simon Parker said that the strategy would have to change as the current system was ‘broken’.
Parker, who spoke at both the LibDem and Conservative events, highlighted that over the past decade, ‘in many areas of our public services we used huge amounts of spending to mask the fact that we didn’t know how to solve social problems’.
Looking to the future, he said that a version of Community Budgets for local areas would become a big trend in the next two years – council’s cutting a budget and then letting communities decide what to spend that on.
This model is being developed by Bradford Metropolitan District Council, he said. ‘Next summer you start to see the more interesting stuff coming through. And that has to be about prevention, about finding ways to co-produce with citizens, moving services down to neighbourhoods or constituencies.
‘The idea there is you cut the budget, hand it down to a neighbourhood and they can decide what to do with it. [People] can shovel their own snow and save some money or pay for the council to do it. It gives people more choice about how they cope with the service.’
Local government made the case for greater independence from Whitehall at all three party conferences as representatives wrestled with finding ways to alleviate the effects of spending cuts. Richard Johnstone reports
Calls for local government to be given greater autonomy from Whitehall were made across the political spectrum at Public Finance and CIPFA’s fringe events at the autumn party conferences. The events examined whether the spending cuts planned by the government to eradicate the structural deficit by the time of the next election would ‘kill or cure’ public services.
The session held at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on October 4 heard a defence of the coalition’s deficit reduction plans from one of the most senior Tories in local government.
Gary Porter, the party’s group leader at the Local Government Association, said that the plans to cut state spending were ‘not draconian’, and represented an opportunity for councils ‘to prove to their citizens why they need to be working in a different way’.
He called on the government to move forward with plans for Community Budgets, which he said would save money and improve services at the same time.
Sixteen Community Budget pilots are currently under way and a further 110 will be in place by 2012/13. They involve pooling various funding streams into one pot. In the current pilots these are targeted on families with complex needs. Another four pilots of different types of schemes, including two covering whole areas, are also planned.
But Porter said the initiative needed to be speeded up. ‘The place-based budgeting agenda, which we’re trying to lead through local government, is a serious area where the state can reduce the spend and give citizens greater control over where money is spent, and still have the democratic mandate by pushing it through councils,’ he said.
‘We do need more ambition from central government to be even more aggressive about this.’
The event also heard from Conservative MP Matthew Hancock, a member of the Public Accounts Committee and a former chief of staff to George Osborne when he was shadow chancellor.
Hancock called on councils to sell property, estimating that town halls could free up £7bn of property by moving services and offices, of both national and local government, into the same buildings. This rationalisation of the public sector estate is being encouraged by the government through place-based property management. Hancock called for councils to examine what could be sold as he argued that property is a cost not an asset to any business.
Lisa Harker, head of strategy and development at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, backed Porter’s call for greater use of Community Budgets, saying that using them to turn round the lives of 120,000 families with complex social needs was the ‘right focus’.
A call for greater use of the budgets was also made at PF’s event at the Labour party conference in Liverpool on September 27.
Clive Betts, chair of the Commons communities and local government select committee, backed calls for Community Budgets to be given cross-Whitehall support that would match the mood in Parliament for a ‘real localist approach’.
Like Porter, he said that these could save money and improve services at the same time, but worried they had been ‘put on the back burner’.
He also singled out ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions as having ‘no idea about a localist agenda’. He added: ‘Other central government departments are not signed up to joined-up thinking at local level – they’re certainly not signed up to pooling resources at the local level.’
The Labour event also heard a call for local government to ‘get off its knees’ and demand independence from Whitehall.
Leading Labour backbencher Graham Allen, MP for Nottingham North, and a former councillor in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, said local bodies should be free from ministerial control.
Allen also chairs the Commons’ political and constitutional reform committee, which is examining the relationship between central and local government. He said that there should be a constitutional settlement between the two and that local government should not be in a position where it has to ‘be the victim of what central government wants to do’.
He added that a centralised executive had ‘stifled’ local innovation, emphasising that councillors were best placed to know what would work in their communities.
At the Liberal Democrat fringe meeting on September 20, the government’s spending cuts were criticised for front-loading reductions to councils. Chris White, deputy leader of the LibDems at the LGA, told delegates that the fact that the majority of cuts were taking place this year and next had reduced the chances of councils ‘saving efficiently’.
The government’s public sector reforms were also debated, with CIPFA chief executive Steve Freer warning delegates that the government didn’t have ‘total focus’ on reducing the deficit.
He said that the coalition was ‘trying to do a lot of reforms that do little or nothing to address this huge financial challenge’.
He highlighted the government’s changes to the health service as one example where reforms to an important service were diverting management attention from the problems posed by much tighter finance settlements.
‘If we continue to do these big reforms then the financial challenges aren’t going to get our full attention,’ he said.
Other speakers at the event in Birmingham said that the deficit reduction plan and increasing demand for services means that the UK welfare system was changing.
New Local Government Network director Simon Parker said that the strategy would have to change as the current system was ‘broken’.
Parker, who spoke at both the LibDem and Conservative events, highlighted that over the past decade, ‘in many areas of our public services we used huge amounts of spending to mask the fact that we didn’t know how to solve social problems’.
Looking to the future, he said that a version of Community Budgets for local areas would become a big trend in the next two years – council’s cutting a budget and then letting communities decide what to spend that on.
This model is being developed by Bradford Metropolitan District Council, he said. ‘Next summer you start to see the more interesting stuff coming through. And that has to be about prevention, about finding ways to co-produce with citizens, moving services down to neighbourhoods or constituencies.
‘The idea there is you cut the budget, hand it down to a neighbourhood and they can decide what to do with it. [People] can shovel their own snow and save some money or pay for the council to do it. It gives people more choice about how they cope with the service.’
