The peer review system, set up by the IDeA, has been one of its great success stories. Indeed, when peer reviews were first launched a decade ago, the Audit Commission approached the IDeA to ascertain whether they might form part of the inspection regime.
The IDeA wisely declined on the basis that the peer review system’s strength was that of ‘a critical friend’, and the commission subsequently set up the CPA.
But now, with a strong likelihood that a new government will scrap the CAA, peer reviews are back in the spotlight, not least because the IDeA recently held its first Total Place peer review.
A group of leaders/chairs and chief executives from councils, PCTs and the police were invited last month by Warwickshire’s public service board to examine partnership working across the county, rather than in just the council itself. Some of the results are described in our feature on pages14-15.
Such whole area reviews are the shape of things to come because the thrust of public policy, as outlined in the Budget Total Place report, is about streamlining public services away from silos. It is also clear that partnerships are a mixed picture. Indeed, Warwickshire called in a review precisely because it was concerned its partnership networks were inhibiting good delivery.
The question is whether such reviews may fill the space evacuated by the CAA, should the latter be scrapped. It would be unwise to replace one regulatory regime with another.
The peer reviews still need to be a voluntary process, with councils and their partners inviting them. Their value is that they have no statutory backing and allow the reviewees to be transparent about their weaknesses, rather than tick the inspectors’ boxes.
But if the commission’s statutory remit to monitor performance is reduced or scrapped, greater onus will be placed on the local government ‘family’ itself to ensure standards are maintained consistently across the sector, not easy at a time of budget cuts and increased cross-sector working. The peer review process could, therefore, well be the answer.
Michael Burton, Editor, The MJ
Wednesday 28 April 2010
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Eruptions liven the election
It was the late PM Harold Macmillan who famously remarked that the best-laid schemes of politicians could be easily overturned by ‘events, dear boy.’
The bizarre spectacle of an Icelandic volcano erupting during an election campaign, managing to ground every single plane in the UK and scuppering candidates’ plans to tour election battlegrounds would certainly come under the definition of ‘events.’
So, too, does the saga of Doncaster MBC – which has also managed to erupt at an inconvenient time – come under events. The only difference is that this particular volcano has been squirting lava for many years without any noticeable reaction either from the local government ‘family’ or inspectors... until this week.
The Audit Commission, in its corporate governance report, noted there was ‘repeated evidence’ that it had ‘not been well run for 15 years.’ Indeed, readers of The MJ will be familiar with the long-running political soap opera that is Doncaster. The commission’s report, which recommends intervention, is blistering in its criticism of the political culture at the council.
A few years ago, such a report during an election campaign would have fuelled not only a torrent of party politicking but also brought down scorn on local government.
The fact that generally, it has not is largely due to the absence of ‘basket cases’, the recognition by MPs that they are the last people to be criticising local politicians, and the acceptance that councils will be part of the solution in helping the next government deliver its agenda in tough economic times.
Nonetheless, while the LGA has shown commendable leadership in sending into Doncaster its own corporate heavyweights, the saga has already gone on far too long.
Observers will note that the commission’s report has done it no harm in proving there is still a case for having external inspectors at a time when many council leaders are campaigning for the commission to be scrapped.
It would have been better if the local government family had intervened earlier, and sorted out its bad apples before they went truly rotten.
The bizarre spectacle of an Icelandic volcano erupting during an election campaign, managing to ground every single plane in the UK and scuppering candidates’ plans to tour election battlegrounds would certainly come under the definition of ‘events.’
So, too, does the saga of Doncaster MBC – which has also managed to erupt at an inconvenient time – come under events. The only difference is that this particular volcano has been squirting lava for many years without any noticeable reaction either from the local government ‘family’ or inspectors... until this week.
The Audit Commission, in its corporate governance report, noted there was ‘repeated evidence’ that it had ‘not been well run for 15 years.’ Indeed, readers of The MJ will be familiar with the long-running political soap opera that is Doncaster. The commission’s report, which recommends intervention, is blistering in its criticism of the political culture at the council.
