Written evidence submitted by the Public
and Commercial Services Union (LOCO 54)
INTRODUCTION
1. The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS)
represents over 300,000 members working in government departments,
agencies and on privatised government contracts. PCS is the largest
trade union in the Government Office Network (hereafter referred
to as GO network) representing 1,000 members who work across departments
delivering services locally.
2. PCS welcomes the select committee's timely
enquiry, and is happy to supplement this brief written submission
with oral evidence or further written evidence.
3. PCS believes greater localism cannot be effectively
delivered without an effective regional tier and that proposed
cuts in the GO network will in fact lead to greater centralisation.
4. The GO Network co-ordinates the work of thirteen
government departments and provides a vital role in delivering
government services and policy locally. It provides an important
channel for local authorities to influence and question Whitehall
and also ensure that government departments' aspirations for delivery
are realistic, reflect local circumstances and do not duplicate
or conflict with other departmental activity.
5. PCS believes that the GO Network is well placed
to support, indeed have a vital role in, delivering the government's
commitment to localism across the country and as such the function
it performs would need to be retained if the new policies are
to be successfully implemented and delivered.
6. A stakeholder survey conducted earlier this
year[16] revealed that
77% of respondents were satisfied with the GO Network, results
putting them in the top quartile for all public sector organisations
in terms of stakeholder perceptions.
7. The government has announced its intention
to close the GO Network having already made the decision to cut
the Government Office for London.
8. The Government has not given a clear indication
of cost savings that would be achieved by closing the GO Network.
PCS believes that in the long run closing it may be more expensive,
as local knowledge is lost and effective intra-departmental working
no longer happens.
CONTINUING NEED
FOR GO NETWORK
IN DELIVERING
LOCAL AGENDAS
9. The Office for Civil Society has written to
staff in GO Network and asked them to assist in delivery of the
Big Society using local knowledge to identify partners. GO Network
staff have a substantial role in assessing how services are planned
and delivered, in managing the governance of those services and
in monitoring the means by which local people are engaged. There
is little accountability in the proposed new regime.
10. The Department for Business, Innovation and
Skills has asked staff in the GO Network to assist in the development
of Local Enterprise Partnerships, again based on their local knowledge.
The closure of GO Network and Regional Development Agencies will
lead to a lack of local intelligence and coordination. For example
both bodies have played significant roles in the coordination
of government responses to significant industrial changes and
redundancies.
INCREASED CENTRALISATION
11. The alternative to this local knowledge is,
as the Financial Times has commented (16 August 2010), that increased
localism will lead to a creeping centralisation.
12. PCS has already seen evidence showing that
cutting the regional tier of government will lead to increased
centralisation. All Departments are now considering as part of
their CSR 2011 bids to the Treasury what functions should remain.
Home Office has decided that resilience and anti-terrorism work
should continue and Ministry of Justice has decided that they
should continue to support local crime reduction partnerships.
Should these functions be retained without an intermediate tier,
they will be transferred to central London .
13. The recent announced closure of the Audit
Commission means that there is now no body working with Local
Authorities to consider outcomes against grants from government
departments. It is inevitable that as ministers are accountable
to parliament for their departmental spending that they will have
to set up their own audit trails, thereby increasing centralisation
and bureaucracy.
FUTURE ROLE
OF GO NETWORK
14. There is a role for GO Network in integrating
departmental policies for delivery and influence at a local level
in important roles from child protection to tackling climate change.
PCS believes GO Network has a significant part to play in enhancing
the relationship between Whitehall departments and local authorities,
the voluntary and community sectors, local business, faith groups
and other stakeholders.
15. PCS is anxious that if the GO Network is
closed this vital work will not continue, as government departments
are already under considerable pressure to deliver more with less
resources as the government's spending cuts start to bite.
16. Safeguarding children—Children
& learners teams were established in GO Network in 2006 following
the Victoria Climbié inquiry. They are uniquely placed
to coordinate work between agencies and authorities on a range
of policy areas and establish key priorities for improving the
lives of children and young people at a local level. The teams
provide both support and challenge to local authorities on this
work and are able to share best and innovative practice to drive
standards forward.
17. Responding to extraordinary events—GO
Network provided a link between government and local authorities
during the floods that affected England in 2007 and 2009. In 2001
they provided a significant resource in the government response
to the foot and mouth outbreak. During 2010 GO Network was involved
in managing the Papal visit.
