Examination of Witnesses (Questions 132-156)
BEN KERNIGHAN AND RALPH MITCHELL
29 NOVEMBER 2010
Q132 Chair:
Welcome to this session of evidence on localism. For the sake
of our records, perhaps you would introduce yourselves and tell
us the organisations you represent.
Ben Kernighan:
I am Ben Kernighan and I am from the National Council for Voluntary
Organisations.
Ralph Michell:
I am Ralph Michell from ACEVO, which is the national representative
body for third-sector chief executives.
Q133 Chair:
You are very welcome. To begin with, is your view of your role
in the localist agenda as the voluntary sector the same as the
Government's view of what you should be doing and what you should
be involved in, assuming of course that you know what the Government's
view is and, indeed, the Government knows what its view is?
Ben Kernighan:
Shall I kick off? I think there are lots of similarities between
our view and that of the Government in relation to this agenda.
If you look at the voluntary and community sector as a whole,
about a third of it works at a local level and more than a third
works at a neighbourhood level. If you marry what the Government
is saying in terms of localism with what it is saying in terms
of that element of the Big Society agenda, which is about giving
the voluntary and community sector a bigger role to play, there
is a lot of similarity. Voluntary organisations have a really
important role to play in delivering and designing services, helping
to shape communities and promoting social action. There is a
good deal of consistency there with what the Government is saying.
Having said that, in the context of the cuts that
are happening at the moment, a lot of money is being taken away
from local voluntary organisations. What I would like to see
in terms of what happens here is more local decision making and
for community groups to have a bigger role in their local communities
to help shape services as well as, where it is appropriate, to
help them to deliver services. But national Government must also
keep a role in terms of ensuring that that happens. It would
be a disaster if power is passed down from national Government
to local Government and gets stuck there. Unless national Government
keeps some degree of influence, for example by promoting things
like the Compact, we will find that the agenda works very well
in some areas and some areas where it works really badly.
Ralph Michell:
I would agree with all of that. Probably the biggest difference
in point of view is not so much between central Government and
the charity sector but potentially between the charity sector
and local Government. Our fear is that local Government's view
of devolution and the Big Society agenda is that it is devolution
to local Government and no further. As Ben said, we would be
keen for devolution to go further in order that third-sector organisations
at a local level are able to play the big role that we see them
having in designing and delivering services and also scrutinising
local Government and playing a part in local participative democracy.
Q134 David Heyes:
Those anxieties about local Government could be broadened out.
For example, I guess that the removal of the PCTs is another
issue that causes voluntary organisations concern. To sum that
up, how will the way in which voluntary sector bodies go about
their business locally be altered by decentralisation of power
to councils and to these other local agencies?
Ralph Michell:
A big danger we see is that different parts of the statutory
sector go in their different ways and become less joined up at
a local level and that makes life harder for third-sector organisations.
For instance, the abolition of PCTs and the potential arrival
of several GB consortia will recast all over again the relationship
between the local NHS and local councils, and third-sector organisations
will therefore have to operate in an increasingly fragmented environment.
On the other hand, probably the biggest advantage we would see
in the devolution of power is that there is at least the potential
for it to enable local agencies to join up more and be less hamstrung
by diktats from Whitehall. It is the lack of that kind of joined-up
thinking and commissioning that our members complain about at
the moment. If it were there, it would make it much easier for
them to go about their business in delivering services and looking
after people, which tends not to be structured around public sector
silos. That is one of their big complaints.
To go back to what Ben said at the start, probably
the key concern is cuts. Our estimate is that if local Government
passed on the cuts it is facing proportionately to the third sector,
it would mean a loss of income to the third sector of £1.8
billion a year by the end of the Parliament. We are already starting
to see cuts being passed on disproportionately. For instance,
Croydon has recently announced that it will cut its voluntary
sector grants programme by 66%. There is the danger that Whitehall
has a particular view of the third sector and clearly values its
role, but in some areas local Government will not share that view
and will see the third sector simply as an easy option to cut.
It is a soft target and nice to have in good times but not necessary
in bad times. That is our main fear.
Ben Kernighan:
I have to say that I am quite frightened by what is happening
in relation to health for the reason that the lessons of history
are that when there is big structural change within the statutory
sector, the voluntary sector loses out. In my view the reason
for that is not that the thinking or intention behind the structural
change is to exclude the voluntary sector or not value it, but
simply all of those individuals who had successfully built relationships
with people in the statutory sector cannot even find the right
person to talk to. I hope that the Department of Health is thinking
now about how it will put in place a framework to ensure that
voluntary organisations do not lose out. Nobody wants them to
but I have a real fear that that will happen. Even the relatively
small change when PCTs were merging had a negative effect. This
is a much bigger change on a much bigger scale.
