The 2020 Public Services Trust Blog

A couple of good articles have emerged over the last week about the Total Place initiatives being piloted in 13 areas across the UK.  This is for good reason – because they are potentially very interesting, but also because the deadline for reporting back initial findings (in advance of the PBR) is fast approaching.

Total Place was designed as a way of generating more substantive efficiencies within local area spending, but is also kicking off some innovative thinking on how to better marry up local resources with demonstrable local needs.  Part of thinking in a more ‘joined up’ way, cutting across the traditional lines of demarcation for service funding and provision.

Vivienne Russell in Public Finance has written a good piece, capturing some enthusiasm for the pilots:

“…to have a quarter of a million pounds from the government to spend on thinking big things – but with the imperative of knowing we have to reduce our expenditure by 2011 – is a really positive opportunity…”

But her article also elicits some scepticism as to the real potential for transformational change, citing the inevitable entrenched political and policy interests.  On the same day, the FT’s Nick Timmins published an interview with Cumbria’s Chief Exec Jill Stannard (whose team has successfully overseen the Counting Cumbria pilot), reporting a similar sentiment.  She warns that “we are used to delivering traditional efficiencies…the difficult thing is transformational change – how do we work together with different agencies to reduce duplication?”

It appears that Total Place has already served a purpose in stimulating some deeper thought on ways in which public spending can be more efficiently allocated.  And if the exercise throws us some obvious areas for efficiency gains, then it has fulfilled its stated purpose.  Transforming embedded cultures and norms will indeed be harder – but as the article notes, “if we are going to have less money for public services, we simply have to find some way of delivering them better and at lower cost.”  Total Place seems like a decent place to start.