National policymaking can be a fickle endeavour. Politicians often leap from one new scheme to another, creating a policy churn that local partners make the best of.
A policy initiative that was junked 13 years ago but which retains a quiet fan base is Total Place. In the final months of the Labour Government, informed by 13 pilot areas, this brought together public services in a place, including councils, health and police, alongside the voluntary sector. It showed how starting with citizens’ experience and forging stronger collective leadership, waste and duplication within a confusing system could be identified and removed.
These findings informed a tantalising Treasury and Communities department joint paper published in 2010. This committed to mainstreaming the approach everywhere, given the evidence these new ways of working would bring better outcomes and financial savings.
Events overtook this fledgling policy. A change of Government, a new austere dawn for public services, and the quiet shelving of the paper, no longer available on government websites. The quest for more effective working across a place was replaced with the mantra of finding more efficiencies within existing siloes.
Total Place thinking is evident in some of the more interesting public service reforms since – whole place community budget pilots and the more recent integrated care system reforms. But our Whitehall-dominated delivery model is still largely intact, even if the demand pressures within it mean it is falling over. Total Place logic of joint working to address the causes of problems holistically rather than endlessly grapple with symptoms is as pertinent now as ever.
What would a revived Total Place look like? ‘Community power’ might replace the original ‘customer focus’ emphasis – in other words the deeper, collective insight that can inform services strategically not just transactionally. A wealth of relational, asset based practice has demonstrated that flipping the starting point to the community – not the service – and focusing on what’s strong – not wrong – can unlock a different approach.
With no new funding for public services on the horizon and efficiencies maxed out, the next initiative must focus on effectiveness of existing spend: Total Place is a blast from the past but it is unfinished business.
Jessica Studdert is deputy chief executive at New Local
@jesstud