I too would like to see the Government going further
at the local and neighbourhood level in relation to the pooling
of budgets. One of the big ways in which this country does not
get the maximum potential from its voluntary and community sector
is that very often it provides services to some of the most vulnerable
people in society and it will help those individuals with their
housing and family relationships, get them back into work and
help them to be less likely to offend, but it is terribly complicated
for that one individual to go to a variety of different funding
pots at local level. Therefore, the experience of Total Place
by the voluntary and community sector was not always a good one
because sometimes it was just a statutory sector stitch up, but
the principle behind that, particularly in a time of less funding,
must be right. National Government must do more so that local
authorities make sure that the voluntary and community sector
is sitting round the table.
Another of my fears is to do with Local Enterprise
Partnerships which were set up between businesses and local authorities.
We made the argument that social enterprises and voluntary organisations
were also good at creating jobs, but that message came too late.
In terms of the arguments around localism, the CLG is now saying,
"We're sorry, this is a new era; we can't instruct local
authorities what to do about that." If there is too much
of "we can't instruct" or "we can't set out advice",
then in many areas both the voluntary and community sectors will
do much worse. It is not a party political point. We looked
at where cuts have taken place, and discovered that there are
good local authority areas and poor ones—it does not cover
party boundaries. Following the useful comment by the Prime Minister
urging local authorities not to cut, some have not done so but
others have made massive cuts, before the Comprehensive Spending
Review.
Q135 David Heyes:
So far we have looked at the impact very much at local level.
What about the large-scale voluntary sector level, which might
include what are sometimes called umbrella organisations—maybe
like your own. What impact do you think there will be on their
ability to influence policy at national level?
Ben Kernighan:
The really important thing is that decisions are made at the most
appropriate geographical level. If you look at something like
services for deaf blind people or those with rare medical conditions,
there is a strong argument that national or geographical areas
larger than local are the most appropriate ones to provide support
and to understand a strategy for supporting those people. There
is, however, a big risk. While local Government is the biggest
form of statutory funding into the voluntary sector, national
Government funding is almost equally as big—the ratio is
about 52%:48%. We may think that the pendulum had swung too far
and that too much power was in Whitehall and that the best of
what voluntary organisations are about is helping local people,
not just having a say over the services but an involvement in
delivering them. The great risk, however, is that if we swing
too far that way, a lot of services for some of the most vulnerable
people within society will be lost. On your point about umbrella
bodies, I am more worried at a local level in relation to what
is happening in terms of support. If the Government's desired
intention to see more voluntary action, more people volunteering
and the encouragement of more philanthropy is to be fulfilled,
you need a strong network of local support agencies.
Ralph Michell:
I agree with that. Clearly, there are services where the beneficiaries
are spread out at fairly low density. The danger is that if you
devolve commissioning too far it becomes unfeasible to commission
for people who are that low density. But there are many charities
that run, say, specialist helplines nationally on a particular
issue or produce literature—for example, the Family Planning
Association produces literature to go out to all GP surgeries—where
there are clear efficiencies of scale. It is not particularly
sensible to commission that kind of activity over and over again
at local level with huge variations in quality, so missing out
on those efficiencies of scale. Clearly, there are areas where
it will be more appropriate to commission sub-regionally, regionally
and nationally. There is also a role for central Government,
even where commissioning is devolved to a very micro-level, as
with personalisation and giving individuals personal budgets,
to put in place the kind of structures that will at least allow
for some consistency in the way services are bought. The nightmare
scenario for a lot of regional or national third-sector organisations
is having to deal with hundreds of different commissioners who
commission in completely different ways.
Q136 James Morris:
You have expressed scepticism about the role of local authorities.
The reality is that local authorities will continue to play an
influential role in commissioning services. What specifically
do you think needs to be done to improve understanding at local
Government level about the voluntary sector? Thinking strategically,
what kind of new commissioning structures would you like to
see at local level?
Ben Kernighan:
There are a number of things to consider in relation to that.
It is important to start an answer in terms of what happens nationally.
One of the immediate challenges that faces local voluntary organisations
at the moment is that many of them are making staff redundant,
not because they will not necessarily get money next year but
because they still do not know whether or not they will do so.
