Written evidence submitted by County Councils
Network (LOCO 51)
INTRODUCTION
1. The County Councils Network is a cross-party
special interest group of the Local Government Association which
speaks, develops policy and shares best practice for the County
family of local authorities, whether unitary or upper tier. CCN's
38 member councils, with over 2,500 Councillors, serve 24 million
people over 45 thousand square miles or 87% of England.
2. CCN welcomes the opportunity to contribute
to this inquiry. CCN recently engaged its members in a major policy
debate which culminated in the publication in March this year
of the CCN Manifesto. This document sets out the CCN's
vision of a future in which local government, working with central
government, can deliver better outcomes for local communities.
This vision is one in which the local democratic process and high
levels of community engagement are at the heart of the shaping
and delivery of all services in each local area, with power pushed
down from Whitehall to democratically accountable local authorities,
and through them onward to communities and individuals within
the areas they serve. This will include a crucial role for local
Councillors as leaders of and advocates for their local communities,
as well as representatives of that community across the whole
council.
3. This submission reflects the views set out
in the Manifesto, as well as taking into account the implications
of recent announcements made by the new coalition government and
further comments made by member authorities. This response was
considered and approved by the CCN's governing Council at its
meeting in September.
The extent to which decentralisation leads to
more effective public service delivery; and what the limits are,
or should be, of localism
4. CCN believes that local authorities must be
able to make a real difference to the people, communities and
places that they serve. This means being able to take sometimes
difficult decisions about resources and services to meet the needs
of local communities and to be accountable for those decisions
to local people through the electoral process. It also means that
the criteria determining "effectiveness" may vary from
place-to-place, depending on such factors as local circumstances
and local democratic decision-making.
5. Local government has proved that it can deliver
performance improvement and efficiencies, and that it can deliver
innovative and flexible local solutions to key issues. CCN member
authorities are some of the most efficient, effective and innovative
authorities in the country, combining a stronger awareness of
local need and local circumstances with the ability to engage
in strategic oversight and partnership formation and development.
6. We recognise that citizens are entitled to
expect good basic services to meet needs wherever they live—but
we emphatically do not believe that all services must be delivered
to a national template. Services can legitimately vary between
local authorities and between different communities within them.
If this results from democratically taken decisions, and/or different
local circumstances, this is not a "postcode lottery"
but a legitimate exercise of political choice to meet differing
needs. Rather than being an argument for more centralisation,
the "postcode lottery" objection is more often an argument
for more services which are delivered locally being controlled
locally, and accountable to local people.
The lessons for decentralisation from Total Place,
and the potential to build on the work done under the initiative,
particularly through place based budgeting
7. The Total Place initiative has provided an
opportunity to identify the totality of public service provision
in an area and the potential for synergies and innovation to improve
outcomes for local communities. The experience of "Counting
Cumbria" estimated that total public expenditure in Cumbria
in 2006-07 was £7.1 billion of which £1.9 billion was
controlled by or directed through local bodies and £5.2 billion
by central government, including £2.3 billion from non-departmental
public bodies. Almost half of the 13 pilot initiatives involve
CCN member authorities, and many further member authorities have
undertaken similar initiatives outside of the formal pilot process.
The Local Place publication enclosed with this submission includes
a series of articles looking at their experiences; we would also
point the Committee towards further examples such as the "Total
Staffordshire" pilot.
8. CCN supports ongoing work to deliver the objectives
of Total Place and the principle of identifying the totality of
public sector activity and resources that are applied in an area,
using this data to ensure that those resources are orchestrated
and applied most efficiently and effectively to achieve outcomes
that are most important to that area. In particular, we wholeheartedly
support the Local Government Group's local budgeting initiative.
This is not a short-term panacea, but will need a radical change
by government to a more joined up and holistic approach in order
to deliver real service improvements and efficiencies. It will
require engagement not only from those departments that have a
history of close working with local government, but all those
spending significant amounts of money in communities across the
country.
9. To be successful, future working based on
the Total Place model should seek to avoid win-lose outcomes.
