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Total Place – Discussion Paper
June 2010
Centre for Construction Innovation
School of the Built Environment
University of Salford
Sunrita Dhar-Bhattacharjee, Tony Baldwinson, Roy Stewart and
Prof. Andrew Thomas
Total Place – Pooling public money
2010
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 4
Total Place - A whole area approach to public services ................................................................... 7
What is Total Place? .................................................................................................................................. 7
Background .................................................................................................................................................. 8
Operational and Efficiency Programme ........................................................................................ 9
Local Area Agreements (LAAs) ......................................................................................................... 9
Area Based Grant ................................................................................................................................. 10
Total Place’s two strands ....................................................................................................................... 10
How did it all start?.................................................................................................................................. 11
Pilots ............................................................................................................................................................. 12
The organisations involved: ................................................................................................................. 15
Methodology .............................................................................................................................................. 17
Savings ......................................................................................................................................................... 18
Cost Benefit Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 18
Concerns and issues that arose from the pilots: ....................................................................... 19
Future work for University of Salford .............................................................................................. 20
Future work for CCI ................................................................................................................................. 21
Project Idea ............................................................................................................................................ 21
Possible funding stream .................................................................................................................... 21
Potential Partners ............................................................................................................................... 21
Background ............................................................................................................................................ 21
Priority performance indicators for Manchester .................................................................... 24
Challenges............................................................................................................................................... 24
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 26
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 29
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Glossary............................................................................................................................................................ 30
Appendix 1 ...................................................................................................................................................... 31
Appendix 2 ...................................................................................................................................................... 32
Appendix 3 ...................................................................................................................................................... 33
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Executive Summary
Total Place – Pooling public money
Total Place was a Labour Government initiative which started last year in April 2009 in
Bichard’s work Operational Efficiency Programme, which looked at the scope for efficiency
savings in the public sector. It initially started with 13 pilot areas across England and was set
up as a new direction for local public services and local authorities with a certain amount of
flexibility that defined a new relationship with the Goverment. The initiative aimed to bring
together elements of central government and local agencies within a place – hence the
name ‘Total Place’. It aimed to show how a place-based approach to local public services
could deliver better outcomes and improved value for money. It placed local authorities and
their partners at the forefront to assess the local public service spending, eliminate waste
and reduce duplication of work to focus on people and their needs. In total the 13 pilots
mapped £82 billion of public spending within their areas, which is about one-fifth of the total
public spending in England. The estimated total amount of all public spend not just for the
pilot themes varied from £2.2 billion in Lewisham to £22 billion in the Manchester city-region
pilot, the later being the biggest pilot in England. A wide range of themes were chosen for
the pilot areas from children’s services to worklessness, housing, drugs and alcohol misuse
and offender management. The pilots have proved that real savings are possible through the
Total Place scheme and of the benefits possible from strong local leadership. However,
according to a Publicnet survey, it was shown that most public bodies knew nothing about
Total Place, because Whitehall departments remained silent. Other than the 13 pilot areas,
the Total Place initiative was not publicised very well.
The Single Offer and the Innovative Policy Offer
The Government will develop a ‘Single Offer’ for the highest performing places with strong
partnership arrangements. This will be done to identify how radical freedom and flexibilities
can deliver significant improvements in outcomes and greater savings. The Total Place
approach is intended to test these ideas, and the places which demonstrate high
performance will be invited to make an ‘offer’ to Government for how they can deliver better
outcomes and additional savings by re-designing services around users of public services in
line with the Total Place approach. These offers will initially identify the scope of the
proposal, a comparatively small number of locally-defined outcomes (up to 10) for which
services could be redesigned to deliver better results against the set targets. Local
authorities should be able to demonstrate an effective cost-benefit analysis to justify the
need for the proposal at the same time engaging with the communities and the third sector in
design and delivery. There should be clear evidence of partnership and use of appropriate
pooled or aligned budget arrangements that outlines accountability arrangements,
governance, funding structures and a local memorandum of understanding across local
organisations.
The Government and the places will work together to co-design the agreed Single Offer and
mutually agreed approaches will be incorporated into agreements between the Government
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and the places. This was expected to come into force from April 2011, just originates from
the previous Government. Such places would benefit from using resources flexibly and
reducing burdens on the frontline. The Single Offers was predicted to run for a period of 3
years with an interim report for the 2012 Budget.
For partners who might not be eligible for the Single Policy Offer, but shows evidence of
strong partnership working or strong performance in particular policy areas would be able to
make a similar proposal which could then be taken forward in the same way. This is the
Innovative Policy Offer and primarily focuses on strong performance on particular policy
domains.
Other Total Place services
As of now, with the change in Government, the Total Place initiative is officially not
continuing under the ‘Total Place’ banner and there is a high probably that it will be
rebranded and redefined to meet changing priorities. Nevertheless, the general philosophy
and budget benefits are considered to be useful to the new Government's agenda.
Currenrly, in the Manchester city region, the Total Place pilot initiative is being continued
under the city region pilot.
The pilots nationally have the potential to extend their field trials especially in
looking into co-designing approaches to worklessness. The other areas where Government
support might be availble are looking into Total capital and asset pathfinders in the regions
to improve capital investments and transform services, or to develop new approaches to
using cost-benefit analysis tools to test proposals for local ‘productivity funds’ to increase
places’ freedom to support investment in preventive actions. These are the areas where
Manchester City Council could likely position themselves to work with local partners and
agencies.
