Community Based Budgets offer a fantastic opportunity for councils but Whitehall must let go, stop dictating and allow local people to decide priorities, says John Atkinson.
Around this time last year, whilst still at the Leadership Centre, I was asked by HM Treasury officials to ascertain whether there was a willingness amongst local authority chief executives to carry forward an element of Total Place into the comprehensive spending review.
The provision was the 'single offer', a chance for local areas to request of government departments that specific funds being spent in their area were put together into a single budget. The answer was an overwhelming 'yes'. The process became known as Community Based Budgets or CBBs.
John Atkinson: ‘Whitehall must let go and stop dictating what community budgets are for’.This took place against a prevailing policy direction of localism. Whilst in opposition, David Cameron had set out clearly his intent. In a key speech in November 2009 he described a redistribution of power from the central state to individuals.
Where that wasn't practical, he foresaw power being transferred to neighbourhoods, then the lowest possible tier of government free from bureaucratic controls. In other words, localism meant 'devolve by default'.
One of the strengths of Total Place (and it had its weaknesses) was that it fulfilled this principle. Places had chosen the issue that mattered most to them and had worked on it with local people, taking the changes that necessitated to Whitehall. The 'citizen' was at the heart of the process.
Community Based Budgets missed this vital focus. By the time it was offered to the sixteen pilot places the topic to address had been chosen by Whitehall. Each was to address the issues surrounding 'families with complex needs'.
This taking back of control to the centre stifled progress and raised political concern from across the spectrum of local government. It signalled a shift in mindset away from local control. In Total Place around 80 different local authorities described themselves as following this type of work, the so-called 'parallel places'. I am unaware of a single one for Community Based Budgets.
So if the proposed roll-out of CBBs is to be a success there needs to be some rapid learning. If the viral process of change that was so powerful is to be recreated, then the onus must return to devolve by default.
Whitehall must let go and stop dictating what community budgets are for and what they should contain. Local people are much better able to determine that and that needs to be expressed through local political will.
And local authorities need to learn too. A community based budget is not a 'thing' to be desired for the council but the natural 'product' of working with specific groups of local people to help them better manage their own lives.
This implies a radical shift away from the current model of working for many councils. Too much of the work has been stuck in pilots that, whilst indicating potential future savings from early interventions, have failed to impact on the way council departments work each day. So the risk is a proliferation of pilots that just add to the current operating cost.
If Community Based Budgets are to prove a radical departure from the current position then councils and their partners need to be clear as to how they will move from the current model. If they are to transition from pilot to prototype to practice then councils cannot leave their departments to keep doing those things that they do now.
I remain an optimist. Community Based Budgets offer a fantastic opportunity to reshape public sector delivery for the better. But local government needs to take a clear lead in defining what is necessary to make them work. And Whitehall needs to match its political master’s rhetoric and learn to 'devolve by default'.
John Atkinson is a director in KPMG's local government practice.