So, if national Government only decides how much money local
Government gets in December, and local Government then decides
in January, the local voluntary sector cannot wait for that if
it has to know whether to pay people in April. That is a really
important point. You will see a big reduction in the effectiveness
of those charities and lots of people being made redundant, but,
in some cases, the money will be there and they will have to recruit
them back. That is a huge inefficient waste of public money that
happens in almost every financial year.
Specifically in terms of local Government, educating
councillors about the voluntary sector is a really important role
that we will take more seriously. One of the positive things about
the profile that this Government has given to the voluntary and
community sector is that local Government is now thinking about
how important that sector is, albeit that it sometimes makes funding
decisions that do not necessarily make it feel like that to the
people involved. In relation to some of the issues to do with
commissioning, the voluntary sector is at its best when it is
able to innovate and respond to changing need. There is a real
tension here, because to have a well-run organisation you need
some pretty secure pots of funding. I think that a four-year
spending review period is appropriate for many services, but,
within that, you also have to be able to be responsive and shift
what you do and how you provide it. In my view, that means you
need local authorities to commission more on the basis of outcomes
and less on tightly defined contracts.
Q137 James Morris:
In your comments so far you have talked a lot about the need for
national frameworks. Mr Michell referred to a feeling of suspicion
about having to deal with hundreds of different entities at local
level, but is that not where innovation comes from? One of the
dangers of national frameworks, as we have learnt over many years,
is that they stifle innovation at both local Government and voluntary
and community sector level, because you are constantly looking
upward and having to conform to the guidelines rather than getting
on with delivering the services innovatively.
Ben Kernighan:
Innovation happens within national voluntary organisations and
community organisations, and localism provides a significant opportunity,
particularly for those community and local organisations. Within
that, it is important that local Government understands how to
get the best out of the sector. There are really good examples
in places such as Camden, Thurrock and Merton where it is seen
as a genuine partnership. Part of it is around the local authorities
and voluntary and community sector coming together at the very
earliest stages. In those areas where it was a good example,
18 months ago they all saw that there would not be as much money
around and asked themselves how they should come together to determine
their strategy and recognise that they could achieve more jointly.
In the worst places, the local authority determines the strategy
and then, very late in the day, it says that it is going to cut
here and here because it does not have the cash.
Ralph Michell:
I do not want to give the false impression that we are overly
sceptical about devolution. We see real opportunities in some
commissioning being done at a more local level. We also need
to be aware of the counter-balancing risks. Clearly, there are
risks in terms of efficiencies and so on. On your point about
innovation, I strongly agree with Ben that it is both small and
large. Organisations like RNIB and RNID have innovated with things
like talking books and digital hearing aids in a way only they
can do because they are very big. Similar to the private sector,
you can get innovation from one-off individuals in their basements
as well as from very large companies investing millions in R&D.
You want to be able to get both.
With regard to local commissioning—I am sorry
this is a fuzzy answer—probably the one term that covers
what we are really looking for is "culture change".
Therefore, it is a culture change from procurement to commissioning;
from the kind of top-down approach Ben talked about with the local
authority deciding what it wants and very late on going to someone
to buy it. It is much more a partnership approach between commissioner
and the people on the ground delivering it who understand the
needs of service users and how a provider organisation works.
The communication between providers and commissioners is really
important. Ben talked about the fact that many organisations
will be laying off staff simply because local authorities are
not talking to them. Our members complain to us that local authorities
have said, "Don't come and discuss with us the 30% cuts we
need to make or how we could do it in an innovative way. Don't
talk to us; we'll talk to you in January when we have decided
what we're cutting, where and by how much we want you to reduce
your budget," and so on. Obviously, that is not the best
way to go about it. The culture change is to see local third-sector
organisations as partners and not as agents to deliver the decisions
that you have already taken.
Ben Kernighan:
Perhaps I may add one thing in relation to innovation and commissioning
because it is one of the things that the sector does best: the
important ongoing role of grants. There is a misconception among
many people and statutory authorities that commissioning is not
very good and therefore we must all get better at it and we must
understand absolutely everything about every community at every
moment in time and be able to predict it three years hence. Just
relax—you won't be able to do that; it is not that simple;
life is too complicated. To achieve that innovation you need
especially small grants; sometimes micro-grants can make a huge
difference to community organisations when they identify the needs
and the innovation. This Government has said some good things
about the importance of grants. Clearly, in a tough time there
is a risk that those will be lost. If they are lost we will see
a real dip in the ability of the sector to innovate. There is
one other little point in terms of what local authorities need
to be good at. If you look at what most frustrates the voluntary
and community sector, it is not funding, it is that their expertise
is not utilised in the strategies that local authorities take.