Future work options for CCI and University of Salford
The University of Salford was involved in the Total Place Manchester city region and
Warrington pilot scheme in undertaking research into setting standards to reduce health
inequalities. It looked at the delivery of health services emphasizing the role of prevention
action ensuring children have the best opportunity to reach their full potential. The
University’s continuous involvement is this instance is very likely, and this could possibly
lead to increased partnership with local organisations and other research activities.
The previous Government’s March 2010 Budget made it clear that the Young Person’s
Guarantee of a job, training or work experience underpinned by the Future Jobs Fund, will
be extended into 2011-2012. However, the new Government announced on May 2010, the
closure of the Future Jobs Fund, and further details are excepted to be announced on the
22nd June 2010 Budget statement. A key strategic objective would be to get as many young
people not in education, employment or training as possible back to work within the
construction industry for at least a period of 1-3 years. There are one quarter of a million
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Total Place – Pooling public money
2010
unemployed people in the Manchester city region. As it evident, people who are on benefits
are a cost to the economy and have added implications in the loss of tax revenue.
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Total Place - A whole area approach to
public services
What is Total Place?
Total Place was launched in the 2009 Budget, by the Treasury in April 2009 in Bichard’s
work Operational Efficiency Programme, which looked at the scope for efficiency savings in
the public sector. This initiative initially started back in June 2009 and was led by
Communities and Local Government, Department for Central Government. It enables a
redesign of the way public services are planned and delivered by a multitude of public
bodies all in the same area. It aims to deliver better services at less cost and used the
‘customer insight’ methodology to redesign services around the needs of the citizens. This
was a new direction for local public services and new freedoms from central control. This
was based on the work in 2009 by 63 local authorities, 34 primary are trusts, 13 police
authorities and other partners and more than 70 other local areas engaged in similar
work. The aim was to break the existing top down departmental models and cultures of
accountability and service delivery.
The initiative incorporated the following objectives and features:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Deliver better value for money
Local services tailored to local needs
Improve the quality of life across England
Budget cutting initiative
Launched 13 pilots across England in June 2009. The pilots had a population of more
than 11 million people and more than £82 billion of public spending in their areas.
The local Council is driving this initiative and will have the final say as to how they could
provide services for less money (e.g how much money to spend on regeneration,
transport and housing)
A Total Place joint Progress Committee was in place to monitor the programme
There was a new leadership collaborative leadership committee to drive leadership
across the public sector.
The initiative was steered by a ministerial group where all the departments were represented
with the aim to bring together elements of central Govt and local agencies within a place to
achieve the three prime aims:
•
•
•
Create service transformations that can improve the experience of
local residents and deliver better value.
Deliver early efficiencies to validate the work.
Develop a body of knowledge about how more effective cross agency working
can deliver the above.
The Total Place initiative was aimed to benefit from the Smarter Government commitments
on de-ringfencing, streamlining funding and reducing burdens. The HM Treasury final report
on Total Place , March 2010 highlighted the aims to establish:
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•
•
•
•
2010
New freedoms from central performance and financial controls – further reductions in
ring-fences, indicators and burdens for places that agree to deliver improved
outcomes and additional savings, through a ‘Single Offer’ for the strongest
performing places and an ‘Innovative Policy Offer’ for places with particular thematic
strengths. These offers were to be co-designed by places and Government and is
expected to be launched from April 2011 by the previous Government;
New freedoms to collaborate – 11 Total Capital and Asset Pathfinders across the
country, support for local partnerships to use pooled individual budgets, and for joint
working between local authorities and Job Centre Plus and Primary Care Trusts;
New freedoms for places to invest in prevention – trialing the first social impact
bonds, repeating the Community Cash back scheme, and developing Neighbourhood
Agreements to support safer neighbourhoods; and
New freedoms to drive growth – including devolution to regions, cities and localities
to drive growth and inclusion through the recovery, and new flexibility for places to
shape spending on skills
The Total Place initiative’s stated purpose was to empower local government with the
opportunity to shape and develop the landscape by working creatively, and delivering better
experiences for the people in each local area.
Background
In 1972, a Whitehall initiative attempted to examine the total resources used in six cities, and
came up with a plan to "transform" them 1. The main idea behind this was that only a root and
branch review of local government expenditure would have the necessary scope to find
innovative solutions to streamlining government services, promoting partnership working
and, crucially, save money and increase efficiency. The need to develop a Total Place
initiative was primarily developed to offer help to leaders in a time of severe fiscal crisis. The
concept was one of managing the complexity in local service provision and the national
Government policy aim to create a shift to outcomes and the customer experience. An
innovative approach to produce better customer experience would lead to a better deal for
the tax payer, it was claimed.
In early 2009, a note titled ‘Responding to the Downturn: Local leadership of place and
efficiency’, was developed and a presented to senior civil servants and ministers. The
Leadership Centre for Local Government was involved in the initial stages around systemic
change and the nature of changing culture. The programme was developed and a
governance arrangement that logically lead across the CLG and HMT and the natural
incorporation of this with Lord Bichard’s work on the OEP and customer design was also
incorporated. Before the concept of Total Place was launched there were moves towards
more coherent joined up working. More partnering work was emphasised by the introduction
of Local Area Agreements and the pooling of funds in the Area Based Grant. Along with this
there was a focus on leadership, and particularly leadership of places rather than
1
‘Overlapping interests - Total Place is a new initiative to examine how cutting out duplication in public service delivery can improve
quality and reduce costs. But is this really a 'magic bullet' solution? A report by Mark Smith, available at
http://www.guardianpublic.co.uk/total-place-audit-commission-roundtable
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organisations supported the space and therefore needing to work, think and lead differently.
