A minister’s dilemma?

Suppose you run a public sector organisation that, thanks to your hard work, has achieved difficult objectives set for it comfortably within budget while others in the same situation have not. In response the minister cuts your next year’s budget because you don’t appear to need so much and raises the budget of the others in the hope that they will now succeed. Are you OK with that?

Thanks partner!

Six members from six organisations have contributed to developing a short questionnaire about partnership working which will go soon to all relevant members of the network and beyond. Proof that all of us are better than any of us.

Never let a good crisis go to waste…

……has become a cliche but contains a useful truth. More councils are saying ‘going on like this is not an option’, beginning the search for the big prizes which can flow from genuine local collaboration and - to use another cliche - starting to confront the elephants in the room.

It’s the culture, stupid

An insight to any organisation comes from asking ‘How do you get on round here?’ If the answer is ‘Make sure you don’t get the blame’ who is going to take the risk of trying to do things better?

Gritty stuff

In a cold winter many years ago University College Hospital gave the London Borough of Camden £20,000 to grit more streets: fewer twisted ankles, less pressure on A&E. Prevention beats cure. Big ideas have long roots.

The public services revolution

Suppose we tied these three advances together: the devolution of public service budgets to combined authorities which then use Total Place to maximise value; a new social contract between public and council; a shift from transactional to relational public services. It can be done: it’s started.

Our place, our budget

Public sector boards whose members are separately budgetted by Whitehall will be driven by that line of accountability so inevitably only collaborate where there is a clear overlapping interest. The full benefit of combined authorities can only be possible when they work within a single devolved local public services budget towards a single set of local outcomes.

Hearts or heads?

When thinking about Total Place some of us start with the system: devolving powers and budgets from the centre. Others start with relationships: building collaboration across organisations. Who’s right? Both. Changing the system is sterile without changing how we work. Changing how we work is futile if it collides with a system which frustrates it.