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Total Place is an exciting initiative. It is part ‘radical new approach to efficiency' and part common sense, working together to get best value for the public pound and transforming services in the process. It has the potential to inform and transform government thinking on so many different levels. "Government has to be – and is – open to removing barriers and changing the way it requires things to be done, doing so frankly and being honest when those changes cannot be made. This has got to be an open two-way discussion..." The 13 pilots are making great progress, and I am hearing much about ‘total place type activity' in many other places. One of the challenges for places, and for pilots, is to turn their learning into propositions that require central and local government, as well as service delivery organisations, to think and act differently. These are increasingly hard edged, built on the learning from working differently and inspired by the evidence from the counting work of just how much resource is being deployed in ways that were often unrecognised. Pilot areas are engaged with their Whitehall champions and having discussions with government departments designed to turn the pilot local innovations into long term sustainable change. Government has to be – and is – open to removing barriers and changing the way it requires things to be done, doing so frankly and being honest when those changes cannot be made. This has got to be an open two-way discussion. Sir Michael Bichard's involvement is a real guarantee that it will be, based on robust business case evidence for change from the pilot activity. Transformation takes time and energy and personally I have been bowled over by the scale of imagination and ambition that I have seen generated in pilot areas. Although we recognise that this is early in a complex process, we have asked pilots for their initial findings and progress to date, so that it is in advance of the pre Budget report (PBR) this autumn. Total Place derives from the Operational Efficiency Programme, the conclusions of which were published alongside the Budget in the spring after a year of investigation by independent experts. The PBR is the next opportunity formally to take stock. It is also an opportunity to assure all stakeholders, from ministers to local service providers to communities themselves, that Total Place will generate a new approach to working together, greater value for money and be part of shaping the kind of public services that local communities will need in the future. As ever, where there is an opportunity, there is real challenge; whether for places in turning their learning into hard edged scalable propositions and meeting some demanding timetables; for government in learning, responding and removing barriers to change; for all of us in focusing on service and customers rather than on organisation structures and embedded interests. This work should showcase how co-operation can deliver better public services which demonstrate real value for money. Helen Bailey is director of public services at HM Treasury

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WHITEHALL

A perspective from Whitehall

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