Local Government
Fortunately I didn’t bet on Brazil
beating Germany last night, but maybe I would bet that the shape of local
government across the UK will very different in five years’ time. The Welsh
Government is beginning to unpack the Williams report using some nice Lewin Change Management Modelling by stating how bad things are now (unfreeze) and how
change will make it better. If the Williams report is fully ratified, then make
the change from 22 to 10 councils and refreeze…
Council mergers: Poor services 'letting people down'
People are being "let down" by poor public services,
according to a member of the commission that proposed a major overhaul of the
public sector. Read
more >>>
So what about England? Over the last
year or so in this email, we have tracked the growing calls for unitary local
government to replace two-tier. Some of the CLG Innovation Fund bids are
thought by some, to be funding for re-organisation of two tiers systems by the
back door. This new NLGN collection of essays on the subject makes great
holiday reading for the beach (!)…
Right Tier, Right Now
The future of two tier local government is one of most vexed questions
facing the sector as a whole. It is quite clear that the current division of
labour between counties and districts is unsustainable for some parts of the
country as both tiers struggle to cope with unprecedented budget cuts. Read
more >>>
The real issue though is that it’s too
late to be building bigger back office silos through shared services.
Collaborative Transformation is the only game in town that can save £bns,
rather than the £500m maximum that can be gained from shared services. So,
adventures like the following in Dorset, could offer the opportunity for restructure
decisions that blur the traditional boundaries between departments and services
to serve the needs of their communities with new, better, lower-cost
services…
Dorset councils propose shared working
Three Dorset councils are considering sharing a senior management team
and developing joint services as part of a bid for transformation funding. Read
more >>>
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Blue lights service
I was teaching a collaborative
leadership day in a Fire Service a few weeks ago, when the comment was made to
me that the Fire Service has been too successful and is putting itself out of a
job…
Fire deaths fall by 5% in past year
Fire deaths fall by 5% in past year
The number of fire deaths in England has fallen by 5% in the past year,
according to official figures released by the Office for National Statistics. Read
more >>>
However, one of the deputy chiefs in the
room was quick to point out that the Fire Service has very successfully
transformed into being the major Prevention Service in the UK. They have saved
billions of downstream costs to the emergency services, A&E and private
sector insurance companies, by ensuring that incidents do not happen. Maybe
collaborative transformation for them could start by changing their name from
the Fire & Rescue Service, to the Prevention Service, counting the cash
benefits of the downstream savings they are making and see who wants to play.
Me? I would invest in the Fire Service, not cut its funding.
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Social care
To complement that theme, you may
remember a few months ago, a news item reporting that councils in receipt of
substantial social care funding were applying it to upstream activities to
prevent the need for the costlier, downstream direct social care. This hurt the
social care providers who were only geared up to do things to people who
already have social care needs. It looks like this could be the hot topic for
2015 as the full funding and new Care Act comes online…
The social care sector must pull together to address the funding crisis
No-one who works in care services would have been in the least
surprised at the two pieces of news this week. The LGA told us on Monday that
care for disabled people was at "make or break point". Read
more >>>
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