A few years ago, such a report during an election campaign would have fuelled not only a torrent of party politicking but also brought down scorn on local government.
The fact that generally, it has not is largely due to the absence of ‘basket cases’, the recognition by MPs that they are the last people to be criticising local politicians, and the acceptance that councils will be part of the solution in helping the next government deliver its agenda in tough economic times.
Nonetheless, while the LGA has shown commendable leadership in sending into Doncaster its own corporate heavyweights, the saga has already gone on far too long.
Observers will note that the commission’s report has done it no harm in proving there is still a case for having external inspectors at a time when many council leaders are campaigning for the commission to be scrapped.
It would have been better if the local government family had intervened earlier, and sorted out its bad apples before they went truly rotten.
Friday 9 April 2010
The calm before the storm
Like a sepia picture at the end of an Edwardian summer before the Great War, the next four weeks will, for all public sector managers and councillors, soon take on the nostalgic hue of a vanished age of innocence.
Four weeks remain of the ancien regime – not, that is, the Government, but the sustained period of public sector investment which is about to come to a shuddering halt.
Everyone in the business knows this will happen. To paraphrase Sir Edward Grey: ‘The lights are going out all over the public sector. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.’
But the detail of how this spending reduction is to be achieved has yet to be defined, and for that, we must wait in blissful innocence until after the general election when the real truth can emerge.
At one end, speculation so far includes swingeing cuts of five to 10% a year, and an entire rethink of key services.
As an ex-chief executive said to me the other day: ‘Why do councils run swimming pools when there are so many private leisure centres?’ That promises some lively local debate, considering that the public, so far, cannot even adjust to the idea of fortnightly bin collections.
At the other end is the hypothesis that governments can never really cut spending, that they dare not risk the ‘double dip’ recession, that the economy will pick up, therefore, negating the need for major cutbacks, and that a freeze in spending may be the worst to happen.
Sensible managers would be wise not to bank on this as an outcome.
There is, of course, another scenario, upheld by optimists, managerial and political, within local government. This takes the view that while the financial climate will be tough, the opportunities for local government to become primus inter pares across the public sector have never been greater.
The next Government will need local government’s delivery expertise to help it through the public sector recession. It is up to councils, by being the solution, not the problem, to enhance their long-term role.
Four weeks remain of the ancien regime – not, that is, the Government, but the sustained period of public sector investment which is about to come to a shuddering halt.
Everyone in the business knows this will happen. To paraphrase Sir Edward Grey: ‘The lights are going out all over the public sector. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.’
But the detail of how this spending reduction is to be achieved has yet to be defined, and for that, we must wait in blissful innocence until after the general election when the real truth can emerge.
At one end, speculation so far includes swingeing cuts of five to 10% a year, and an entire rethink of key services.
As an ex-chief executive said to me the other day: ‘Why do councils run swimming pools when there are so many private leisure centres?’ That promises some lively local debate, considering that the public, so far, cannot even adjust to the idea of fortnightly bin collections.
At the other end is the hypothesis that governments can never really cut spending, that they dare not risk the ‘double dip’ recession, that the economy will pick up, therefore, negating the need for major cutbacks, and that a freeze in spending may be the worst to happen.
Sensible managers would be wise not to bank on this as an outcome.
There is, of course, another scenario, upheld by optimists, managerial and political, within local government. This takes the view that while the financial climate will be tough, the opportunities for local government to become primus inter pares across the public sector have never been greater.
The next Government will need local government’s delivery expertise to help it through the public sector recession. It is up to councils, by being the solution, not the problem, to enhance their long-term role.
Proceed until apprehended
One message is clear from last week’s joint CLG/Treasury report into the lessons from the Total Place pilots and the next stages – that ministers and mandarins have taken it on board, and the concept is here to stay.