Q138 Heidi Alexander:
Can you say something more about the role and importance of national
and local Compacts in a more decentralised system? How do you
see those Compacts having to evolve from where they are now?
Ralph Michell:
This comes back again to culture change. There are places now
where statutory organisations have a Compact but it sits on a
shelf, gathers dust and no one pays it any attention; a prime
example is a PCT that recently asked 18 voluntary organisations
to pay back grants that it had given this year, contravening its
own Compacts. There was no consultation and it gave them a month
to give it back. First, there must be that culture change. Part
of how we should see the Compact is probably as a tool that could
lead towards that culture change, but it needs much more teeth
and accountability both nationally and locally and we hope that
will be hammered out in the discussions that are currently taking
place in Government. I think the new Compact with more teeth
needs to be agreed fairly soon because the danger is that we will
have this great framework or frameworks for partnership working
but it will come after the really important decisions about the
cuts are made.
Ben Kernighan:
I agree with that. What we will see in a world of more localism
is that the world will be very different in different places.
I am not tied to the idea of a postcode lottery as if we live
in a world in which at the moment everybody gets equally good
services. They do not. I do not fear that. I think that more
individuals and communities being involved in local decision making
and helping to shape services is a good thing. But the Compact
has become more important in the context of that variability so
that when things go wrong for voluntary and community organisations—when
they are not treated fairly and public funds are wasted because
of the way in which different parts of the state work with them—they
need some redress. The evidence shows that, where the Compact
works well, it helps those relationships. I agree with Ralph
that it needs more teeth. For example, we would like to see the
Local Government Ombudsman take a bigger role in terms of being
a place where organisations can go when the Compact is not kept
to.
Q139 Heidi Alexander:
Do you think there are other things that could give those Compacts
more teeth? You have already mentioned the role of the Local Government
Ombudsman.
Ben Kernighan:
I think the Parliamentary Ombudsman could play an equivalent role
at national level. The whole way in which things will now be
audited will be important. We are all dealing with the mindset
change of things like not having an Audit Commission but, at the
same time, looking at how we measure well-being in relation to
that. To include in the work on well-being just how much of that
is to do with people's engagement in voluntary action will be
significant. It is a very different way of assessing things.
The transparency agenda will be good at spotting inefficiency
and waste, but it will perhaps be less good at spotting high and
low quality of services. We still need to think about how that
is determined.
Q140 Simon Danczuk:
You have touched upon this throughout your contributions, but,
to summarise, what is the impact so far on the voluntary sector
of the attempts by local authorities to make savings?
Ralph Michell:
It is very mixed. Most of our members are at the stage where
they know that a budget from which they currently get money is
to be cut; in some cases they know that it will be cut by a certain
percentage. I think that is where most of them are, but they
do not yet know how that will impact on individual organisations.
As Ben said, the danger is that they will have to make decisions
before they know that. Either side of that there are examples
of very bad practice, like the PCT I just mentioned. A trickle
of our members have reported cuts for more than the past year.
On the other side of the spectrum there are organisations working
with their local authorities and other local statutory agencies
in a really intelligent way because they acknowledge that next
year there will be less money going in but there will be the same
problems, and collectively they are working out how they should
deal with that. There is a very mixed range of practice, but
the cuts will really start to hit further down the line.
Ben Kernighan:
I entirely agree with that. Last week I was talking at a conference
in Oxford where there was a real fear that the council would in-source
services. The approach that they described to me was that the
council was keen to lose as few jobs as possible—an understandable
motive—but that meant bringing services currently within
the voluntary sector back into the statutory sector. There are
some excellent examples of good practice in terms of people looking
across the private, voluntary and public sector at how they can
share resources and who has empty rooms in which community groups
can meet. They are looking at those kinds of exchanges of gifts
in kind and taking a more fundamental look not just at the services
they provide and the ones they are cutting but at how to achieve
the same outcomes with fewer resources, and what their overall
objectives are in relation to that. There is also recognition
that the voluntary sector has its own role to play in adapting
to these changes, for example where organisations choose to merge
or share back-offices. There is recognition that there are humped
costs if two organisations are going to merge, so a local authority
can make a wise investment by supporting that process.
Q141 Simon Danczuk:
Clearly, the Government is promoting a localist agenda but at
the same time funds are very restricted. What are the advantages
and disadvantages or the risks associated with doing that at a
very difficult financial time?
Ralph Michell:
Combining cuts with greater flexibility?
Simon Danczuk: Yes—more
localism.
