By David Williams
22 April 2010
Expectations for Total Place are now ‘unrealistic’, according to a leading official on one of the programme’s pilot schemes.
John Betts, the head of children’s services at Warwickshire County Council, was speaking at the April 20 CIPFA conference on shared services.
He said the initiative wouldn’t ‘cure all the public sector ills, looking at some of the financial pressures we’re facing’.
Betts, who worked on the Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Total Place pilot, also warned that too many people were expecting the programme to single-handedly rescue the public finances.
‘It is very resource-intensive,’ he added. ‘It’s suited to complex challenges… [but] you’re not going to be able to do it everywhere, across all your services.’
Betts said there was a danger that Total Place, which aims to co-ordinate all public spending in a region, could become a ‘sterile intellectual exercise’.
He also feared that the Treasury would use any savings identified to justify budget cuts. Betts added that Whitehall must give local government real reductions in regulation in return for any efficiencies.
22 April 2010
Expectations for Total Place are now ‘unrealistic’, according to a leading official on one of the programme’s pilot schemes.
John Betts, the head of children’s services at Warwickshire County Council, was speaking at the April 20 CIPFA conference on shared services.
He said the initiative wouldn’t ‘cure all the public sector ills, looking at some of the financial pressures we’re facing’.
Betts, who worked on the Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Total Place pilot, also warned that too many people were expecting the programme to single-handedly rescue the public finances.
‘It is very resource-intensive,’ he added. ‘It’s suited to complex challenges… [but] you’re not going to be able to do it everywhere, across all your services.’
Betts said there was a danger that Total Place, which aims to co-ordinate all public spending in a region, could become a ‘sterile intellectual exercise’.
He also feared that the Treasury would use any savings identified to justify budget cuts. Betts added that Whitehall must give local government real reductions in regulation in return for any efficiencies.