Indeed, Lord Bichard told an LGA conference this week that more had been achieved on the subject in the last 11 months than the last 11 years.
But that was the easy bit. The pilots and others were helpful in identifying clear weaknesses in the structure of provision, but none of these came as a huge surprise. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of public sector bureaucracies already knows they overlap, are often inefficient, and are poor at dealing with problems involving multi-agency responses.
The real challenge is actually doing something about it. The CLG/Treasury response, while laying out a ‘road map’ for Total Place, also contains the usual Whitehall tendencies.
Indeed, Lord Bichard told an LGA conference this week that more had been achieved on the subject in the last 11 months than the last 11 years.
But that was the easy bit. The pilots and others were helpful in identifying clear weaknesses in the structure of provision, but none of these came as a huge surprise. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of public sector bureaucracies already knows they overlap, are often inefficient, and are poor at dealing with problems involving multi-agency responses.
The real challenge is actually doing something about it. The CLG/Treasury response, while laying out a ‘road map’ for Total Place, also contains the usual Whitehall tendencies.
Apart from imposing on us yet more meaningless catch-phrases, such as ‘the single offer,’ ‘the innovative policy offer’, and ‘total capital and asset pathfinders’, it is unable to resist laying down more hoops for councils to jump through.
The single offer smacks of the so-called freedoms offered to top CPA performers years back – haven’t we moved on since then? Offers of slightly reduced indicators and less ring-fencing are doubtless designed to elicit more forelock-touching from grateful councils. And Total Place will not work if it depends on sweeteners from Whitehall and will merely perpetuate local government’s tendency to wait and be told what to do by the centre.
And there’s the rub. It really is up to councils to pick up the baton and run. The Leadership Centre’s MD, John Atkinson, told the LGA’s event this week that they should ‘proceed until apprehended’, a version of ‘do whatever you want unless it is expressly forbidden.’
The single offer smacks of the so-called freedoms offered to top CPA performers years back – haven’t we moved on since then? Offers of slightly reduced indicators and less ring-fencing are doubtless designed to elicit more forelock-touching from grateful councils. And Total Place will not work if it depends on sweeteners from Whitehall and will merely perpetuate local government’s tendency to wait and be told what to do by the centre.
And there’s the rub. It really is up to councils to pick up the baton and run. The Leadership Centre’s MD, John Atkinson, told the LGA’s event this week that they should ‘proceed until apprehended’, a version of ‘do whatever you want unless it is expressly forbidden.’
But will councils respond in similar vein? Or will cultural barriers, timidity, lack of ambition and lack of confidence mean the opportunity to reconfigure services more efficiently around the need of users just passes them by?
How they react during the crucial next eight months, as preparations are made for the 2011 spending review, will be the test.
How they react during the crucial next eight months, as preparations are made for the 2011 spending review, will be the test.
Public spending balancing act
There used to be a phrase in my school Maths book which noted that ‘statistics can be used much like a drunk uses a lamp post – for support rather than illumination.’
I was reminded of the advice this week when studying the Audit Commission’s report into so-called ‘boomerang bosses’ the ex-chief executives who exit councils with bags of cash after a fall-out with their leaders, only to walk immediately into another job. The report was ordered by John Denham last summer as a smokescreen to head off Opposition attacks on public sector ‘fatcats’ and judging by the publicity at the time the public could be forgiven for believing most of local government was involved. It was no accident that the report was commissioned at the height of the Commons expenses scandal and provided a convenient hare for the media to chase.
In fact the Audit Commission report this week notes that of the 122 chiefs who left their jobs in 2007/09 just 37 left with severance packages, or 30% of the total. Of them only six took up other council jobs within a year and over 80% have yet to return to local government. This does not suggest a major problem though this did not prevent the CLG heading a press release ‘boomerang bosses in councils must return pay-offs’. The national media dutifully covered the ‘boomerang racket’ angle.
