On 9 December Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden’s key speech on reform of the state called for fewer checkers and more doers, fewer and better rules, more experimentation
On 16 January Nick Kimber, Director of Public Sector Reform at the Cabinet Office, launched a £100 million ‘Test, Learn, Grow’ programme, aiming to bring secondees with public service delivery experience alongside civil servants with the freedom to trial new methods. More than 200 people, including Total Place Network (TPN) members, took part.
In its 16 January issue MJ carried an article by a TPN member, ‘In Need of a Place Lift’, making the case for Total Place and other relationship-based means of renewing public services.
On 20 January the Cardiff Public Service Board launched a project with TPN support aimed at applying Total Place principles to take partnership working in the city - already strong - to the next level.
On 27 January the Institute for Government hosted a round table discussion with Georgia Gould, Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office, on place-based public service funding which will consider how ‘Total Place 2.0’ would work. Five TPN members took part. The outcome is expected soon.
On 2 February the head of the National Audit Office said that the way public services are delivered is becoming unsustainable and called for a cultural shift to more risk and innovation.
On 6 February the Governor of the Bank of England said “….education, health and public administration.…have seen significant declines in their measured productivity per hour.”
On 7 February Times commentator Emma Duncan wrote “The fundamental problem of government is that, unrestrained, it tends to grow. The discipline which competition forces on the private sector does not apply to the state.”
The LGA meeting to consider next steps on Total Place and its interplay with the Test/Learn/Grow programme will now be held on 14 March and a number of TPN members have been invited
21 Feb: a group of Network members has put together a simple questionnaire to help any local public body take stock of where it stands on partnership working in general and Total Place in particular. It will go shortly to all relevant organisations within the Network.
28 Feb: chaired by Manchester Met U, fifteen participants from central and local government and think tanks met to explore the gains to be made from shifting to relational rather than transactional public services, how a Total Place approach would accelerate that, and the ‘ask’ of government to make it happen.