Plotting the next steps for Total Place

The day after last week’s Budget, the Treasury and CLG published their joint report into the 13 Total Place pilot findings, with recommendations about how to take the programme forward. Michael Burton reports

There are many sceptics for whom Total Place was destined to be just another government initiative which would wither on the vine.

Last week’s post-Budget report from the CLG and the Treasury – Total Place: A whole area approach to public services – shows this is anything but the case.

Ministers and Whitehall mandarins, drawing on the lessons of the 13 local government pilots and others, which delivered their findings in February, recognise that the concept of cross-sector delivery is, in theory the future model for public services.

The report accepts that places will be ‘led by local authorities, with their unique local democratic mandate, but requiring the active engagement of the Government and all local service delivery bodies.’

The report, at almost 100 pages, says the Total Place ‘approach’ in England has, so far, involved 63 councils, 34 PCTs. 12 fire authorities, 13 police authorities and the third sector, as well as 70 other areas conducting similar work. They all found that efficiencies and service improvement could be achieved, if there was less duplication.

The 13 local authority pilots mapped £82bn of public spending within their areas, varying from £6,000 per head in Coventry and Solihull, to £8,800 in Bradford and Lewisham. On average, social security, education and health together make up more than 70% of total spend in each area.

In brief, the pilots showed:

• budget constraints are putting the focus on ‘more for less'
• resource mapping has shown the complexity of funding streams
• the public finds services impersonal, fragmented and complex
• the system itself is complex
• a minority of families are responsible for huge costs, but they are dealt with ineffectively and inefficiently through too many agencies

It adds that the ‘new ways of working’ identified by the pilots and other areas ‘can be replicated everywhere’, and will involve breaking down ‘the organisational and service silos which cause confusion to citizens, create wasteful burdens of data collection and management on the frontline, and which contribute to the poor alignment of services.’