what’s driving the changes to our public services

Davy Jones Consultancy

What’s Driving the Changes to Our Public

Services

Davy Jones

Horsham District Community Partnership Annual Conference

16th April 2012


Main drivers for change• Reduce public deficit

• Shrink the state

• More Localism

• More power to local people – Big Society

• Climate change & greener government

• Demographic social changes


World economic crisis – biggest since 1930s –who

caused it?


Bankers !

Percentage of people in UK who think banks are well run has fallen from 90% in 1983 to 19% in 2009 – the largest change in public attitudes ever recorded in the British Social Attitudes series.

• Councils revenue loss – grant, benefits & other changes (Brighton & Hove losing 33% of income over 4 years)

• Councils “can expect 5-7% real term reductions per year till at least 2016/17” (Tony Travers in LGC) – 214,000 jobs gone

• New responsibilities – Public Health, Benefits. Localism Act – & big changes to key partners (health/police)

• Localism Act changes, NHS Act, Police Act • Impact on workforce – job losses, pay freezes, regional pay,

pension contributions up• Impact on service users – service cuts at same time as

living standards falling for most • Cannot be achieved by “salami-slicing” - what to do ?


Impact for public services


Impact for public services


Solutions ?• Strategic review of all major services – “blank sheet”

• Work across boundaries with all partners

• Unlock knowledge/skills of staff in service re-design

• Involve service users in improving services

• Take local citizens/users with you:

• service/budget literacy work

• setting priorities/budgets

• involvement in tough decisions

• Equalities Impact Assessments vital !


Public sector deficit mythDeficit not same as spending – it is the difference between income and spending, so if income from taxes goes down…

Deficit as % GDP is lower than for most of 20th century


Shrinking the state•Western economy desperate for new markets

•Public sector biggest opportunity

•Explicit “privatisation” of NHS & Education is politically unacceptable

•But one step at a time, extending choice…. opening up services to market forces…..

•50% secondary schools now Academies

•NHS, Schools, Benefits, Roads…

•New Open Public Services Paper – new right to choice legislation proposed


Example: the NHS


• Conservatives’ explicit election pledge for no top-down reorganisation & no cuts to NHS

• 33,000 NHS jobs gone already, according to ONS

• 3 layers of management has become…7 layers !

• Costs estimates vary – most believe at least £2bn

• Every health body/union opposes the NHS Bill

• Only 12% GPs think it will improve patient care

• Examples of hospitals in Cambridge & Warwickshire already seeking full privatisation

• Up to 49% of services can go to private sector

• Monitor “watchdog” run by private health experts

• DH has refused to issue risk registers on changes

My concerns on the NHS

• Number of people aged 85 in UK will double in next 20 years - impact on adult social care

• Migration patterns – labour shortages

• Pensions example shows need to separate fact from fiction !


Challenge of changing demographics

• Average public sector annual pension – less than £5,000pa (£100pw)

• Average FTSE Director annual pension - £2.8m (nearly 500 times higher)

• Cost of tax relief on pensions of top 1% earners (pensions of £150k pa) greater than entire savings in pension reform

• Hutton report shows cost of public sector pensions set to fall as % of GDP for next decades


The great pensions myths


The great pensions myths


Climate change

• 57 months to “point of no return” - New Economics Foundation doomsday clock

• “Greenest government” ever ?

• Government Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) “ a fiasco” (CBI)

• Carbon budgeting & behaviour change – West Sussex CC & Brighton

• Raised expectations ! Yet contradictory• NHS Act – is it localism ?• Police Reform Act – Elected Commissioners

….but over very large areas• Localism Act: General Power of Competence• Neighbourhood planning • Community right to challenge• Community right to buy• Directly elected mayors• Council tax referendum – is it needed ?• But is it a bit of a damp squib…?

Recent legislation


Doesn’t localism imply control of local finances ?

• Council Tax – one of few levers to affect services

• Parishes able to raise precepts

• Business rates remain centralised

• Recent Council Tax freeze

• Was it a “bribe” / threats

• Response of We Love Local Government website

• 3.5% “cap” – referendum trigger

• Surely councils should set council tax levels, not Government !


Localism & local taxation

Michael Heseltine (2012): “The idea that we have

local government in England is a fiction”


Localism


Freedom stirs……• LGA & Graham Allen MP pamphlet• Local authorities should be created in law as independent & their duties codified• Political independence must mean financial independence: central Government must be removed from financing councils• Half income tax take returned to councils through independent redistribution commission & other tax-raising powers


Big Society


Big Society• Some good elements – greater public self reliance,

more say over local area, more community spirit• Beyond that? Still not understood despite relaunches• New Big Society Bank – but commercial terms only• Consultation to be launched on extending

neighbourhood councils• Communities First local funds being distributed • Combined with huge cuts in budgets / services &

support infrastructure, public cynicism is not unreasonable…….


Big Society

• People expect services to be responsive, available 24/7, with appropriate choice

• People expect to have a say – 72% want to influence local decisions, 32% feel they can

• But they feel powerless – changes done “to them”• “Consultation” almost a dirty word – little trust in

“engagement” either !• All parties seem the same – no choice (Bradford West -

maverick alternatives) • How do we break out of this vicious cycle ?


Public expectations

• Budget cuts: it makes sense to get citizens to help

• Government “community budgets” programme• PB increasingly popular round the world – New

York – $6m from city councillors’ delegated funds• Over 150 UK areas now experimented• Adur’s “Pot of Gold”, Brighton youth PB event,

Gosport 6 PB events, Kent councillor budgets


Involve public in “tough choices” - Participatory

Budgeting


Contact

Davy Jones

07932 [email protected]

k www.davyjonesconsultancy.co.uk

Twitter:@davyjones2

Do you trust these people to tell the truth ?

Judges 80%Senior police 73%TV journalists 58%Top civil servants 41%Ministers 26%MPs in general 26%Tabloid journalists 16%

Two-thirds think politics is corrupt** Sunday Times poll 1/4/12


Trust in Politicians

Committee on Standards in Public Life, 2011


Getting things in perspective

Bank bailout figure of £1.3trn taken from Bank of England website

Tax and fraud evasion by rich variously estimated at between £80-120bn

Benefit fraud figure of £3.3bn taken from DWP report on 2009/10

Billions of pounds


Where has all the money gone ?

* Wall Street Journal, May 31 2011** John Lanchester – Whoops 2010*** Sunday Times Rich List 2011**** UNICEF/WHO report September 2011

• World: 12.5m millionaires (less than 0.2%) own 39% wealth ($47.4 trillion)*

• Developed countries:, the top 1% of households own estimated 70-90% of all private financial and real estate wealth **

• UK: 0.3% of the population owns two thirds of the land** • UK: 1000 richest millionaires (less than 0.002%) have assets of

almost £400 billion***• Income gap between top and bottom 10% multiplied 14 times in

UK/USA in last 25 years• “Only” 21,000 children die EVERY DAY from preventable diseases,

hunger, lack of water****


Where has all the money gone ?

what’s driving the changes to our public services

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