I f we want to get serious about transformative place-based public services, we need to treat England's chronic case of ‘pilotitis'.
Our policy system has developed a deep reliance on small-scale trials and controlled experiments: often not to learn, but to delay, defer, and distract. Pilots have become the go-to move for a Whitehall-dominated system that is risk-averse, centrally controlled, and shaped more by the fiscal instincts of the Treasury than by a coherent vision for reform.
Pilots have their place, but after a certain point they are a vehicle for policy in a low-trust system. The alternative is to trust places: accept that the time for piloting is over, and that the place-based approach is ready for the mainstream.
Sometimes the right ideas aren't new. They may in fact be old ideas – even obvious ideas – which already play a role in the way that things are done in some places. And the only reason those ideas are not being used everywhere is that the operating environment is too hostile for that to be possible.
In response, our system has a consistent pattern. When the environment is wrong, Whitehall has a clear, low-risk approach to fall back upon: piloting.
‘Pilotitis' is a genuine pathology of the English system. It allows a fundamentally risk-averse (and, let's face it, cash-strapped) system to send signals about working differently without ever making a deeper commitment to establishing the conditions for really doing so. In other words, they are a policy dead-end. The results of a pilot – good or bad – are far too easy to dismiss. A reluctant Whitehall can simply say that the specific local conditions make it too hard to draw out broader, system-wide lessons.
Our recommendations challenge the status quo of siloed working, the rigid focus on individual organisations and the attitude that ‘Whitehall knows best,' as well as capturing the need for culture change and better partnerships across the public sector and with communities. Ministers, local politicians, civil servants, local leaders, frontline professionals and service users are all crucial to that partnership.
This is because they revolve around person-centred, whole-system approaches to public services that are intended to produce outcomes that are both more efficient and more humane: individuals having fewer, more comprehensive, and more helpful moments of contact with the state rather than being forced to navigate an opaque, complex, and fractured system themselves.
You could call this a ‘Total Place' approach. Originally launched in 2009, Total Place aimed to improve public service delivery through a whole area way of working, mapping funding flows and fostering collaboration across sectors. If we looked at all of the money being spent in an area, and scrutinised all of the different kinds of demand on the system – how might we do things differently?
But despite the pilots holding significant promise, Total Place ultimately struggled due to short-term funding, fragmented governance, and a lack of sustained buy-in from siloed Whitehall departments.
We can't afford to allow that to happen again. Part of preventing that outcome now is recognising that, for all of their excellence, the ‘experiments' of Total Place and the Test, Learn and Grow programmes are not radical innovations, in need of pilots. They are natural extensions of the best traditions of local government public service, where the knitting together of systems and services on behalf of (and even in partnership with) communities has always been a hallmark of the sector.
It doesn't happen everywhere, and the wider system always makes it harder. But seeing these approaches as natural to a more place-based approach rather than a radical departure would be a crucial mindset shift for Whitehall.
That would mean a step away from pilots and a renewed emphasis on how to create the conditions for the more collaborative and co-productive approaches that would make a difference.
Now is a pivotal time for local public services. There is the opportunity and appetite to look afresh at the relationship between central government and places. In our recent report for the Local Government Association, Trusting Place, we set out ideas for achieving just that, with recommendations aimed at local and central government to reflect the layered approach that is needed. That would mean a more empowered front line, deeper engagement with communities, the ability to act strategically with long-term and pooled funding, and a commitment to freer and more robust data-sharing to enable new approaches.
Our recommendations challenge the status quo of siloed working, the rigid focus on individual organisations and the attitude that ‘Whitehall knows best,' as well as capturing the need for culture change and better partnerships across the public sector and with communities. Ministers, local politicians, civil servants, local leaders, frontline professionals and service users are all crucial to that partnership.
These should not be seen as radical ideas. Public servants across the sector have been demanding these things for decades. The point is that the place-based approach is ready for the mainstream – and now we need to make sure the system around it is, too.
Dr Simon Kaye is policy director of Re:State, Andrew Laird is chief executive of Mutual Ventures and Professor Donna Hall CBE is a non-executive director at Mutual Ventures and a former chief executive of Wigan MBC