18. The Big Society and localism agenda—The
Office for Civil Society has approached GO Network to find out
how localism can work in practice drawing on previous work.
Closure of GO Network would result in a significant loss of
local knowledge and relationships, which would undermine the potential
success of this policy.
19. Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs)/Regional
Development Agencies (RDAs)—GO Network has already been
tasked to assess the capability of potential partnerships to replace
RDAs. The LEPs will need some coordination and that role could
be fulfilled by GOs. The closure of RDAs will require GO Network
to have a broader overview in conjunction with other bodies like
the Homes & Communities Agency. PCS firmly believes that it
would be premature to close GO Network ahead of knowing the consequences
of the RDAs closure eg how European funding programmes will be
managed in the future.
20. GO national planning, transport and rights
of way teams—These are based in specific GOs and deal
with these areas of work on a national basis. They have a great
deal of expertise, there is no suggestion that their work will
end and any decision we would argue would have to factor in the
continuance of their functions.
21. 2012 Olympics—GOs have a role
in ensuring that the Olympics provide long-term benefits throughout
the UK in terms of economic development and regeneration, skills
and employment, education, tourism, culture and health and wellbeing.
22. Climate change—The government
believes that tackling climate change is an issue that still needs
to be pursued, which GO Network is currently doing on a multi-agency
basis.
23. Community safety—GO Network
plays an important role in tackling the causes of crime linking
crime reduction initiatives with other activity such as social
inclusion, regeneration of deprived communities, competitiveness
and sustainable development. The initiatives to cut the prison
population would be helped by such coordination.
24. Food strategy—GO Network
continues to work on delivering this and supporting sustainable
food production including its integration with other departmental
priorities.
25. Welfare—GO Network has
managed the current European Social Fund programme since 2008
and as this work will need to continue it is not obvious how this
would be done without it. It has been leading on the highly successful
Later Life agenda looking at how better services can be
provided for the elderly. It is also engaged in cross-cutting
activity around worklessness and child poverty.
26. Homes, jobs and infrastructure—These
are still needed but many authorities have paused or cancelled
their plans for growth. Government will need to maintain strong
relationships with local authorities in order to understand and
manage the risks that localism poses to the economic recovery.
27. Transport—Transport funding
reductions and the end of Regional Transport and Spatial strategies
will mean a reduction in this work for GO Network. But this will
also put more focus on joining up housing, planning and transport
at a local level, and GO Network is better placed to support this
than Whitehall, because the policy areas are separated at that
level.
28. Equality and Human Rights Commission—Small
experienced teams are based in GO Network, working with regional
and local partners in communities to ensure community cohesion
and citizen level engagement. They fulfil a robust, credible regulatory
equalities function as the new government progresses its localism
agenda, reducing the burden on local government at a time when
resources may be stretched.
29. City regions—his is a
way of bringing joined up thinking to areas, so that services
and planning are provided in the places people live and work.
City regions go beyond local authority boundaries. They join more
than one city together in terms of strategic planning - for example,
on economic development, physical planning or strategic housing
- and governance arrangements, such as through executive boards.
This structure would be lost without the GO network.
30. Ministerial work—GO Network
enables and facilitates numerous Ministerial visits by suggesting
events and providing briefing and accompanying officers, etc.
It has also arranged Cabinet meetings outside of London, most
recently in Bradford. GO Network ensures that Ministers are
able to engage with MPs and their constituents on specific
local issues, either by using local knowledge to provide briefing
to parliamentary questions or Ministerial correspondence, or
by organising visits for Ministers to particular places so that
they can engage directly with voters on issues of concern. It
is doubtful if departments could manage this from London as effectively
without the depth of knowledge that GOs have.
CONCLUSION
31. PCS believes that the GO Network should have
a critical role to play in supporting the new localism agenda
because:
¾ It provides
a cost effective and efficient service across government.
¾ It is
vital in co-ordinating services in response to extraordinary events.
¾ Its
staff have built up significant knowledge and relationships with
local authorities and partner organisations.
The key functions described above will still need
to be delivered and there would be increased costs associated
with recreating them. Without them, the inter-departmental efficiencies
essential for decentralisation will not be realised.
October 2010
16 Ipsos Mori, March 2010 Back
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