‘Total Place’ driving efficiency

The need for greater efficiency in the public sector has moved from rhetoric into action with the launch of the Total Place initiative.

Total Place is being piloted across 13 areas, and involves adding up all public spending going into an area – through councils, police, health, benefits, courts, probation services and so on – then looking at new ways of getting the best value for that money.

Speaking this morning on BBC Radio 4’s the Today Programme Sir Michael Bichard – who invented the idea (see the Operational Efficiency Programme report) – said that while the 13 pilots won’t change the world on their own it will give local agencies the chance to work more effectively together and “feed back to government how government gets in the way.” Most interestingly – or reassuringly - for people working in neighbourhoods he said that finding a way to deliver services at less cost is more likely to be done close to clients than to Whitehall.

But it’s not just about delivering the same services for less but better services for less. By cutting out duplication, targeting efforts and joining resources clients, local people and residents will receive a better service - in fact our event next week will be touching on this idea. For example an alcoholic in Leicestershire – one of the pilot areas - spoke on the Today Programme about the number of agencies she had been in contact with because of her addiction, including the police and PCT but the difficulty she had in finding someone to help her.

While there has been speculation that some government initiatives won’t not survive a change in administration the chances are that this one’s a keeper!