By Richard Johnstone | 27 February 2012
The government has been warned that its troubled health reforms risk undermining the wider drive to introduce more choice across public services.
Plans to increase competition across services, including using more private providers and charities, were outlined in last July’s Open public services white paper.
However, Public Finance has been alerted to concerns about the subsequent slow pace of reforms. Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, said that progress on the ground was ‘patchy’.
The debate inspired by the Health and Social Care Bill’s proposals to introduce more competition into the NHS had also been ‘problematic to progress’, he added.
The government missed the white paper’s November deadline to publish a plan on how Whitehall departments would introduce more choice. Details are now expected to be published in April.
Bubb, who was also part of the NHS Future Forum that undertook a public consultation on the health Bill, said: ‘I don’t blame them [for slowing progress] because of what has happened in health’.
However, once the departmental plans are published, there was a need to ‘regather the forces for reform’.
He said: ‘I’m very worried that the culture created by all the forces around the health Bill will hamstring attempts to reform public services in a way that opens them up to more choice. The debate has been talking about privatisation when it’s about more choice. You can’t have choice without diversity of providers.
‘Many of my chief executives get very annoyed about being characterised as private sector, when its the third sector that’s at the front. We are delivering and it would be nice see that supported.’
A leading think-tank has also called for the government to make greater progress. Centre-right policy group Reform published its annual scorecard on reform progress in February, which highlighted inconsistent progress across Whitehall. It found that in some departments, including the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, effective public service reforms were being driven through with coherent and persuasive ministerial backing, while others, including the Department of Health, had allowed themselves to become distracted.
Research director at Reform Dale Bassett told PF that the government ‘needs the courage of its convictions’ for its plans to work. He also highlighted the health reforms as having ‘overshadowed the whole public service reform agenda’.
The Confederation of British Industry is urging the government to open up services ‘as soon as possible’. The CBI’s head of public services Andy Bagnall, said: ‘The government outlined this reform agenda in its Open public services white paper last year and we now urge it to set out departmental plans to make this happen as soon as possible.’
A Cabinet Office spokesman confirmed to PF that an update would take place when departmental business plans are refreshed. He said: ‘Departments have been making good progress with implementing the Open Public Services agenda and will report on this as part of the departmental Business Plan process. That will happen in the not too distant future.’
However, others told PF that, ahead of the update, they were unsure what the effect of the white paper had been so far.
Dan Corry, chief executive of the New Philanthropy Capital consultancy, which aims to increase the effectiveness of charities, said that there was no clear impact on the commissioning of services.
Corry, a former head of the Number 10 Policy Unit under Gordon Brown, called on the government’s planned publication to ‘keep the momentum going’. He said: ‘You have to keep the pressure up.’
NPC is undertaking a study of 750 charities to find out the extent of the white paper’s proposals for more commissioning of services using payments-by-results and the development of personal budgets.
Speaking before the results were known, Corry said: ‘It’s not quite [led to] more local commissioning. I don’t see lots of mutuals being spun out of central or local government. The third sector has learned a new language, but whether this has led to different outcomes… other than less money, I’m not sure.’
Bubb noted that councils were moving more quickly than central government, with town halls ‘thinking about how to become more strategic’.
On February 29, Acevo is due to launch a guide to outsourcing with the aim of bringing together national and local charities into consortiums to bid to run services.
The government has been warned that its troubled health reforms risk undermining the wider drive to introduce more choice across public services.
Plans to increase competition across services, including using more private providers and charities, were outlined in last July’s Open public services white paper.However, Public Finance has been alerted to concerns about the subsequent slow pace of reforms. Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, said that progress on the ground was ‘patchy’.
The debate inspired by the Health and Social Care Bill’s proposals to introduce more competition into the NHS had also been ‘problematic to progress’, he added.
The government missed the white paper’s November deadline to publish a plan on how Whitehall departments would introduce more choice. Details are now expected to be published in April.
Bubb, who was also part of the NHS Future Forum that undertook a public consultation on the health Bill, said: ‘I don’t blame them [for slowing progress] because of what has happened in health’.
However, once the departmental plans are published, there was a need to ‘regather the forces for reform’.
He said: ‘I’m very worried that the culture created by all the forces around the health Bill will hamstring attempts to reform public services in a way that opens them up to more choice. The debate has been talking about privatisation when it’s about more choice. You can’t have choice without diversity of providers.
‘Many of my chief executives get very annoyed about being characterised as private sector, when its the third sector that’s at the front. We are delivering and it would be nice see that supported.’
A leading think-tank has also called for the government to make greater progress. Centre-right policy group Reform published its annual scorecard on reform progress in February, which highlighted inconsistent progress across Whitehall. It found that in some departments, including the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, effective public service reforms were being driven through with coherent and persuasive ministerial backing, while others, including the Department of Health, had allowed themselves to become distracted.
Research director at Reform Dale Bassett told PF that the government ‘needs the courage of its convictions’ for its plans to work. He also highlighted the health reforms as having ‘overshadowed the whole public service reform agenda’.
The Confederation of British Industry is urging the government to open up services ‘as soon as possible’. The CBI’s head of public services Andy Bagnall, said: ‘The government outlined this reform agenda in its Open public services white paper last year and we now urge it to set out departmental plans to make this happen as soon as possible.’
A Cabinet Office spokesman confirmed to PF that an update would take place when departmental business plans are refreshed. He said: ‘Departments have been making good progress with implementing the Open Public Services agenda and will report on this as part of the departmental Business Plan process. That will happen in the not too distant future.’
However, others told PF that, ahead of the update, they were unsure what the effect of the white paper had been so far.
Dan Corry, chief executive of the New Philanthropy Capital consultancy, which aims to increase the effectiveness of charities, said that there was no clear impact on the commissioning of services.
Corry, a former head of the Number 10 Policy Unit under Gordon Brown, called on the government’s planned publication to ‘keep the momentum going’. He said: ‘You have to keep the pressure up.’
NPC is undertaking a study of 750 charities to find out the extent of the white paper’s proposals for more commissioning of services using payments-by-results and the development of personal budgets.
Speaking before the results were known, Corry said: ‘It’s not quite [led to] more local commissioning. I don’t see lots of mutuals being spun out of central or local government. The third sector has learned a new language, but whether this has led to different outcomes… other than less money, I’m not sure.’
Bubb noted that councils were moving more quickly than central government, with town halls ‘thinking about how to become more strategic’.
On February 29, Acevo is due to launch a guide to outsourcing with the aim of bringing together national and local charities into consortiums to bid to run services.
