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Making the right connections

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Recent reports have praised Total Place and
participatory budgeting. Richard Parsons calls for Whitehall to start connecting the two ideas

Over recent
weeks, evaluation reports have been published on two government programmes that
point the way to a reinvention of the way the British state works. But while
one has received high-level attention in Whitehall
and is seen as vitally important for delivering more efficient and effective
services as budgets are squeezed, the other has seen a low-key roll out and
garnered little attention.

The two
schemes in question are Total
Place, the bid to analyse and rethink virtually
all government spending in a given geographic area; and participatory
budgeting, which allows citizens to have the final say on how public funds are
spent within their community. Both sit, at least partially, within the
Communities and Local Government department, but there seems to have been
little effort to join the two schemes up – despite their shared focus on better
delivery of what the public wants.

The Total Place pilot
evaluation reports are simultaneously inspiring and depressing in what they
reveal about the structure and effectiveness of the British state. They are
inspiring in what they say about the dedication of those involved, their
recognition of the need for change, and their enthusiasm for bringing it about.
Yet the 13 pilot schemes reveal depressing failings in the way the state
functions.

The system,
it appears, is in need of a major overhaul. And as budgets are squeezed, Total Place offers
the opportunity to recognise these failings and take a big step forward in how
the public sector works. Yet the Total
Place evaluation reports had surprisingly little
to say about involving the public, and nothing at all to say about giving the
public more control over their services.

This is
where participatory budgeting should fit into the picture. The interim
evaluation report on participatory budgeting in England found that the schemes
“improve relationships within communities and between communities and service
providers”; a lack of understanding between service providers and citizens is
one of the key weaknesses identified by the Total Place experiments. In addition,
participatory budgeting was found to draw on “local knowledge and opinions to
ensure resources are spent on what matters to local people” – again, one of the
core aims of Total Place.

Despite
being one of the most radical experimenters with Total Place, Birmingham’s
evaluation report was typical in its approach to public engagement. It spoke of
drawing on the knowledge of local councillors to understand the needs of
communities, and said that the “swathe of ideas will be tested with local
residents”.

What this
illustrates is the extent to which the Total Place projects remain the
inward-looking preserve of professionals, who are keen to maintain control of
the change process. While it might be an improvement that the public will be
consulted on their proposals, it is nowhere near as radical a step as it should
be.

Croydon’s
Total Place evaluation report notes that the top-down, linear model of
delivering public services is “coming to the end of its useful life” and adds
that “we are convinced that there is power in letting people into the
previously closed systems of policy making”. Yet none of the Total Place areas seem to have made the
step from engagement to control. There is much talk of redesigning services
around people, mapping user journeys and developing case studies of customer
experiences. But nowhere in the process does the public actually seem to be in
control of any of the decisions being made about the changes to the services
they are paying for and receiving. Will engagement and outcomes be any better
if the same people who designed the old services also design the new ones?

There is
another pressing reason for greater public engagement. In an era of spending
cuts, it is clear that the required savings will have to come not just from
greater efficiency, but from dropping some programmes. And if services are to
be reduced, allowing the public to make decisions about priorities is one way
to reduce the fall-out and secure collective acceptance of the results.

This also
highlights one of the other weaknesses in Total Place: that it appears not to be
systematically addressing the question of which services should be dropped and
which new ones should be implemented. Its main focus is on making existing
services better – but if they are not the right services in the first place,
then is this an optimal approach?

The report
on participatory budgeting found that among its benefits are greater community
pride, cohesion and sense of ownership; increased awareness of how local
services work; a better understanding of how public money is spent; and clearer
lines of accountability.

If Total Place does
lead to an overhaul of public service delivery, it would be a huge missed
opportunity if the public is once again excluded, and the benefits of their
insights are lost.

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Richard
Parsons blogs on technology, politics and government at eDemocracyBlog.com

government, politics and public administration, Central Government, civil service, london politics, policy making, public administration

Last updated 735 days ago by Civil Service World

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