Ralph Michell:
This is one of the big concerns of our members. In particular,
there are areas where ring-fencing will have protected funding
going towards vulnerable groups, with whom a lot of our members
work. Their fear is that, with those ring fences being removed
and funding going down, they will see raids on budgets intended
for vulnerable people, as we saw recently in the case of the Isle
of Wight and its Supporting People budget, a large part of which
was used essentially to plug a black hole elsewhere. That is
a real concern.
I think that links to the point about scrutiny of
all of these decisions. Difficult decisions will need to be made
and that they get made is fair enough, but a lot of our members
worry that they will be made under the radar at local level.
Particularly with the removal of some of the scrutiny mechanisms,
the worry is that vulnerable people will be hit hard, charities
will go under and that simply will not appear on the radar of
a lot of people, given that at local level local democracy involves
fewer people, there is less media scrutiny and so on. That links
to a fear related not so much to cuts as to nimbyism, which concerns
a lot of our members; for instance the provisions that I understand
are in the Localism Bill to provide increased chances for local
people to veto particular Government activities.
We tend to assume that with all the additional involvement
of local people that communities will be progressive and nice,
but sometimes they will not be, and charities come up against
that. For example, there is a case going on now in Harrow, I
think, where an organisation is trying to build supported housing
for 16 and 17-year-olds who have left home and are now homeless.
That is being opposed by local residents who fear increased drug
use, crime and so on. Again, there is a balance between on the
one hand wanting to empower local people and, on the other, not
doing so in a way that enables a local majority to disadvantage
local minorities. In the absence of scrutiny of that kind of
thing, a lot of our members would be very concerned.
Ben Kernighan:
By far the biggest impact on statutorily funded voluntary organisations
in the short term will be cuts. The numbers make that clear.
If you look at voluntary organisations that work at different
geographical levels, the highest proportion that get some statutory
funding is the local ones. If you look at the numbers, you have
£6.6 billion going from local authorities to voluntary organisations.
While we welcome the transition fund that the Government has
come up with to help support organisations through a difficult
times, that is £100 million. You can see how a great deal
of money is almost certainly just about to come out of the sector.
In relation to that, we are also concerned that voluntary
organisations generally have very low levels of reserves. The
median level of reserves is two months and for certain types of
voluntary organisations it is less than that. There is a real
risk that we will have late decision making, big cuts and a low
level of reserves. That is potentially a fatal combination.
We have to hope that in the medium term at least,
as there is a political consensus on the importance of civil society
and voluntary organisations playing an important role in people's
lives—helping to deal with those big challenges that face
society around an ageing population, climate change and so on—there
are opportunities for voluntary organisations. The demand for
services will go up, as we anticipate a rise in things like unemployment,
which everybody predicts. It will be very difficult.
To go back to pooling budgets, where I would like
to see the Government do more, it seems like a very good time
to introduce that because that is a way to achieve more, provide
better holistic services and to do it in a way that also saves
money. It seems like the real time for that to happen.
Q142 James Morris:
Earlier you expressed scepticism about Local Enterprise Partnerships.
I was a little surprised by that given your desire to make sure
that the voluntary sector view, as it were, is placed in strategies
at sub-regional level. Quite a few of the LEPs I have seen, specifically
the one in the Black Country, part of which I represent, have
very specific provisions within the LEP proposals for getting
the third sector and voluntary sector to input into the strategy.
Can you explain a little further your concerns about LEPs, which
seem to me to offer a valuable platform?
Ben Kernighan:
Some of them are and some are not, and it is very difficult to
get information about how many of them have strategies and how
many have not, but I know there are those where it has been excluded.
I know that the Government came late to recognising that the
sector had a potential role. My specific frustration is that,
having realised this, CLG will not now write to the existing and
forming LEPs to say that these sectors have an important role
and they should involve them. I absolutely agree with you that
they have an important role. I know from experience that if there
is one group it is hard to get into if you are not there at the
beginning, it is one that in part has the purpose of distributing
money.
Q143 George Hollingbery:
Very briefly, we've touched on statutory duties coming in under
the second tier council. It occurs to me that ring fence removal
is all well and fine, but if there still exists a huge plethora
of statutory duties you are in no better place at all, and the
only place a lot of councils can go is to the voluntary sector
and to cut grants to third parties. Is that a reasonable analysis?
Ralph Michell:
I do not think it is the only place. We are seeing a lot of unintelligent
cuts. There are ways in which you can cut costs—we would
like to see more of this—by transforming the way you deliver
services. One of the ways you can do that is in partnership with
the third sector. For instance, we have talked a lot about joining
up. One of our members, Addaction, works with problem families,
which, as we all know, are a huge cost burden on the state.