The real problem is the tendency among a minority of councils to dismiss chief executives on spurious grounds and grant them severance payments and/or enhanced pensions in return for foregoing the employment rights any other employee expects. Too often employers in these cases know they have no legal case which could stack up in an employment tribunal and effectively have to make it worth their chiefs’ while to leave. Nor is it exactly helpful for a chief executive’s reputation and future career to depart in such circumstances. It suggests they are unable to get on with members and severance is often therefore compensation for damage to reputation.
But the subject of severance is a matter for employers and their professional associations to address, not ministers and MPs whose own stables have required a monumental clean-out after the fiddled expenses scandal.
I was reminded of the advice this week when studying the Audit Commission’s report into so-called ‘boomerang bosses’ the ex-chief executives who exit councils with bags of cash after a fall-out with their leaders, only to walk immediately into another job. The report was ordered by John Denham last summer as a smokescreen to head off Opposition attacks on public sector ‘fatcats’ and judging by the publicity at the time the public could be forgiven for believing most of local government was involved. It was no accident that the report was commissioned at the height of the Commons expenses scandal and provided a convenient hare for the media to chase.
In fact the Audit Commission report this week notes that of the 122 chiefs who left their jobs in 2007/09 just 37 left with severance packages, or 30% of the total. Of them only six took up other council jobs within a year and over 80% have yet to return to local government. This does not suggest a major problem though this did not prevent the CLG heading a press release ‘boomerang bosses in councils must return pay-offs’. The national media dutifully covered the ‘boomerang racket’ angle.
The real problem is the tendency among a minority of councils to dismiss chief executives on spurious grounds and grant them severance payments and/or enhanced pensions in return for foregoing the employment rights any other employee expects. Too often employers in these cases know they have no legal case which could stack up in an employment tribunal and effectively have to make it worth their chiefs’ while to leave. Nor is it exactly helpful for a chief executive’s reputation and future career to depart in such circumstances. It suggests they are unable to get on with members and severance is often therefore compensation for damage to reputation.
But the subject of severance is a matter for employers and their professional associations to address, not ministers and MPs whose own stables have required a monumental clean-out after the fiddled expenses scandal.
When parting is such sweet sorrow
There used to be a phrase in my school Maths book which noted that ‘statistics can be used much like a drunk uses a lamp post – for support rather than illumination.’
I was reminded of the advice this week when studying the Audit Commission’s report into so-called ‘boomerang bosses’ the ex-chief executives who exit councils with bags of cash after a fall-out with their leaders, only to walk immediately into another job. The report was ordered by John Denham last summer as a smokescreen to head off Opposition attacks on public sector ‘fatcats’ and judging by the publicity at the time the public could be forgiven for believing most of local government was involved. It was no accident that the report was commissioned at the height of the Commons expenses scandal and provided a convenient hare for the media to chase.
In fact the Audit Commission report this week notes that of the 122 chiefs who left their jobs in 2007/09 just 37 left with severance packages, or 30% of the total. Of them only six took up other council jobs within a year and over 80% have yet to return to local government. This does not suggest a major problem though this did not prevent the CLG heading a press release ‘boomerang bosses in councils must return pay-offs’. The national media dutifully covered the ‘boomerang racket’ angle.
The real problem is the tendency among a minority of councils to dismiss chief executives on spurious grounds and grant them severance payments and/or enhanced pensions in return for foregoing the employment rights any other employee expects. Too often employers in these cases know they have no legal case which could stack up in an employment tribunal and effectively have to make it worth their chiefs’ while to leave. Nor is it exactly helpful for a chief executive’s reputation and future career to depart in such circumstances. It suggests they are unable to get on with members and severance is often therefore compensation for damage to reputation.
But the subject of severance is a matter for employers and their professional associations to address, not ministers and MPs whose own stables have required a monumental clean-out after the fiddled expenses scandal.
