Woody Allen’s ‘Annie Hall’ starts with an old gag about two elderly women at a Catskill mountain resort busy kvetching and complaining. One of them says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know, and such small portions.’ A similar scenario is inevitably facing unprotected public services in the next full spending review – terrible choices and resource straitjackets.
But if we are to seek, against a backdrop of static public finances, maximum local value from long-term budgeting, we owe it to ourselves to ask what good placemaking budgeting might look like either side of the next political cycle.
Spoiler alert – there is nothing particularly new under this policy sun. Our starting point was Localis’s report Level Measures – a modern agenda for public service integration which sought to ask how well-equipped England’s local authorities are to navigate the twin tasks of reformed local service provision and successful placemaking in the short and medium-term.
The answers were pretty much along the lines of the Single Regeneration Budget, Total Place and Whole Place – something which local government has internalised and adapted to amid seeming indifference from the centre as to how they go about it. Changes to the health ecosystem, notably the introduction of Integrated Care Systems and the reabsorption of Local Enterprise Partnerships within council suzerainty has refocused minds in recent times.
Localis recently ran a policy webinar to further tease out from experts what lessons we have indeed from the past to guide us on what reform towards single placemaking budgets might offer for improved planning, efficiency and ultimately improved service delivery and community benefit.
For Andy Foster, client partner at Capita Local Public Services, the onus has to be on the long term and to ensure capital spend does not put undue pressure on council revenue budgets. Pointing to the patient, long-term, resource heavy efforts involving the patient yearly bestowal of 3% of GDP to modernise the former Eastern Germany after reunification, he argued that data, and not political whim should decide placemaking allocations.
Rebecca Cox, principal policy adviser for the Local Government Association, argued the sector should make the case to ministers for the benefits of stability and through the prism of better understanding of the central/local relationship. Points of hope, she suggested, could be found among the combined authority trailblazer devolution deals in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands which could portend a shared commitment across parties in the next political cycle. However, the onus would be on local government to explain what this might look like for non-devolved areas, since trailblazer type arrangements would be unsustainable on a deal-by-deal basis.
A promise of the Levelling Up White Paper for a new doctrine of funding simplification and a shift from competitive bidding could be a lever to help Whitehall how to understand local government capacity in a different way, she argued. Indeed, the budgeting compact COSLA had signed with the Scottish Government is an opportunity seized after painstaking preparation highlighted what was achievable when the political will was there.
Matt Gladstone, chief executive of Peterborough City Council said engaging communities and local businesses on budgeting challenges and realities was critical. He warned councils would have to clearly know what was best for them when choosing from a pick and mix style trailblazer approach. Relationship with central government regardless of the outcome of the next election would be key and over the next five years place-shaping would require councils to rethink their role at a localised and strategic level and transformation. This would involve training councillors on the need for new ways of working.
From CIPFA, local government principal adviser Joanne Pitt stressed the need to define the scope and meaning of place remained important. Accounting issues around place-based budgets remained considerable, as the ICS example proved in terms of legislative barriers between budgeting cycles, terminology, goals and objectives. Issues of governance, which drive down into accountability and assurance can’t be underestimated, she said especially when budgets are blended for a greater good. The totality of funding in the system appears simple, but in practice is hard to determine. From a practical viewpoint, this all requires both leadership and strategy as well as capacity across the board to support place-based budgets as local initiatives.
Jonathan Werran is chief executive, Localis
@Localis
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