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Local government's snowballing demand for greater control over public services received high-level endorsement this week, when an influential cross-party think-tank urged ministers to devolve huge swathes of services to localities – including stalled welfare regimes. The 2020 Commission on Public Services, which published its final report on 14 September following two years of research, also warned the Government must invest heavily in ‘early intervention' polices – such as adult social care and public health regimes for alcohol abuse and obesity – if Britain is to cope with its ageing population. Chancellor George Osborne is preparing to slash many Whitehall department budgets – including Communities and Local Government's – by around 25% through next month's Comprehensive Spending Review. But while the commission said future policy decisions must be placed in the context of imposed austerity, short-term ‘salami-style' and ‘silo-based' cuts would not cure Britain's ‘increasingly unsustainable' public services. The independent commission, chaired by former Audit Commission chair Sir Andrew Foster, estimates Britain's ageing society could load an increase of between 4% to 6% of annual GDP – around £83bn – on to public spending over the next two decades. That equates to the value of the Government's financial stability package during 2008/09 – designed to save Britain's ailing banks and a reason why ministers are now cutting budgets – and would put other services under significant threat. The solution, the commission said, is a ‘complete reconfiguration of public services around the needs and capabilities of citizens, based on the principle of social productivity' – and requires overhauls of public policy culture, powers and finance. In particular, the commission reports Britain's ‘over-centralised' power system should be broken up, with significant responsibilities devolved to town halls and neighbourhoods. In effect, the report calls on ministers to accept the Local Government Association's ‘offer' to government – a ‘more for less' deal, under which councils and other local bodies would accept greater control over services in exchange for lower budgets as austerity measures kick-in. The study calls, for example, for full devolution of welfare benefits services to town halls and tacitly backs place-based budgeting programmes – involving the merger of many service budgets into a single cash pot co-ordinated by local officials – piloted by the Labour government. Its ‘social productivity' principle – under which citizens would have a responsibility to contribute to, as well as receive, public services – also draws heavily on the coalition's Big Society plan for a volunteer army, or local mutuals, to run non-essential services such as libraries and leisure centres. Such wholesale devolution would require an acceptance – by politicians, policy makers, the media and the public – that service quality would vary across localities. Ben Lucas, 2020 Public Services Trust director, said: ‘It is time to get beyond the stale debate over postcode lotteries – social outcomes are already different across the country. Far better to have minimum national standards and allow localities to develop their own approaches to improving social outcomes.' Reaction to the report – contributors to which include former ministers, government advisers, private sector consultants and policy specialists – within the local government sector has been positive. John Ransford, chief executive of the Local Government Group, said: ‘As this report points out, bypassing local democracy would put the decision-making process back in the corridors of Whitehall; often hundreds of miles away from the communities affected. ‘Only local government is in a position to respond to the specific issues facing different parts of the country, and to support local residents in reshaping their public services in the way that will help them the most.' A senior government source told The MJ: ‘It's an interesting and timely study, not least because much of it links to policy proposals already in train – such as the Big Society initiative, plans to empower local council leaders, and [prime minister] David Cameron's ambition to devolve powers down through local authorities and neighbourhoods.'

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WHITEHALL

The baby-boomer bill

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