The Leadership Centre for Local Government developed two critical elements: a strong set
of relationships around local government and some individuals in Whitehall, and an
understanding of place and public service operations from a systemic view point. These
informed conversations between the Leadership Centre and the Department of Communities
and Local Government at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 fed into a paper called
Responding to the Downturn: Local leadership of place and efficiency. This was the embryo
of Total Place initiative. The 2009 Budget included mention of the Total Place programme
and the Total Place approach was outlined in the Operational Efficiency report by Lord
Michael Bichard in April 2009.
Operational and Efficiency Programme
Bichard’s operational and efficiency programme was launched in July 2008 as part of a year
long programme examining operational spending in the public sector. The scope of the
report was applied to all the organisations within the wider public sector with an aim to
examine efficiency, improve performance and greater partnership working at a local level,
which would empower citizens to help shape the service that they used. There were many
challenges given the diminishing public sector finances and the anticipated significant cuts in
public expenditure. The report emphasised that an effective collaboration was a means to
achieve savings by removing duplication, identifying new ways of delivering service through
joint innovation, investing in services that would reduce costs of other services even if cost
benefits fall to different organisations. Better targeting of spend towards priorities and
improved strategic commissioning as well as reducing overheads by the joining together of
management structures.
It was concluded that the Leadership Centre’s work looking at a whole area approach was
commended as a successful model to potentially deliver the objectives discussed above.
The initial recommendation that 13 pilot areas would be chosen to examine ways to
eliminate barriers to joint working, increase incentives and provide a better service for less
cost. This was facilitated by high level ministerial engagement to ensure that issues were
swiftly addressed by Government without delay. The report initially referred to two pieces of
work that suggested a new option and the space for Total Place: The Leadership Centres
work in Cumbria- Calling and Counting Cumbria and the - Birmingham Public Expenditure
and Investment Study 2.
Local Area Agreements (LAAs)
In 2006, the Local area Agreements (LAAs) programme was launched, creating a new
contract between central and local government to deliver the priorities of local people. The
main idea behind was to encourage the delivery of shared goals and partnerships through
strong local leadership with effective support from the Whitehall. In this way, the LAA
process was predicted to reduce and minimise bureaucracy and maximise delivery thereby
achieving greater efficiencies allowing local authorities and their partners to work in a joined
up way to meet the challenges in the local areas. The LAA process brought together local
2
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/vfm_operational_efficiency.htm
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ambition, knowledge and understanding to achieve the local priorities and it signified a major
change in the way that central and local government worked together and helped to provide
a new way of ensuring better outcomes for citizens as well as improved public services.
Area Based Grant
In 2008 the Central Government reduced the number of ring fenced budgets and ‘pooled’ a
number of revenue streams into the Area Based Grant to local authorities in order to improve
flexibility and help deliver the LAA outcomes. The idea was to increase the local authority’s
flexibility over the use of their mainstream budgets and to improve stability by allocating
budgets on a three year basis.
Total Place’s two strands
The work weaves together two complementary strands. A ‘counting’ process which maps
money flowing through the place (from central and local bodies) and with it a ‘linking’
process between services, to identify where public money can be spent more efficiently and
effectively. This is grounded alongside the second strand of ‘culture’ to look at the way things
are done in the local area and how that helps or hinders what is trying to be achieved.
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How did it all start?
Timeframe
Total Place scheme
Early 2009
Responding to the Downturn: Local Leadership of Place & Efficiency – developed
and presented to civil servants and ministers.
The initiate was co-led from the CLG and Treasury within Whitehall.
This led to the Operational Efficiency Programme
March 2009
Meeting of office holders at the LGA to support the Centre on Total Place.
April 2009
Pilot places were selected quickly over a series of phone calls (too quick for
some). 3Pilots were asked to choose their own theme in terms of where the
energy was. This was different from how government initiatives worked earlier.
Initial reactions - Some concerns as to whether this was just another initiative or
something different.
There was more impetus for linked initiatives and focus on more partnership
working on the frontline (joining up of work on culture and financials as part of
one exercise). There was still confusion as to why this initiative was called ‘Total
Place’ when it was to do with efficiency and public services.
May –June 2009
In all 13 pilot places were selected and local pilot teams were established.
Leadership Centre assisted by Local teams provided a list of ‘programme leads’
to co-ordinate the embryonic stages of the pilot.
June – Aug 2009
Counting aspects of the project. CLG workshop involving delegates from pilot
areas, HMT, Audit Commission.
Methodology was proposed. However, each pilot area had the choice to develp
their own with consultation from partners.
Development of partnerships in the pilot areas, and themes were chosen. Initial
talks using LAA themes to focus the most important issue. However sme used
the LSP’s to decide their themes.
Customer Insight Work led by IDeA and took the form of review of the customer
insight work that was going on within the pilot. This later developed into the pilot
case studies in March 2010.
March 2010
3
Treasury Summary Report with input from the Leadership Centre and CLG.
