Recommendations from an expert panel on how to overcome barriers to service integration could represent a giant leap forward if councils can help prove that reforms can lead to savings
The case for public service transformation is well understood. For too long now institutionally siloed interventions having been failing to meet the complex needs of individuals, who want their problems responded to in a joined-up and personal way. But if all this stuff is so obvious to our sector’s leaders, the real question becomes why has the pace of transformation in local government been so slow?
NLGN has argued previously that this is because of cultural and structural barriers that get in the way of progress locally – the recommendations in the report from the Public Service Transformation Panel take a giant leap in addressing how some of these barriers might be overcome.
Multi-year budgets that allow councils to understand allocations over time, the £5bn pooled transformation funding and channelling funding on a ‘cohort’ basis to groups with the most need will all drive areas to plan for prevention and focus on a whole-system approach to transformation. But these financial reforms need to facilitate a much wider programme of system shift locally. Bids for funding must come jointly from local partners and promote cross-sectorial transformation.
In order to do this successfully, as much emphasis needs to be placed on collaborative leadership and evidence gathering as on the financial systems and deal-making that underpin reform. Otherwise, there is a danger that many areas will become too focused on the £5bn funding pot, and less concerned with the collaborative leadership needed to shape place and shift dysfunctional public service systems, such as in health and skills over the longer term.
The report outlines the sort of collaboration local government requires and recommends establishing a virtual leadership academy to help our leaders understand the qualities they will need for collaborative working. But this can’t be about local leadership alone. Pivotal to change will be real emphasis from ministers to drive reform in the civil service from the top down. Collaborative leadership is just as important at the top of national government and the civil service as it is on the ground in local areas. Accelerating this process of change from the top down (as well as the bottom up) should be radical and it needs be done with speed.
A crucial part of local leadership will be about taking other parts of the system, such as the health and skills sectors, on a journey with local government and developing new forms of collaborative governance through influence, rather than clutching to formal structures and accountabilities. But in order to this, we need to build a really solid case for how this sort of whole-place transformation can deliver for all sectors.
However, evidence is still lacking across local government. Greater Manchester are leading the way on a lot of this, but very few places have the same unique circumstances as Greater Manchester, and places need to recognise the characteristics of their own area in the evidence that emerges to persuade them to act. Experience from the Better Care Fund highlights just how hard this system shift is without evidence to prove that transformation will deliver – areas have to take a leap into the unknown, which presents huge risks.
And this is where this report could have been much bolder. If this is the manifesto for the future of local public services, local leaders need to be convinced that this will work for them – both financially and in terms of the outcomes delivered. While the benefits around joined-up pathways are well understood, the financial benefits remain opaque. This report does not put a figure on what this transformation across the key cohort groups will actually deliver in terms of savings.
This is what is really needed for our local government leaders to sell transformation to their partners locally. Putting a stake in the ground and showing real sectorial leadership around the financial benefits of transformation will be absolutely crucial in driving this programme of reform forward.
