Local authorities should coordinate local services
Only elected councils have the capacity to identify gaps in local public services says Doug Taylor, the leader of Enfield council
Elected local councils alone have the capacity to look across the entirety of a given area and identify gaps in service and unmet need. If this is what the government is saying in its public services white paper, as the Local Government Association says, well and good.
Resources permitting, we all share the white paper's objectives of more personal public services with more choice for individuals and families. But it seems to neglect how much improved choice for individual service users also depends on collective strength and public authority.
Just as public spending and state-backed services complement and encourage volunteering, so the attempt to tailor services to individuals requires robust public bodies ? councils among them ? that are able to plan, supervise and remedy deficiencies in services.
As Tom Levitt, the voluntary sector expert, put it at a recent Enfield conference, "only the local authority as strategic player can offer full geographical cover and guarantee a right to service". Take away that strategic role and personalization of services runs the risk of becoming a "gimme" or Nimby approach, sacrificing the common good for selfish interests.
The moniker we are using at Enfield to describe this essential role is "co-coordinating council". We recently convened a day's discussion around the theme, which was addressed among others by Ray Mills of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who identified a ring master role for local authorities. Only they were in a position to marry capacity to plan and deliver, or oversee provision, with clear understanding of need.
Beware the unintended consequences ? even the chaos ? of a free for all in which public service workers do split into fragmented and disconnected service units: can this new service economy deliver high quality services sustainably? A million flowers do not always bloom; they may all wither.
Caroline Flint, the shadow communities secretary, told our conference of the sidelining of local authorities and commended instead a strategic, coordinating role, within a renewal of the total place approach, in which service costs can be cut and duplication between providers minimized.
"At the moment public services are weak on accountability and transparency," she said. "Vital services are difficult to understand and complicated to access." In a single London borough, you could find 120 programmes addressing the same set of needs, with funding from 15 separate sources.
Coordination is not some sterile, hands-off function, said Helen Dent, the chief executive of Family Action. It too demands creativity, as councils improve how they commission services from voluntary organisations, recognising the limitations of small charities, liable to be swamped by big tender documents, being flexible about length of tender. The instigators of the Big Society often failed to recognise that in social care creativity and innovation spring from the experience of delivering a service. "The best planners have a foot in practice."
We have to bear scale in mind, Professor Michael Keith, the head of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at Oxford, reminds us: the story changes as you move down the scale, from conurbation wide to ultra local level. A council can seem a big beast to a small community, but is itself small in relation to the regional economy. What does the level of the local mean for the configuration of health or other services. "Local government has got to be savvy about the unevenness of the world around". In inner London 25% of the population changes every year and in parts of outer London, including the eastern part of Enfield, the picture is similar.
Even enthusiasts for individualisation ? such as Dale Bassett, the research director of the think tank Reform ? recognise the continuing role of local authorities in providing information and guidance to service users. In the words of Philippa Roe, cabinet member for finance at Westminster council, "local authorities are still in a unique position' for example 'actively to skew things in favour of the disadvantaged".
A phrase heard more than once at our conference was "nobody's going to do it other than the council", which captured the sheer necessity of retaining in local areas a central institution with oversight, responsibility and accountability. Without the coordinating council, democracy is weakened and public confidence jeopardized as government plans unfold and the services landscape becomes more fragmented and disconnected.
Doug Taylor is leader of Enfield council
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