Currently expenditure on one service area can lead to greater
savings for another service in the locality, but there are no
rewards to recognise and encourage such behaviour. CCN believes
that where local authority activity or interventions lead to a
direct reduction in costs elsewhere in the public sector then
there should be equitable sharing of the costs and the rewards.
10. CCN believes that a greater proportion of
the resource that is spent locally should be under local democratic
control and direction. CCN believes that in some instances there
are good arguments, both in terms of cost effectiveness and enhancing
democratic accountability, for local authorities taking direct
responsibility from Quangos or other non-departmental public agencies.
11. CCN also considers that the commissioning
role of local authorities could be extended to encompass commissioning
for health and social care including public health to ensure both
democratic accountability and to enable efficiency and effectiveness
gains to be made.
12. CCN is of the view that devolution must also
extend to increasing local democratic involvement and influence
over key local services including health and police. This increase
in democratic accountability should be achieved through extending
the involvement of local elected Councillors and not through establishing
duplicate democratic structures.
The role of local government in a decentralised
model of local public service delivery, and the extent to which
localism can and should extend to other local agents
13. Local councils are the only organisations
providing public services locally that have a direct electoral
mandate. It is this democratic mandate that provides the legitimacy
for local government to "hold the ring" of accountability
for public services in the locality. Local government is the only
partner that can legitimately unite the range of public services
in the area, together with other partners in the private and voluntary
sector, and lead them in working together to achieve agreed outcomes
for local people. Local Government also has a key role in advising
and enabling local people to act for themselves, taking on responsibility
for improving and sustaining their neighbourhoods in line with
the principles of the "Big Society" initiative.
14. As leaders of place local authorities should
have a role in determining the priorities of public services locally
that are not currently under direct democratic control. The duty
to cooperate should be strengthened to reflect the accountabilities
of partners at the local level, and all local public services
should work within compatible frameworks. In addition we consider
that there is a case for all public bodies to have a power to
work in partnership with other similar bodies, providing that
one member of the partnership has the legal powers to undertake
the venture.
15. The principle of devolution should also apply
to local authorities, which must be prepared to devolve further
to other tiers of local government and to local communities. Localism
is not just about devolving money to local institutions, but to
people in their communities; giving them more information and
say about the local decisions that affect them. Local government
and individual local Councillors have a key role in stimulating
and galvanising engagement by people in social entrepreneurism
in their communities. CCN member authorities have a strong and
innovative track record in implementing a range of methods of
devolution and community empowerment. This includes participatory
budgeting, neighbourhood working, councillor budgets, public participation
in scrutiny, and partnership working with parish and town councils.
The action which will be necessary on the part
of Whitehall departments to achieve effective decentralised public
service delivery
16. CCN believes that the full-hearted commitment
of all relevant Whitehall departments is necessary if effective
decentralised public service delivery is to be achieved. In recent
years, partnership working has been hampered by the fact that,
for many local bodies, the primary accountability has been upwards
to the central department rather than outwards to the community.
The Police and the NHS have been hamstrung by accountability frameworks
imposed respectively by the Home Office and Department of Health,
while the prevalence of children, schools and families indicators
in the National Indicator Set reflects the central department's
reluctance to allow local areas to determine appropriate local
priorities. Rationalisation of procurement rules between different
Whitehall departments is also an important factor in enabling
local councils to join up and devolve local service commissioning
and delivery.
17. CCN considers that Whitehall departments
must loosen the reins over the bodies delivering services locally,
enabling them to become accountable first and foremost to the
local community, through the democratically elected local authority.
Local government is the only partner that can legitimately unite
the range of public services in an area—working with other
partners in the private and third sector, and leading the delivery
of agreed locally-relevant outcomes for local people.
18. Whitehall departments also need to give local
government the space to experiment and innovate, and to allow
councils opportunities to pilot ideas and initiatives within their
local area. In doing so, they should accept that lessons can be
learnt from such initiatives even if they are not entirely successful.
The impact of decentralisation on the achievement
of savings in the cost of local public services and the effective
targeting of cuts to those services
19. Local government is already the most efficient
part of the public sector. To achieve further efficiencies at
a local level, central government needs to remove legal and administrative
barriers that hinder a more joined up approach, and to allow local
authorities to develop innovative solutions which may then be
adopted by others. Central prescription is unlikely to lead to
optimal solutions for local communities. Whilst there are efficiencies
to be made as a result of improved joint working and shared services
between counties and districts in two tier areas, the greatest
potential lies in the relationships with other upper tier authorities
and with wider public services organisations, including health.
