Total Place can win over sceptics

Council tax payers will be shocked to learn how many different agencies may be delivering the same service

By John Atkinson

Many column inches have now been dedicated to Total Place, outlining what it is, who’s involved and what it aims to do. There has been predictable scepticism that this latest initiative will achieve anything more than previous place-based drives.

So I would like to be clear: Total Place is not a panacea to the unprecedented financial pressure the public sector faces ­- but it does offer an unprecedented opportunity to fundamentally change the way we do things, to reshape the relationship between central government and local public bodies and change the way services are delivered, so that future generations do not face the problems we are tackling now.

The basic premise of Total Place is a simple and logical one: if we consider social problems from the perspective of residents and places rather than from our organisational silos, we can simplify delivery and reduce overlap, thus improving service whilst making considerable efficiency savings.

But, as anyone who works in local government will know, carrying out such a task ­is far from simple.

An incredible amount of work has taken place in the 13 pilot areas over the summer months, with their councils working with partner agencies such as primary care trustss, police and fire authorities, the Probation Service and JobcentrePlus - firstly to map the total public spend for that area, and secondly to submit their early findings on opportunities for much more effective local collaboration, ahead of the pre-Budget report (PBR).

Hundreds of people are involved in Total Place, including elected members, senior officers, frontline staff and, perhaps most importantly, service users.Thanks to their efforts, all 13 pilots have now calculated their approximate total spend, and have all submitted their findings.

While it is too early to draw detailed conclusions, the findings make for some interesting – at times surprising – reading. We can now see the sheer scale of investment in localities: for example, the Central Bedfordshire and Luton pilot has established that £3.4bn is spent locally, equating to £6,853 per person.

What is also clear is how little of that investment is directly under local political control. The numbers of agencies involved in delivering services in a single locality will come as a shock to some.  

In Durham, housing services are provided by 25 agencies, for a single largely rural county with a below average population density of 508,500. As the pilot’s submission states, ‘there is an enormous opportunity for doing things better both strategically and operationally through partnership’.

What we have learned so far raises questions about local governance: with this scale of investment, should more of it be under local, democratically accountable influence?

Other key issues which are raised by all pilots are:

• the need to reduce ring fenced funding;


• the need to tackle performance management frameworks which inhibit local collaboration;


• the need for fundamental redesign of services based on users’ experiences.

The advantage of Total Place lies in the close involvement of Whitehall, which allows us to explore such questions and challenges.

The summary of pilots’ submissions for the PBR has now been considered by the group of high level Government officials chaired by Sir Michael Bichard, whose Operational Efficiency Programme recommended Total Place.The group has representatives from each Whitehall department, plus chief executives from key local delivery agencies including councils, PCTs and police.

As a direct result of the pilots’ submissions, four members of the Bichard group are being asked to lead on key policy themes that have emerged from the 13 pilots, to make sure the relevant Government departments engage with the pilots to consider how new ways of working together will produce the best outcomes for residents.

They are yet to be finalised but the four themes, which touch on work being done by all the pilots, are likely to be: children and children’s health; alcohol and drug misuse; asset management; and offender management.

The pilots are now beginning to look at their chosen theme or themes in greater depth, looking at what money is spent, where and by whom, to develop more specific proposals for next year’s Budget about how councils and local partners could deliver fundamentally better services.

We have already learned a considerable amount through Total Place, and I have no doubt that we will continue to as it evolves.

To find out more about this article, visit: www.localleadership.gov.uk/totalplace

4 October 2009

John Atkinson. Managing Director, Leadership Centre for Local Government