Source: Confidential interviews
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Pilots
Thirteen pilots projects were launched across England in June 2009, covering 63 local
authorities, 34 primary care trusts, 12 fire authorities and 13 police authorities, to take a look
at what money is coming to the area, the obstacles that make funding difficult to go further,
complexities within the system and how to strip out the inefficiencies and wastages. In total
the 13 pilots mapped £82 billion of public spending within their areas, which is about one-fifth
of the total public spending in England. The estimated total amount of spend varied from
£2.2 billion in Lewisham to £22 billion in the Manchester city-region pilot, the later being the
biggest pilot in England 4, but this does not cover all public expenditure, not just the themes
selected.
The difference of the amount spend differed from one area to another due to places
choosing to use different counting methodologies, and the differences also reflected the
higher levels of social security payments in areas with higher deprivation, and other social,
economic and geographic differences across the pilots. Other inconsistencies across
different places included social security, education and health which together made up over
70 per cent of total spend in each of the pilot areas.
Table 1: Total ‘whole area’ public sector spend by Total Place pilots
The table 2 below shows the theme groups across the 13 pilot areas.
4
Nuala o’Rourke from the Wigan City Council was leading this initiative.
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Table 2: Theme groups across Total Place
Lead departments
Theme Group
Themes
Alcohol and drugs
Alcohol and drugs
Health and social
care
Children
Pilots
•
•
•
Birmingham
Leicestershire
South Tyneside, Gateshead
and Sunderland
•
•
Home Office
Dept of Health
•
Dept of Health
•
Dept of Health
•
Dept of Health
•
Dept of Health
Older peoples’
services
•
•
•
Dorset
Poole
Bournemouth
Mental health
•
•
Birmingham
Leicester and Leicestershire
Learning disabilities
•
Birmingham
Health inequalities
•
Young people leaving
care
South Tyneside, Gateshead
and Sunderlannd
•
•
Birmingham
•
•
Children’s health and
wellbeing
•
Childrens’ services
and social care
•
Croydon
•
•
Coventry, Solihull and
Warwickshire
•
•
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Dept for Children Schools
and Family
Dept of Health
Dept for Children Schools
and Family
Dept of Health
•
Dept for Children Schools
and Family
Dept of Health
•
•
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
•
•
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
Lewisham
•
•
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
South Tyneside, Gateshead
and Sunderland
•
•
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
0-5 year olds
•
Manchester
Guns and gangs
•
Birmingham
Offender management
•
•
Bradford
Lewisham
Minimising reoffending
•
Crime and anti-social
behaviour
•
Crime
Dept for Children Schools
and Family
Dept of Health
Total Place – Pooling public money
•
High cost
communities
Margate Taskforce
•
Kent
•
•
•
•
•
High-deprivation
neighbourhoods
•
Birmingham
•
•
•
•
•
High contact families
•
Central Bedfordshire and
Luton
•
•
•
•
•
Young people and
employment
Worklessness and
young people
•
•
Lewisham
Worcestershire
•
•
Young people’s
lifestyle choices
•
South Tyneside, Gateshead
and Sunderland
•
•
Asset management
•
Kent
•
•
Housing and
regeneration
•
Durham
•
•
Customer access
•
•
Kent
Bradford
•
•
Procurement
•
Lewisham
Source: Leadership Centre for Local Government
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•
2010
Communities and Local
Govt
Home Office
Dept Health
Dept for Children Schools
and Families
Ministry of Justice
Communities and Local
Govt
Home Office
Dept Health
Dept for Children Schools
and Families
Ministry of Justice
Communities and Local
Govt
Home Office
Dept Health
Dept for Children Schools
and Families
Ministry of Justice
Communities and Local
Government
Dept for Business,
Innovation and Skills
Communities and Local
Government
Dept for Business,
Innovation and Skills
Communities and Local
Government
Dept for Business,
Innovation and Skills
Communities and Local
Government
Dept for Business,
Innovation and Skills
Communities and Local
Government
Dept for Business,
Innovation and Skills
Communities and Local
Government
Dept for Business,
Innovation and Skills
Total Place – Pooling public money
2010
The organisations involved:
The Total Place initiative was overseen by a Ministerial group and a high-level officials’
group which included representatives from the LGA, delivery agencies from the pilot places
and the significant spend departments, including HM Treasury. The Leadership Centre for
Local Government was also working with the pilot areas on behalf of the LGA Group to help
them deliver the best outcomes for people. The CLG also involved Tribal Consulting to work
with pilots on aspects of customer insight and counting work and the pilots were also
supported by the IDeA and Government Office network to capture and share information and
link up places undertaking similar work.
Key Government Departments (including Treasury, Health, Work and Pensions, Home
Office) are working closely with the following organisations:
• Leadership Centre for Local Government – lead contact Nicky De Beer, central
Project Manager for the Total Place Programme.
• the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs),
• the Government Office (GO) network , the Improvement and
• Development Agency (IDeA), and
• Chief Executives and Leaders from each local authority, Primary Care Trusts,
Jobcentre Plus, the Police and all other partners in the Local Strategic Partnership
(LSP).
The Leadership Centre for Local Government supported the pilots on behalf of the LGA
group in terms of providing practical support and coordination for the 13 pilots areas. They
were also primarily responsible for sharing and managing knowledge, helping in the learning
and strengthening networks between the different organisations involved.
