Following announcements earlier this month that funding for speed cameras will be slashed, the traffic control debate gained pace once again this week. Mick Giannasi, from the Association of Chief Police Officers, reportedly proposed that functions such as ticket and fine issuing be outsourced to private organisations.
The ultimate merits or otherwise of such a measure are perhaps less of a concern than what they reveal about the current short-termist approach to deficit reduction. Under significant – and indeed necessary – Parliamentary and public pressure, local government and its public sector partners are having to balance short-term cost-cutting against long-term gain, and in many cases are struggling to get the balance right.
As chancellor George Osborne suggested in his Bloomberg speech today, the issue we face is less how much should be spent by government at a local or central level, and more where and in what manner? And, crucially, what impact these changes will have on delivery – outsourcing traffic control may make sense on paper, but what does it mean in reality? Anything, in theory, can be cut – the question is whether it should be.
Clearly, outsourcing can be a prudent way of delivering more for less. But with it comes a wealth of risks – starting with the motivations of the private organisation, through to a failure to deliver, to the threat of insolvency. That’s not to mention operational risks like data loss and reputational challenges like jobs cuts, often a natural by-product of outsourcing.
Any cost-cutting measure – outsourcing or otherwise – must involve a thorough risk analysis to establish whether the potential savings outweigh the possible downsides for local councils and communities. Councils need to remember that outsourcing the service does not mean relinquishing the responsibility if things go wrong.
Is road safety really something we want to manage at arm’s length? Do we want to accelerate the private administration of core public services? Does this type of measure really save money beyond the immediate point of transfer?
In the rush to deliver savings today we need to avoid creating even bigger problems tomorrow. In the meantime, as Osborne hints, maybe it’s the cuts themselves that need to slow down.
Andrew Jepp is head of local government at Zurich Municipal