I was reminded of the advice this week when studying the Audit Commission’s report into so-called ‘boomerang bosses’ the ex-chief executives who exit councils with bags of cash after a fall-out with their leaders, only to walk immediately into another job. The report was ordered by John Denham last summer as a smokescreen to head off Opposition attacks on public sector ‘fatcats’ and judging by the publicity at the time the public could be forgiven for believing most of local government was involved. It was no accident that the report was commissioned at the height of the Commons expenses scandal and provided a convenient hare for the media to chase.
In fact the Audit Commission report this week notes that of the 122 chiefs who left their jobs in 2007/09 just 37 left with severance packages, or 30% of the total. Of them only six took up other council jobs within a year and over 80% have yet to return to local government. This does not suggest a major problem though this did not prevent the CLG heading a press release ‘boomerang bosses in councils must return pay-offs’. The national media dutifully covered the ‘boomerang racket’ angle.
The real problem is the tendency among a minority of councils to dismiss chief executives on spurious grounds and grant them severance payments and/or enhanced pensions in return for foregoing the employment rights any other employee expects. Too often employers in these cases know they have no legal case which could stack up in an employment tribunal and effectively have to make it worth their chiefs’ while to leave. Nor is it exactly helpful for a chief executive’s reputation and future career to depart in such circumstances. It suggests they are unable to get on with members and severance is often therefore compensation for damage to reputation.
But the subject of severance is a matter for employers and their professional associations to address, not ministers and MPs whose own stables have required a monumental clean-out after the fiddled expenses scandal.
Long term aims for Total Place
Now the dust has settled on the Total Place pilots, until conclusions are aired in the Budget, the next question is, inevitably, ‘what next?’
There are various answers. One is that nothing happens next unless the Government coughs up a few bob for another round of pilots, and councils come rushing to the trough in the time-honoured tradition of only responding to initiatives with cash attached.
An alternative response will come from those councils and their partners which maintain they are already involved in Total Place because they say so, even though their projects were around long before the words ever existed.
Yet a third response comes from those councils and partner agencies who not only grasp the philosophy behind Total Place but are evangelical about it, and are already deep into implementing its principles on the ground, and certainly do not need the Government.
A fourth group, of mainly Conservative councils, will regard Total Place as an interfering New Labour plot, even though they agree wholeheartedly with its aims.
In short, there is no single answer to ‘what happens next’, because while most authorities will claim they are signed up to the principles, in practice, the roll out is extremely mixed. It is also true that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and that while a thousand flowers need not bloom, there will certainly be various paths.
But the real nub of the issue is just how ambitious the public sector should be with Total Place. If the concept is to be a repeat of the shared services debate, trundling along at a snail’s pace and easily prone to be knocked off course because managers and members find it too difficult, then it will be a failure.
If it is just to be a selection of projects, then its potential will be squandered.
If, as Sir Michael Bichard has stated on many occasions, the current system is inefficient and expensive, then Total Place needs to be ambitious, bedded into the corporate psyche and here to stay not for a year or two but for 10 years.
The answer, therefore, is not ‘what next?’ but ‘where do we wish to be in 2020?’
There are various answers. One is that nothing happens next unless the Government coughs up a few bob for another round of pilots, and councils come rushing to the trough in the time-honoured tradition of only responding to initiatives with cash attached.
An alternative response will come from those councils and their partners which maintain they are already involved in Total Place because they say so, even though their projects were around long before the words ever existed.
Yet a third response comes from those councils and partner agencies who not only grasp the philosophy behind Total Place but are evangelical about it, and are already deep into implementing its principles on the ground, and certainly do not need the Government.
A fourth group, of mainly Conservative councils, will regard Total Place as an interfering New Labour plot, even though they agree wholeheartedly with its aims.
In short, there is no single answer to ‘what happens next’, because while most authorities will claim they are signed up to the principles, in practice, the roll out is extremely mixed. It is also true that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and that while a thousand flowers need not bloom, there will certainly be various paths.