The Improvement and Development Agency along with the Leadership Centre also
supported the learning and knowledge-sharing aspects of Total Place, particularly through
their National Advisors. The Ministerial group, chaired by Secretary of State for Communities
and Local Government department (CLG), was responsible for ensuring that the barriers and
incentives for joint working were addressed swiftly and effectively and to drive forward action
across Government. Membership included the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Communities
and Local Government, Minister for the Cabinet Office, LGA (Chairman Cllr Margaret Eaton
or Cllr David Parsons). Plus the Secretaries of State from other spend departments such as
HO, DWP, DCSF, DH. There was also the High-level officials’ group which was chaired by
Lord Bichard, and met every month. The principal role of the group was to support and
provide oversight for the work of Total Place at the national level. They were responsible for
assessing the findings at the local level, ensure that interdependencies were identified and
addressed, and ensured that the project had full support across central government.
The standing agenda for the group generally included:
•
•
•
•
Highlighting key achievements within the past period; the action plan and outlook for
the next period; and progress against key milestones
Reflecting and learning from the progress of the work in the 13 pilot areas
Looking at the opportunities and resolving problems highlighted at the local level
Assessing key programmes risks and issues, ensuring that adequate resourcing is in
place to ensure the programme objectives were met
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•
•
2010
Updating the development of key milestones (particularly Pre-Budget Report and
Budget reports
Reviewing interdependencies between Total Place and other areas of work to ensure
a joined-up approach and solutions.
The Government Offices in each pilot region were also asked to act on behalf of
Government to provide support and challenge via a named lead to facilitate the support of all
public sector agencies with the project. Their role was more of a consultee throughout the
duration of the project. The Government Office network primarily acted for Government in
regions and localities , for regions and localities in Government , by building partnerships
and supporting the director-general ‘champions’ for each pilot place .They worked with
partners, including the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships and the
Improvement and Development Agency, to raise awareness amongst Local Strategic
Partnerships and Authorities on Total Place. They were responsible for supporting those
Partnerships who wished to engage further by providing links to national work. In particular
the aim was to offer a dynamic support to engage the support and contributions from local,
regional and national public sector agencies. Enabling good links with the Whitehall was
also a key responsibility for each Government office.
Figure 1 – Total Place: connecting local councilors with their communities supported
by different organisations
The following figure illustrates the process for the initial phase of a Total Place intervention,
lasting around 10 weeks before undertaking a programme of agreed ongoing actions.
Identify the
problem/theme and
undertake initial
discussions
Variable
Actions
moving
forward
Ongoing
16 | P a g e
Discuss the
theme with the
councillor
Week 1
Organise second
event
Week 10
Meeting with the Council, agencies,
community leaders, public service
managers and other organisations
Week 2
Second meeting with
the partners
Week 8
Organise first
event
Week 6
Quick win issues sorted and
converstaions with the wider
community
Week 6 to 9
Total Place – Pooling public money
2010
Table 3: Percentage of total revenue expenditure in Total Place pilots, ring-fenced and
non-ring fenced
Manchester City Region choose the ‘Early Years’ of children aged 0-5 years as the theme
for its Total Place work and this aligned with the Early Years strand of the Statutory City
Region whose work stream aimed to radically improve the Early Years experience for hard
to reach groups particularly in the most deprived areas. It was planned that the framework
and approach developed in taking forward the Early Years theme could equally be applied to
other themes. In this way it was anticipated that from Total Place and Statutory City Region
work, there might be a simple approach to research, evidence and evaluation in order to
reduce duplication, enable comparison and most importantly realign service delivery
in partnership with the customer.
Methodology
The methodology was made available to pilot areas towards the end of June, 2009 from the
Local Leadership Centre. It consisted of a fairly straightforward spreadsheet which listed all
of the various funding and delivery agencies who appeared in a place. The pilots were then
asked to populate the spreadsheet with their own figures. HMT also provided a table with the
Classification of the Functions of the Government (COFOG), which are classifications of
spend for those places who wanted to classify their count using those definitions. However
some areas chose to use the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Authority (CIPFA)
classifications and others classified under LAA themes. There was no single way of doing
the count and pilots chose the best way for them.
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Savings
The main areas for potential savings according to the pilots included the following:
•
frontline services – redesigning processes around citizens
•
back office and support functions
•
shared management and joint working arrangements
•
reduced costs to society from better outcomes, and
•
redesigning services with the local community.
Cost Benefit Analysis
A Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) which estimates and totals up the equivalent money value of
the benefits and costs to the proposed projects to establish whether they are worthwhile is
essential in the total Place pilot scheme. All the pilot areas were primarily aiming to focus on
reducing the drivers of demand in dependency, deprivation and promoting economic
productivity, skills and growth. The aim was that more people would be able to benefit and
contribute to growth and economic prosperity. A few common themes that emerged as a
result of the cost-benefit analysis in the different pilot areas were as follows:
•
with regards to place - tracking costs and benefits of reforms in different types of
neighborhoods and how this restricts confidence to invest in the best interventions at
an effective scale and disinvest in services which are less effective.
•
restrictions for agencies – Agencies lack the incentive to invest in reforms that
directly benefitted other agencies and increased their efficiencies, and
•
Additional funding due to time lag – this might be an issue especially when it is hard
to invest in an early intervention and prevention to reduce demand for expensive
interventions in the future.
The CLG, HMT and the local authorities in the pilot areas started working together to
develop an evaluation framework under the city –region agreement/Total Place from April
2010. This involved collection of costs and financial benefits for Total Place and the city
region pilots. This is planned to give a better idea on which reforms needed to be scaled up,
The actual costs and cashable efficiencies 5 were also due to be measured and monitored.
This would then provide a clearer picture on where the costs and benefits fall within the
public sector system.
