By Richard Johnstone in Manchester | 6 October 2011
The government should be more ambitious and aggressive in rolling out Community Budgets, according to a senior Conservative.
Speaking at the Public Finance/CIPFA fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference on October 4, Gary Porter said that the cuts being made to public spending were ‘necessary’. But he called for central government to do more with place-based budgeting initiatives, such as Community Budgets. These have the twin benefits of saving money and improving services, he said
Sixteen Community Budget pilots are currently under way and a further 110 will be in place by 2012/13.
Porter, who is leader of the Local Government Association’s Conservative Group, wants the initiative 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.
‘They [central government] should be pushing this through now. We should be able to use them [Community Budgets]. We do need more ambition from central government to be even more aggressive about this.’
Lisa Harker, head of strategy and development at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, also backed greater use of the budgets. She said using them to turn round the lives of 120,000 families with complex social needs – as Prime Minister David Cameron has said – was the ‘right focus’.
However, she also told delegates that local authorities were having to do two things at once – cut budgets while trying to plan for future innovations such as these. Some councils were doing this better than others, she said.
Harker warned delegates that decisions being made on funding for children’s services would ‘impact on our ability to respond for years to come’, adding that, ‘It’s hard to imagine mistakes not being made.’
Although the government had stated that early intervention support for children was a key priority, she said, ‘This is where the axe is falling.‘Despite political consensus, we are pulling away from that area.’
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 free property for sale. In an answer to a question from the floor on whether councils should to sell some of the buildings they owned, he argued that property is a cost not an asset to any business.
He estimated that councils own £7bn of property that could be freed by moving services and offices, of both national and local government, into the same buildings in a rationalisation of the public sector estate. This is being encouraged by the government through place‑based property management.
However, New Local Government Network director Simon Parker argued that councils were in fact now more likely to invest in assets that could provide a return in a bid to boost economic growth. This could include property, he said, highlighting the fact that Manchester City Council owns the conference centre where the Conservative event was being held.
He also supported the suggestion from the floor that councils should spin out some services into stand-alone companies that could then bid for work from other authorities, as more services were put out to tender.
Parker said this was a ‘thoroughly good idea’ for well-run parts of a council’s services. Having a ‘public alternative’ to private sector companies used by councils was ‘a good fallback’ in the event of providers getting into difficulty, such as happened with care home provider Southern Cross.
The event in the Midland Hotel in Manchester was chaired by Steve Freer, chief executive of CIPFA.