Their service called Breaking the Cycle has a marked impact on
families, in terms of drug abuse, engagement with the labour market
and the way the whole family works. Independent evaluation of
that work suggested that, for every pound invested, within two
years you would be likely to save £87. There are similar
stories in the NHS, in reducing reoffending and so on, which we
could provide to you separately if you are interested. There
are ways you can save money by working more with the third sector.
What we are most worried about is the opposite: that you see
the third sector as a frill and nice to have, and you get rid
of some of the activity that probably saves you significant sums
of money further down the line.
Q144 Heidi Alexander:
You mentioned the role of the community and voluntary sector in
local Government in terms of scrutiny. Are there any tensions
around more contractual relationships existing between local authorities
and the community and voluntary sector in public service delivery,
and their role as a critical friend and scrutineer? Do you see
any concerns in your membership about those sorts of issues?
Ben Kernighan:
I think there is a tension. Lots of voluntary organisations take
the king's shilling while criticising the hand that feeds it,
to mix a metaphor very badly. My response in terms of my advice
to the statutory sector would be: remember the importance of grants
and that they are really good; that you cannot know everything
that is needed; that when you choose contracts, look for those
that are not too tightly specified. People want to transform
public services at the moment. You will not transform public
services by moving them from one sector to another. If you keep
a contract incredibly tightly drawn you will end up with the same
service and a voluntary sector organisation that begins to take
on the characteristics of a statutory organisation, which is not
where we can add best value. Then my advice to voluntary organisations
in relation to that is: they should always remember what their
purpose and mission is; take on those contracts only if they believe
that overall they will better fulfil the value of their mission;
and try to diversify their funding, which is where philanthropy,
and central and local Government's role in supporting and encouraging
philanthropy, is so important.
Ralph Michell:
There is a potential tension. If a local authority wants to bully
one of the voices in the area, then this is an extra tool for
it to do that. If a charity is afraid of consequences, then there
is potential for it to be silent because it is receiving money
when otherwise it would not. I am not sure that is what happens
most of the time. I think that in a lot of cases it is the daily
delivery of services to those who use it and dealing with the
local authority that puts a lot of voluntary organisations in
a good place to know what they are talking about. In a way, I
think the roles can be complementary and certainly there should
not be a tension between them, even if there can be. I agree
with Ben that both grants and contracting are an important part
of commissioning; both are good ways to secure different types
of services. A third-sector organisation in receipt of a grant
could feel equally under threat if it is critical of local Government.
I do not see the shift we have seen to some extent from grant-funding
to contracting as having a particularly negative impact on that
ability to speak truth to power.
Q145 Bob Blackman:
You have painted the picture of disparate activity across the
country in terms of the funding position. You have mentioned
the potential issue of a postcode lottery applying to services.
Casting your eyes forward five years after this agenda has been
rolled out, what do you expect to be the impact on the mix of
local service providers across the country?
Ralph Michell:
I think it will be very mixed. In some places we see local authorities
making a big shift towards out-sourcing their services, so they
will want a very diverse and healthy provider market; in other
places, as Ben has said, local authorities are in-sourcing and
looking after their own, and there we will probably see organisations
in trouble and the provider market shrinking. Even within those
two groups, commissioning will be done in different ways; there
will be different levels of involvement in the joint commissioning
processes and different responses from within the provider market.
Therefore, in some places we start to see consortia being built
to enable providers to be commissioned from reduced procurement
teams. In some cases that probably will not happen to the same
extent. You then have the variation in the number of third-sector
organisations in any single local area. I am afraid it is not
a very helpful answer, but I think it will be extremely mixed.
Q146 Bob Blackman:
What do you envisage will be the impact on the people who use
the services? Ben, do you have a view?
Ben Kernighan:
Yes. I have the view that to predict five years into the future
is potentially a foolish thing to do. I am talking about my doing
it, not you asking the question. At its best I think we will
see some exciting examples at neighbourhood level—so quite
localised—of where services have been transformed and the
voluntary and community sector has played a significant role in
that. In particular in terms of your question about the users
of services, they are therefore engaged in shaping and designing
those services. It is not a deficit model; it is not "What
do you need?" but "What can you and the people you connect
with at the moment do? What are your skills and abilities? How
can we add to that and help you within your neighbourhood to make
a bigger contribution as well as receive a better service?"