The chart below gives a clear picture of the cost-benefit analysis and the basis for a
‘Productivity fund’.
5
For cashable effieciences, please refer to appendix 3 for details.
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Concerns and issues that arose from the pilots:
The main issues that came out of these pilots were as follows:
•
•
•
•
questions about where efficiency savings will go...
questions as to if one local agency invests the other can save...
who benefits from the savings and or the efficiencies – most of the savings seemed to be
in health and there is a different set of budgets for that, and
Issues about scaling up the Total Place approach.
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Future work for University of Salford
The University of Salford was involved in the Total Place Manchester city region and
Warrington pilot scheme by undertaking some research into setting standards to reduce
health inequalities. It looked at the delivery of health services emphasizing the role of
prevention action ensuring children have the best opportunity to reach their full potential.
Although the Total Place initiative was a previous Government’s initiative, it is still of interest
based on conversations with Manchester City Council, the Total Place project lead for the
Manchester region, and with members at the Leadership Centre. The initiative is most likely
to be rebranded and refocused, but is likely to continue.
The HM Treasury final Report published in March 2010 mentioned that the previous
Government intended to develop a ‘Single Offer’ for the highest performing places with
strong partnership arrangements. This would be done to identify how radical freedom and
flexibilities could deliver significant improvements in outcomes and greater savings. The
Total Place approach would test these ideas and the places which demonstrate high
performance will be invited to make an ‘offer’ to Government for how they would deliver
better outcomes and additional savings by re-designing services around users of public
services in line with the Total Place approach. These offers would initially identify the scope
of the proposal, a comparatively small number of locally-defined outcomes (up to 10) for
which services could be redesigned to deliver better results against the set targets. Local
authorities should be able to demonstrate an effective cost-benefit analysis to justify the
need for the proposal at the same time engaging with the communities and the third sector in
design and delivery. There should be clear evidence of partnership and use of appropriate
pooled or aligned budget arrangements that outlines accountability arrangements,
governance, funding structures and a local memorandum of understanding across local
organisations.
The Government and the places would work together to co-design the agreed Single Offer
and mutually agreed approaches would be incorporated into agreements between the
Government and the places. This was expected to come into force from April 2011. The
places would benefit from using resources flexibly and reducing burdens on the frontline.
The Single Offers was predicted to run for a period of 3 years with an interim report due for
the 2012 Budget.
For partners who might not be eligible for the Single Policy Offer, but showing evidence of
strong partnership working or strong performance in particular policy areas, they would be
able to make a similar proposal which could then be taken forward in the same way. This is
the Innovative Policy Offer and primarily focused on strong performance on particular
policy domains.
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2010
Future work for CCI
Project Idea – Support efforts to get as many unemployed people, especially or NEET
(not in education, employment or training) as possible of the quarter of a million unemployed
people in the Manchester city region back into work for at least a period of 1-3 years.
Currently people who are on benefits cost more to the economy and produce lower tax
revenues.
Possible funding stream –
•
Putting the Frontline First: Smarter Government, which set out the strategic questions
that every authority should pose itself to maximize value for money for taxpayers, will
support collaboration across agencies in all local areas including a significant deringfencing of £1.3 billion of local authority grants between 2011 and 2012. (HM
Treasury report on Total Place, March 2010)
•
High possibility of a national pilot of the DEL/AME Switch funded project 6 as well as
support from Construction Skills to support employers who employ unemployed
people in the NEET category. Please refer to the appendix 1 for details of the
AME/DEL switch funding.
•
Single Offer as discussed above
•
Innovative Policy Offer as mentioned above.
Potential Partners – Leadership Centre for Local Government, Manchester City Council,
Salford City Council, Connexions (as was), ConstructionSkills, Job Centre Plus, The
Innovation Unit, AGMA, Construction companies.
Background
In the North West, over 278,000 people are on ‘out of work’ benefits as of February 2009,
making it second only to the London region in terms of the scale of need. Areas such as
Glasgow (228,810 out-ofwork claimants), Leeds (190,060) and Birmingham (258,790) have
significantly fewer out-of-work benefit claimants. In addition to this, in Greater Manchester an
estimated 403,000 residents, 27% of the working age population (NW: 26%, England: 24%)
have poor literacy; and 422,000 residents, 28% of the working age population (NW: 27%,
England: 24%) have poor numeracy. This is a major issue and there are numerous
concentrations of considerable deprivation across Greater Manchester, with around 350,000
residents living in areas classed as the most deprived nationally. The main concentrations
are primarily at the heart of the conurbation, in central and north Manchester and east
Salford. Old industrial districts of Wigan, Bolton, Rochdale and Ashton-under-Lyne have
further clusters with deprivation largely concentrated in neighbourhoods immediately
surrounding the respective town centres. These areas in particular demonstrate persistently
6
Refer to Appendix 1 for more details on the DEL/AME switch funded projects.
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high levels of extreme worklessness, rates commonly in excess of 75% greater than the
Greater Manchester average.
Worklessness is a particularly significant marker of deprivation as it signals social isolation
and a lack of opportunity, which is often passed down the generations. There are still over
150,000 residents who are workless due to ill-health, and or/disability, including mental illhealth. There are an even greater number of adults across Manchester about 420,000 in
total – who lack basic skills in reading and writing. This large number of people on the
margins of employability and opportunity is impeding the economic potential. In 2006, the
NWDA commissioned the ECOTEC Research & Consulting Ltd to evaluate the Northern
Way’s employment Investment Priority: Bringing More people into Employment and the key
findings from the research were as follows:
Table 4: Northern Way’s employment Investment Priority: Bringing More people into
Employment
KEY FINDINGS
► The picture in respect of employment and disability in the Northern regions is
particularly stark. The average employment rate for disabled people across the Northern
Way regions is only 28.8% compared to 78.6% for the non-disabled.
