The Scottish Government’s ambitious plans to create single, national police and fire services for Scotland are not without risk and important questions need to be answered
The largest, and arguably the most sensitive reform to public services ever undertaken in a devolved Scotland has now completed its most recent milestone. The proposal is to introduce single authorities for both police and fire.
Stated simply, this will see the removal of sixteen separate regional boards and services and their replacement by two national boards. The relatively short consultation on the Scottish Government’s proposals has now closed and the Scottish Government will be actively reviewing the responses from the public and professionals bodies alike. The proposals will effectively ‘remove’ police and fire from the local government family and will place them within as yet to be established separate bodies. And there is of course the promise of £130m savings.
The vision of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice is for modernised and simplified governance for both police and fire. Yet the consultation paper made no recognition of the scale of the task which effectively require police and fire finances to be dismantled from local government. There are clear governance risks inherent in such an ambitious proposal.
This combination of significant reform balanced with an attractive level of savings will resonate with observers of the many public service reorganisations over many years in the UK. It is however that very experience of previous public service reforms which prompted CIPFA to make a major contribution to the current debate.
The significance of the issues at hand are further reflected in the fact that Scotland’s directors of finance and Scotland’s chief internal auditors joined with CIPFA in making the contribution. We set out to ensure that financial management is firmly on the agenda, something not wholly evident from the consultation paper. Let’s firstly look at risk.
We think that the risks of reform are capable of being identified. Not only that, we also think that there are three clear risk periods: the period prior to reform; the ‘shadow’ period; and the go live period. Central to this would be the existence of a ‘shadow’ board to govern matters during the important transitional period. This is not something being considered at the moment by the Scottish Government.
We also think that there should be a mechanism, probably through the Scottish Parliament, which tracks the success of the realisation of savings of £130m. This is something which has never happened in the past with any claims of savings being apparent only at the outset rather than being reported publicly on an ongoing basis.
There are many questions of detail which need to be answered. We highlight the importance of early resolution of VAT status for the new national authorities. The potential cost to Scotland could be £26m. We also question the extent to which existing bodies, given they are shortly to be abolished, should continue to commit to forward expenditure. The consequences of these commitments will of course fall to be met by the new bodies.
There is also the question of existing balances. Do existing balances transfer to the new bodies? Or, given that they were funded by local government, should they be returned to constituent authorities?
The implementation of an appropriate shadow period with early board appointments would assist in enabling these, and other matters to be resolved. So it is entirely feasible that the success of the reform will be rooted, at least partly, in successful resolution to these areas. Early attention is needed if Scotland is to benefit to the tune of £130m from these reforms.
Don Peebles is policy and technical manager at CIPFA in Scotland