We will also see lots of examples at a neighbourhood
level as well of different statutory sources coming together and
really exciting multi-purpose community solutions. We will also
see other areas that have not got to grips with what is a complex
agenda, where we will see a lot of fragmentation, disorganisation
and big fears in relation to the whole period in relation to health,
even if when we come out of the reorganisation it is good. The
period of change could be really tricky, and probably it will
be harder to keep tabs on what is going on in different places.
There will be more of a culture within the public and voluntary
sector of needing to spot good ideas all over the country and
using technology to help think of the best ways to do that.
Q147 Bob Blackman:
A lot of local authorities are now looking at sharing services
and bringing together a whole range of services to make themselves
more efficient and effective. Do you see that as a conflict with
the delivery of services at a very local level, even below local
council level?
Ralph Michell:
Not necessarily. For instance, there are national charities that
are essentially federations of smaller units. There are national
charities, for instance RNIB with its talking book service, that
are able to provide an extremely personalised service to individual
households. Similarly, we see models emerging of consortia of
providers. There are ways to marry the two.
Q148 Bob Blackman:
Do you think that because councils are coming together this could
be an advantage to the voluntary sector?
Ralph Michell:
Going back to Ben's point, it really depends on what service you
are commissioning, what the need is and how that is geographically
provided.
Q149 Bob Blackman:
Are there any particular examples where you think there could
be an advantage?
Ralph Michell:
Where you have a number of quite small providers, not several
providers in every local area—for instance, the British
Liver Trust, which is a very small charity that works with a disease
that is one of the biggest killers in the UK—there is no
way that those small charities can be commissioned and seek to
be commissioned by hundreds of local authorities. Frankly, if
they have to try, their service will probably be hit negatively.
There is an example where the shape of the third sector as it
is must be taken into account; otherwise, you risk commissioning
at a level that does not work for providers.
Q150 George Hollingbery:
You expressed some dissatisfaction with the Total Place model
as it was piloted. The third sector had little or no input into
it. Can you tell us a little more about what you think the third
sector can add? How can it improve the results? At some stage
I would also like you to address the idea of accountability.
Ralph Michell:
If you take as an example Blue Sky, which is a social enterprise
that employs offenders to do grounds maintenance, its service
reduces reoffending but also it is one that local authorities
want to commission. I suspect that the impetus for that kind
of joining-up of the public sector will come from outside the
public sector; social enterprise having the imagination and initiative
to join up, reduce reoffending and clean parks or recycle. I
suspect you are unlikely to see that kind of thing emerge from
within the silos of the public sector. It is that kind of initiative
and outside imagination that you want to bring into the transformation
of services. It strikes me that if that can be brought into the
design and commissioning of services and thinking about transformation,
you are much more likely to get better outcomes for people and
better value for money than if you have what we saw some of with
the Total Place pilots, which was essentially total public sector;
different statutory agencies talking to each other and working
out where they could eliminate duplication.
Q151 George Hollingbery:
Do you see the third sector in this case as innovator champions
advising big boards, elected boards or whatever they are—the
accountable layer—for the Total Place? Do you see those
people offering services that are innovative and joining things
together? How does the third sector fit in? Is it a combination
of those things?
Ralph Michell:
It is a combination of both. The more open both processes are,
within the bounds of what is practical, the better from our point
of view. Things like the right to bid, while not perfect in our
view, are a step in the right direction. The culture change would
see the local authority and probation trust in that instance seeing
Blue Sky not just as a delivery agent but a partner in the local
area that they might want to talk to when redesigning services
or going through a radical rethink of how to achieve what they
want to achieve with the budgets they have. The more of that
we get the better.
Ben Kernighan:
I agree. The sector has a role in understanding what is going
on in its locality and the clever local authorities realise that
they cannot know everything that is going on in their local area,
and working together they will come up with better plans and strategies.
Therefore, they have a real role in understanding need. They
have another role in helping to shape the design of services because
they often have expertise in delivering services, and subsequently
there is also a potential role, which some want to take on and
some do not, around the delivery of those services.
Q152 George Hollingbery:
Can you tell me very quickly how this structure works? Do you
see potentially an advisory board underneath whatever it is that
looks after the Total Place budget and is required to consult
with you every single time, or is there a champion on the board
itself? Is it done by pitching?
Ben Kernighan:
For example, you could have the chief executive of the council
for voluntary service; you might have somebody from the community
foundation who brings in an element of philanthropic giving.