► While employment rates for able-bodied people are broadly similar between the North
and the rest of England, the Northern regions suffer from particularly low rates of
employment amongst disabled people of working age.
► Unemployment rates for disabled people are around double those for the non-
disabled, with this pattern relatively consistent across the North and England as a whole.
► Rates of Incapacity Benefit, IB (as was) claims are consistently and notably higher
across the Northern regions when compared to the rest of England.
► In 2005, the average IB claimant rate for the Northern regions was 9.6% of the
working age population compared to an equivalent average figure for the other English
regions of 6.1%.
► The North East, and to a lesser extent the North West, face a situation wherein a
particularly high proportion of their working age populations are claiming IB.
► The Northern regions account for over a third of working age IB claimants within
England, despite their share of the English working age population being less than a
quarter.
► Almost 70% of those claiming IB in the North have been doing so for three years or
more with the relative proportion of long-term claimants being slightly higher in the North.
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The Manchester Independent Economic Review, 2009, (led by a panel including Sir Tom
MacKillop, former Chairman of the Royal bank of Scotland, Jim O’Neill, chief economist of
Goldman Sachs and Jonathan Kestenbaum, chief executive of the National Endowment of
Science, Technology and Arts), raised the level of debate regarding the economic future of
the Manchester City Region within the economic development community. .The table below
sums up the points that were emphasized, highlighted and recommended.
Table 5: Manchester Independent Economic Review, 2009 Report summary
The MIER, 6th April, 2009
report emphasized the
following points:
–
Worklessness symptom not
cause: the need is to
address education, skills
and access to jobs...
The report highlighted
the following in terms of
investment in the area:
–
–
–
–
...through attracting entrylevel jobs to population
and/or improving transport
access to jobs
Incentivise full policy
integration, esp housing,
worklessness
Getting Foreign
Direct Investment into
Mcr is a “good thing”
Investment is largely
by big/R&D intensive
domestic firms,
probably because of
pool of skilled
labour/talent
–
Positive “spillovers”
not sectoral, but from
supply chains
–
Overly high reliance
on G7 and debtbased finance
The Review recommended:
–
Emphasis on high skills and basic
skills
–
Focus on early years experience in
deprived areas
–
Make housing and planning policy
more responsive to market
demands
–
Ensure viability of Manchester
Airport
–
Transport: focus on productivity and
realistic traffic management
–
Move quickly to unified regime for
planning, regeneration &
neighbourhood renewal
–
Prioritise location of key
science/non-traded (quasi) public
sector investment
–
Move on from sector-based
clustering policy
–
Develop more robust city region
governance able to take big
decisions
–
Develop objective pan-GM systems
for evaluating policy, programmes &
projects
–
Explore potential for delegation and
devolution
–
Empower private sector more
–
Recommendations of individual
reports
So…
–
More FDI needed,
will take opportunism,
new sources
–
Policy focus to attract
large domestic firms’
investment
–
Source: MIER, 2009 Report.
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Networking should
focus not on sectors
but supply chains
Total Place – Pooling public money
2010
The Waddell and Burton Report (Is Work Good for Your Health and Well-being? 2006)
highlighted the fact that a lot of our benefits actually prevent people from work and this effect
is clearly not a good outcome for public expenditure. According to David Freud, the Shadow
minister for Welfare Reform, the long term Incapacity Benefit ,IB (as was) population cost in
fiscal terms has been £25 billion a year each year. There has been a rise in intergenerational
worklessness, lack of role models and rise of antisocial behaviour all connected in some way
with the dependency culture.
Priority performance indicators for Manchester
A number of performance indicators were selected for each area in Britain that were the big
priorities for the area. There are also a small number of targets set by government and the
priority performance indicators for Manchester City Council in terms of 16 to 18 year olds
young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) are listed below. The
data shown is for the area covered by Manchester City Council.
Indicator Name
NI 117 Percentage of 16 to 18 year olds
who are not in education, employment or
training (NEET)
Value
Direction of travel
Current
performane
10.1%
Deteriorating
In the worst 20%
Source: Oneplace,Manchester.
Challenges
•
Ownership of the project and who takes it forward
•
Addressing the scale of the problem given the data from the desktop research. The
pattern of Incapacity Benefit -related worklessness is also neither uniform nor
consistent across the region. The relative wealth and economic prosperity between
different areas further creates economic exclusion with worklessness and adds to the
challenges of deprivation.
•
What would be the incentive for construction companies to employ people with no or
little work experience?
•
How to match the right people for the right job?
•
In order to employ people so that they no longer require benefits, what are the
alternatives for single parents who are receiving some sort of benefit? There would
be issues on childcare, commuting to work, and
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•
2010
The need to look into what is the best way to deliver solutions to the problem/theme
identified and the potential costs, benefits and savings of different solutions.
