The Audit Commission’s Michael 0’Higgins said that pooled budgets can help improve public services, but that the emphasis needs to be on outcomes rather than inputs (‘Joining the dots’, October 30). In the same issue, Tony Travers reviewed ‘Total Place’, which seeks to pool budgets (‘Opening the second front’).
As chief executive at Coventry council in 1969, Derrick Hender brought together all the departmental heads to identify the outputs required of council services. It soon became evident that this would challenge the range, level and quality of inputs being provided and, in turn, require change to existing financial allocations.
Total Place seems, on the face of it, a sensible way to proceed. However, it would have to be supported by heads of all departments and the various agencies who have to pool their resources and negotiate the deals at the local level.
It seems highly unlikely that it will be possible to make such a seismic shift. O’Higgins says that improving services has to be the main reason for joint financing and regrets that often ‘it’s the agreement itself that takes all the energy’. While it might indeed be regrettable, it is inevitable.
There is a saying among golfers approaching a putt that the shortest distance is the six inches between the ears. It seems an apt metaphor for joint working to achieve better outcomes.
David Cranston, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
