working together white paper briefing 2009 06

URBAN FORUM 2009

Government's latest White Paper ‘Working together; Public services on your side' outlines broad plans for public service reform. It follows the 2008 publication of ‘Excellence and fairness' White Paper, which sets out the Government's overall approach to public services reform over the next years. But ‘Working together' seeks to bring forward £3 billion of planned capital expenditure into the next two years. The Government wants to start further public service reform by giving local people, communities and public service staff both the information and effective power needed to improve and personalise public services. The Government hopes to move towards a richer, fairer and safer society by creating public services which better reflect local and individual needs. ‘Working together' continues the principles set out in ‘Excellence and fairness' White Paper of ‘citizen empowerment', ‘a new professionalism', and ‘strategic leadership' and shows how these three principles will be broadly translated into practice over the coming years.

Citizen Empowerment
‘Working together' seeks to give local people and communities greater power in the delivery of public services. By doing so it aims to create services which are more personalised where people have greater individual choice and access to robust information.
One of the first measures will be the implementation of the Communities in Control White Paper. It focuses on enhancing the power of communities by increasing participation in local decision making and strengthening local democracy and to empower people to set and meet their own priorities in relation to public services.

‘Working together' White Paper also calls for new online performance maps of local services, mooted for implementation in May 2009. The map will allow people to compare their local area with others, providing greater transparency about performance and allowing greater targeting of underperforming services. The Paper also seeks to bolsters support for the Asset Transfer Unit, allowing more community groups to run local buildings themselves. An additional 30 local authority areas will be included in the transfer demonstration programme, including offering greater choices over housing through the extension of choice-based lettings (the scheme allows housing applicants to apply for wider range of housing than the current scheme allows) to all local authorities by 2010.

For the third sector the Paper supports the provision of greater financial support including a £15.5 million fund for community groups in areas most at risk of increasing deprivation. In addition, from April 2009 a new Modernisation Fund will target third sector organisations who want to restructure, merge or otherwise work together. Further plans look to explore new opportunities for public service professionals to establish social enterprises, where they will be able to bid to deliver more innovative public services, including a target of increasing the sector's workforce by 25,000.

A New Professionalism
The Paper seeks to ensure there are the skills and personnel required to facilitate the proposed public service reforms, providing greater freedom for local communities and service providers to act in the most appropriate ways to deliver results. This includes measures to boost skills and to make the public service attractive to high quality employees. ‘Working together' looks to ensure that professionals who work in the public service are directly involved in the administration, leadership and personalisation of their services.

Strategic Leadership
‘Working together' includes plans for reform to local and central government. Proposals aim to streamline central government's direct involvement in the delivery of services and ensure they take a greater strategic role in setting broad standards and targets. It focuses on 30 high level outcomes and proposes to give professionals and communities greater autonomy to determine the most appropriate method to deliver services which meet these outcomes. By reducing central governments direct involvement in the day-to-day running of services the Paper hopes that greater support can be given to targeting underperforming services, resulting in greater efficiency and innovation in the delivery of public service. It is believed that these measures will allow £35 billion of value for money savings to be reallocated directly to frontline services.
To empower local communities the Paper emphasises greater access to information on service performance and improved engagement between the public and professionals. To achieve this, front-line professionals will be involved at every stage of the policy making process, and civil servants will receive better training focusing on providing greater support for innovation in the delivery of public services.

At the local level the Paper seeks to build and improve on Local Area Agreements and Multi-Area Agreements (MAA). By focusing on MAA, local leaders have greater freedom to join up and tailor services and economic strategies across local areas. This includes a further six MAA in the coming year and the introduction of agreements with at least two city regions. This will include within 2009, budgets and programmes which will be brought together in 15 neighbourhoods to help raise young people's aspirations and educational attainment, supported by £10 million of new government funding.

Conclusion
The government's dual goals of public service reform and economic stimulation present a challenging agenda for the coming years. With the changes proposed within ‘Working together', the government is seeking to ensure public services are tailored to individuals needs, are based on real community and professional participation, and make the most of the available resources at both a strategic level, and on the frontline. It is believed that improved flexibility, transparency and decentralisation will provide the tools to deliver a better public service which stimulates social mobility.

Simon Zelestis
June 2009