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.