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Total Place: A whole lot of love ?
A whole area approach to public services. Expectations about the quality of public services have also grown, but we know that to meet our commitments to reduce the deficit, we will need to make tough choices in public services. This year’s Budget sets out the Government’s clear plans to protect key public service priorities while meeting its commitments to halve the deficit over the next four years. The compelling and ambitious vision which we have for local government and local public services will enable us to achieve that goal.
Investment in public services has seen unprecedented sustained growth.
A fundamentally different approach to public service reform, which puts local authorities and their partners at the forefront of a drive to look at all local public service spending: uncovering waste and duplication and freeing up resources to refocus on what people actually want and need. As you will see in this report, all parts of the public sector are examining with their customers and with the third sector how best to deliver services by focussing on the right things and making their resources go further by implementing essential reforms. The 13 pilots have taken a fresh look at what money is coming into their area, explored what obstacles there are to making funding go further, examined the complexities within the system and how best to strip out the inefficiencies and wastage they discovered. They have considered a wide range of issues that have a direct effect on people’s lives, including children’s services, drugs and alcohol misuse, housing, worklessness, asset management, services for older people and offender management.
The evidence base from the pilots outlined in this report provides a strong platform for us to take radical, but also practical, steps for the future. It sets out the case for change, at local level and on a national scale, which can deliver true transformation in public services across the country. It shows that real savings can be made through the Total Place approach. It also makes clear the need for strong local leadership, with local authorities playing a pivotal role in delivering radical improvements in services, with their partners, through the single offer, innovative policy offer and a range of other initiatives that build on the pilots’ findings. There is no room for complacency – the 13 pilots are only the beginning.
We must keep up momentum and we will continue to work with the pilot areas to develop their proposals and help to implement changes at local level as soon as possible. But this is an initiative which all places can benefit from, and we encourage all place leaders across England to consider how they too can develop their own whole area approach to services.