20. Central government should not take advantage
of local government's good record in achieving efficiencies and
good financial management to load further disproportionate efficiency
requirements on to the sector, and to protect other public services
from the need to make efficiencies at the expense of the services
provided by local government.
What, if any, arrangements for the oversight of
local authority performance will be necessary to ensure effective
local public service delivery
21. CCN has argued strongly for a new approach
to improvement and performance management. Over recent years,
the local government performance framework has placed far too
much emphasis on compliance with inspection frameworks and too
little on the achievement of local priorities. Inspection activity
has been highly resource-intensive, and has diverted energy and
resources away from frontline service delivery. Moreover, partnership
working at the local level has been hampered by the accountability
of public bodies operating locally to a range of different (and
at times conflicting) national frameworks.
22. CCN believes that any future performance
management framework needs to be transparent, simple, streamlined
and resource efficient (for all parties) and to encourage the
pursuit of excellence and innovation to meet the needs of citizens
and service users rather than simple compliance with the framework.
It should have local priorities at its centre and encourage councils
and partnerships to take responsibility for their own improvement.
23. Developments following the election have
largely accorded with this vision. The abolition of Comprehensive
Area Assessment and the commitment to make further cuts in local
government inspection indicate that the new government is prepared
to shift responsibility away from nationally imposed regimes and
towards the local government sector itself. CCN welcomes this
emphasis and believes that self-improvement approaches such as
peer support and challenge and mentoring schemes are often the
most effective ways to secure improvement. We will be responding
positively to the LG Group's current consultation on Sector Self
Regulation and Improvement, calling for a new transparent and
sector-owned performance framework that drives improvement whilst
minimising the burden on councils.
24. Within such a framework, we accept that there
is a role for risk-based, well targeted and above all proportionate
inspection, in relation to services for vulnerable groups. The
framework should recognise, however, that for all but the most
high-risk services, inspection should be used only as a matter
of last resort, when other improvement methods, such as peer support
and challenge, have not been successful. We would stress the need
for all inspectorates and bodies with a role in the improvement
of local services to sign up fully to these principles.
25. We would also caution that the abolition
of CAA in itself will not be sufficient to ensure a significant
reduction in the inspection and performance management overhead.
There still remain a wide range of performance frameworks and
inspection regimes linked to functional specialisms. CCN is keen
to ensure that these frameworks are also reduced to a minimum,
rationalised and aligned to support joined up delivery between
public services at local level. In the past the Audit Commission
has performed a "gatekeeper" role (with mixed success);
in the Commission's absence, it will be important to find new,
more effective ways of co-ordinating continuing inspection activity.
26. The new government has also indicated that
it wishes to place greater emphasis on the transparency of public
bodies. This includes the proposed requirement that councils publish
all items of spending over £500, as well as contract and
tender documents in full. CCN supports in principle moves towards
greater public transparency. We are keen to find ways to minimise
the administrative burden arising from such initiatives, and we
would argue that all government departments should be subject
to the same requirements as councils.
How effective and appropriate accountability can
be achieved for expenditure on the delivery of local services,
especially for that voted by Parliament rather than raised locally
27. CCN believes that the accountability derived
from the electoral process means that local authorities are uniquely
placed to lead partnerships locally. There will be a particularly
strong role for counties in multi-tier areas in fostering joined-up
work between different public services within their area, and
delivering outcome-focused strategic commissioning.
28. CCN believes that a greater proportion of
the resource that is spent locally should be under local democratic
control and direction and that there are good arguments for local
authorities taking direct responsibility from Quangos or other
agencies both in terms of cost effectiveness and enhancing democratic
accountability.
29. We believe that the case for place based
budgeting and decision making, under the democratic leadership
of elected local authorities working in partnership with other
public sector bodies, is overwhelming and is the only way to deliver
better services in a more effective and efficient way whilst meeting
the needs of local people.
October 2010
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