You would expect the chief executive of a good council for voluntary
service to consult within their own membership so that they have
got a real sense of what the sector in their area needs and they
know who has expertise in different areas that can be brought
into that process. That would probably be a common model to work
well. Guidance from national authorities in relation to commissioning
has long realised that, if you try to separate entirely the process
of who decides what needs are and who delivers services, you do
not end up with the right services, because it is the people who
understand communities and have some experience of providing services
that can best inform what the overall strategy needs to be.
Q153 George Hollingbery:
It sounds very exciting. You are talking about social entrepreneurs
driving in at the Total Place level to make sure that innovation
happens and occasionally providing too, but that is not essential?
Ben Kernighan:
Yes.
George Hollingbery: That
is exactly where we are?
Ben Kernighan:
Yes.
Q154 Mike Freer:
You said that the sector had an understanding of its locality
and needs but we hear two voices: there are those who say they
have an understanding of their locality and their needs and that
should be harnessed for service delivery and design; and yet others
say it could be one voice, one community, one niche of a locality,
which then influences service delivery and then excludes others.
What is your view on how local authorities should harness that
knowledge, and what shape should that harnessing take?
Ben Kernighan:
A local authority needs to triangulate its knowledge about the
voluntary and community sector. Clearly, if it has something
like a council for voluntary service it needs to work out how
effective it is; how big a membership it has; what processes that
organisation has for consulting its membership. It should also
encourage wider direct dialogue, so it should ensure that its
council workers and leaders also come into direct contact with
a range of different voluntary organisations. It may be impractical
to have all the voluntary organisations on the Total Place board
and that is where an umbrella organisation can play a useful role.
One of the other potentially valuable roles the sector can play
in a world in which we want to see more voluntary action is in
promoting the use of volunteers by the public sector, and obviously
there is a lot of expertise in the voluntary sector to help do
that. The more opportunities there are for the two sectors to
work together, for councillors to shadow the trustees of voluntary
organisations, for opportunities to do job shadowing and all those
things to help understand better where each is coming from the
better, because the responsibilities are different. Ultimately,
politicians have to make difficult decisions about resources that
will annoy some people because they will not choose those organisations.
There is that ultimate difference in role that needs to be understood.
But there is a whole raft of exciting ways in which the level
of understanding between the two sectors can be promoted at local
level.
Q155 Mike Freer:
How do you stop the excluded being excluded?
Ralph Michell:
To start with, it is important to bear in mind that a lot of the
time, not always, third-sector organisations advocate the cause
of a particular community that is more excluded rather than less.
As a citizen I would want the local or regional state or whatever
to retain and be very clear on its role in ensuring that its services
are for everyone and that it is not captured by a particular interest
group, but I would also want it to seek to understand as best
it can all of the communities it serves. If there is a Somali
association in the local area that it could speak to in order
to understand better the needs of that community, then it should.
Q156 Chair:
You talk about local authorities needing to change the way they
interact with the voluntary sector. Does not the voluntary sector
have to change as well, because clearly at present many local
authorities do not see the voluntary sector as assisting with
their difficulties; they see them as a way of making cuts and
reducing expenditure?
Ralph Michell:
The third sector does have to change in terms of the way it communicates
with local Government, because a lot of the time that is still
immature. Recently, we did some work with Lambeth Council, bringing
together some of its commissioners and local third-sector providers.
The chair of the commission that that work was under described
the relationship as "adolescent". I think there is
some truth in that. There are still some parts of the third sector
that see themselves as having a right to public money and approach
local authorities as whingers rather than as partners. I think
that needs to change if this relationship is to work. There are
clearly ways in which third-sector organisations as providers
of services need to change the way they work in demonstrating
their impact and in understanding some of the pressures commissioners
are under. Yes, absolutely; the third sector needs to change
as does the statutory sector.
Ben Kernighan:
So often it comes down to the nature of the relationships. Where
those are good and there is willingness for each side to understand,
you will often see very successful partnerships in terms of what
can be achieved. Demonstrating impact is an important but difficult
area when you are trying to achieve social outcomes, especially
if you are helping people on the first step of the way. Perhaps
you are increasing their confidence so they can get out of the
house or socialise, but perhaps not to the extent that they become
employable. That becomes very difficult territory in terms of
demonstrating impact. It is not simple but it is something on
which voluntary organisations need help and support. A big challenge
that will face community groups in the years ahead is simply to
understand the landscape. This is a radical Government that is
proposing big changes across a whole range of different parts
of Government, so having the information to understand what is
going on and who to contact—those very basic things—will
be crucial. That is where organisations that provide support
to voluntary organisations will also be important.
Chair: Thank you very
much indeed for your evidence.
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