But the real nub of the issue is just how ambitious the public sector should be with Total Place. If the concept is to be a repeat of the shared services debate, trundling along at a snail’s pace and easily prone to be knocked off course because managers and members find it too difficult, then it will be a failure.
If it is just to be a selection of projects, then its potential will be squandered.
If, as Sir Michael Bichard has stated on many occasions, the current system is inefficient and expensive, then Total Place needs to be ambitious, bedded into the corporate psyche and here to stay not for a year or two but for 10 years.
The answer, therefore, is not ‘what next?’ but ‘where do we wish to be in 2020?’
Blank cheques, but not for councils
As the election campaign gets under way, politicians begin writing out blank cheques. Despite the knowledge that public spending is about to hit the buffers, our illustrious leaders continue to make pledges on the assumption that the voters cannot be trusted to be told the truth. The trouble is that most of the blank cheques seem to involve departments other than local government.
Incredibly, the Conservatives, at last weekend’s spring conference in Brighton, were running up huge tabs on future pledges, even as they were promising to get to grips with the deficit ‘from day one’.
During their weekend by the seaside, shadow ministers promised to increase NHS spending in real terms every year through the next parliament, link pensions to earnings, introduce marriage into the tax system, create 4,200 more health visitors for Sure Start, build more prisons to prevent early releases, fund council tax rises of 2.5% for two years, and match the council tax on new housing for six years.
Since it is unlikely the Conservatives will cut defence or law and order, that leaves precious little room for spending cuts – unless local government is to end up picking up the bill for all the excess elsewhere.
When we then add in Gordon Brown’s demand that policing must be protected from cuts, together with the ongoing Personal Care at Home Bill’s fanciful idea that its huge new demands can all be funded by efficiency savings in councils and the NHS, then we have not economics, but freakonomics.
The fact is the maths just doesn’t add up. Either politicians know that and are telling porkies to the voters, or they genuinely believe they can both spend more and spend less at the same time, or they intend to slash the only budget they haven’t identified for growth, namely, local government.
But the BBC’s timely and helpful survey earlier this week into council staffing cuts has reminded voters that the public values its local services. I was interviewed by 15 different BBC radio stations across England about the survey on Monday, and there was clear support and sympathy for councils from normally-sceptical presenters. Politicians will need to think very carefully about singling out local government for an unfair share of cuts.
Incredibly, the Conservatives, at last weekend’s spring conference in Brighton, were running up huge tabs on future pledges, even as they were promising to get to grips with the deficit ‘from day one’.
During their weekend by the seaside, shadow ministers promised to increase NHS spending in real terms every year through the next parliament, link pensions to earnings, introduce marriage into the tax system, create 4,200 more health visitors for Sure Start, build more prisons to prevent early releases, fund council tax rises of 2.5% for two years, and match the council tax on new housing for six years.
Since it is unlikely the Conservatives will cut defence or law and order, that leaves precious little room for spending cuts – unless local government is to end up picking up the bill for all the excess elsewhere.
When we then add in Gordon Brown’s demand that policing must be protected from cuts, together with the ongoing Personal Care at Home Bill’s fanciful idea that its huge new demands can all be funded by efficiency savings in councils and the NHS, then we have not economics, but freakonomics.
The fact is the maths just doesn’t add up. Either politicians know that and are telling porkies to the voters, or they genuinely believe they can both spend more and spend less at the same time, or they intend to slash the only budget they haven’t identified for growth, namely, local government.
But the BBC’s timely and helpful survey earlier this week into council staffing cuts has reminded voters that the public values its local services. I was interviewed by 15 different BBC radio stations across England about the survey on Monday, and there was clear support and sympathy for councils from normally-sceptical presenters. Politicians will need to think very carefully about singling out local government for an unfair share of cuts.
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