- March 23, 2013
In this week’s budget statement, the Chancellor announced no change of direction for his deficit reduction strategy.
Analysis by respected commentators such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has pointed out the implications of further reductions in spending, particularly by those Departments of State which have not been ring-fenced to 2015 i.e. all those except health, education and international development.
According to the FT article covering this story: “On current plans, departmental spending is set to drop by 2018 to the lowest level since 2002-03 in real terms and to the lowest as a proportion of national income since at least 1998, resulting in a radical reshaping of the state.”
How radical is this reshaping going to be?
It can be argued that, to date, reforms of public services designed to drive out savings have been in the ‘salami slice’ category. In other words, the easiest areas of non-statutory expenditures have been cut back, staff numbers have been allowed to fall through natural wastage without replacements and such like.
Widespread reshaping of service delivery models and more radical reforms have not been evident. However, the ability of public service delivery organisations to muddle along with more salami slicing, in the hope that the public funding taps will be turned on again soon, must be diminishing.
With such a long period of austerity ahead, some more imaginative responses will have to emerge. There are some pointers as to the direction of travel.
Another article following the budget, this time in the Guardian, discusses plans to de-duplicate public service activities – extending the findings of the Total Place initiatives piloted under the previous Government and Whole Place Community Budgets trialled by this Government. The service areas highlighted are: families with complex needs; health and social care for adults; economic growth, work and skills; reducing re-offending and domestic abuse; and early years.
In another part of the Guardian was a different article discussing how mutual models could be more widely applied in the delivery of local government services, providing an alternative model to either in-house or outsourced to private sector providers.
Finally, if the Government’s acceptance of almost all of Lord Heseltine’s ‘No Stone Unturned’ recommendations leads to any genuine devolution of budgets and decision making authority away from Whitehall’s control, then there will undoubtedly be scope for very different thinking to emerge.
Perhaps it is only when faced with the kind of long term austerity picture which we now have that public service reforms gain genuine traction rather than lip service.