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Conclusion
As is evident from the recent general election, the public sector is about to enter into tougher
financial times and spending cuts are underway. According to the prediction made by the
Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountability (CIPFA) and the Society of Local
Authority Chief Executives, the overall public spending over the next three years is likely to
fall by between 7.5% and 15%. The total spending on public services experienced an
unprecedented sustained growth over the past decade with an increase of 42% in real terms
since 1997. Despite the fact that the Total Place was a previous Government sponsored
initiative the works which were being done by people on the ground from different places was
very much seen as their work, rather than the previous Governments work, which may help
sustain the initiative in the same form.
Critics of the Total Place initiative point out that any savings made from the pilot schemes
were hard to quantify. For instance, in Britain's many two-tier authorities, issues were raised
as to which authority should take the lead. There were also criticisms that the Total Place
initiative did not answer all the questions though there was also consensus that Whitehall
needed to let go if the initiative was to reach its full potential. There was an initial confusion
with the name and what it actually meant. Some commentators have concerns on whether
Total Place had any real ambitions then the first thing it should do was change its name –
which an incoming new government would probably do was also raised. This opened the
debate to the political dimensions of Total Place.
Kent, which was one of the 13 pilot areas for Total Place, was discussed in terms of the
progress made and the opportunities still to be taken. Kent, which is a two-tier authority area
with a £10 billion budget, across all the public sector, now has a single phone number and
single web portal for all local government services. Yet, after an audit which was completed
quite recently on all county and district council properties, the result was not very positive.
A key milestone in assessing the impact made by the Total Place trials was published in
early December 2009, with the publication of the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA)
findings. The CAA included two elements:
•
•
an area assessment - Area assessments may award green or red ‘flags’:
o Green flags highlighted exceptional performance or outstanding improvement
from which others can learn.
o Red flags represented significant concerns about outcomes or future
prospects where more or different actions are required.
organisational assessment - on the individual public bodies within an area to make
sure they are accountable for quality and impact. It involved two types of
assessments:
o managing performance
o use of resources, which consisted of three themes: managing finances,
governing the business, and managing resources.
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In April 2009, the CAA replaced the comprehensive performance assessment (CPA). It
assess how well communities are being served by their local public services, including
councils, police, health, and fire and rescue services with an emphasis on the quality of life
of residents, and how well these bodies, working together, are able to achieve, improve and
progress towards long-term goals. It will also highlight best practice and innovation, and
identifies any barriers to improvement.
According to a Publicnet survey 7, it was revealed that most public bodies knew nothing
about Total Place, because Whitehall departments remained silent. The survey also
revealed almost complete ignorance of Total Place outside the local government with the
exceptions of those places where the 13 pilot projects are operating. In the pilot areas, police
forces, Job Centre Plus, Learning and Skills councils and the Probation Service have been
encouraged by their parent department to cooperate, with the exception of NHS trusts, who
being the biggest spenders of taxpayers’ money, heard nothing from the Department of
Health. It was perceived as the responsibility of the Communities and Local Government, as
the lead department, to publicize the initiative beyond the pilot projects. The survey
highlighted that no information about Total Place had gone out to more than 1000 public
bodies who were involved. A poll by Publicnet of readers of Publicnet Briefing, the daily
email service, also revealed that Total Place was also little known across local government,
as over 73% of respondents agreed there had been very little publicity about Total Place
within their council. At least 60% confirmed they had little or no information from outside
sources and over 53% did not know if their council was involved in a pilot project. Some
respondents gave a top rating about publicity and involvement and this indicates that where
a pilot project was in place there have been publicity and council members and officers were
in the picture.
As the time of writing on June 2010, with the change in Government, the Total Place
initiative is officially not continuing as there is a high probably that it will be rebranded and
refocused. The role of the state is shifting and devolved power is an objective for all three
main political parties. The dialogue in places between citizen and politician is developing
and is an important aspect of the changing nature of the relationship between citizen and
state (Total place: sharing and building on whole area working, working agenda – May 2526th, 2010.) As evidence from the pilot suggest the use of public assets as a local collective
resource, rather than that of individual organisations and departments, has the potential to
save a lot of waste and taxpayer’s money. As a result of the pilots, places have found
engaged it to be beneficial beyond the public sector and in a new way with others. The new
7
http://www.publicnet.co.uk/news/2009/12/09/whitehall-fails-to-give-front-line-support-tototal-place-cost-cutting-initiative/
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relationships supported challenging the assumptions and thinking of all those involved and
development of new and more efficient services and ways of working.
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References
Michael Gallagher 4NW & Simon Nokes NWDA, RS2010 Part 1 Consultation Document,
Merseyside Sub-Regional Consultation Event, 2 February 2010
2. Manchester City Region and Warrington Total Place Report, 5th February, 2010.
3. HM Government - The Coalition: our programme for Government, Cabinet Office, London,
May 2010.
4. HM Treasury, Communities and Local Government – Total Place: a whole area approach to
public services, London, March 2010.
1.
Unpublished documents, but retrieved from the MCC and Local Government Leadership Centre
5.
Total place: sharing and building on whole area working, working agenda – May 25-26th,
2010.
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Glossary
ABG Area based grant
ADZ Accelerated Development Zone
CAA Comprehensive Area Assessment
CBA cost-benefit analysis
CPA Comprehensive Performance Assessment
DCLG Department for Communities and Local Government
DWP Department for Work and Pensions
FDI
Foreign Direct Investment
GDP Gross domestic product
GO
Government Office
HCA Homes and Communities Agency
HMG Her Majesty’s Government
HMRC Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs
JCP Jobcentre Plus
LA
Local authority
LAA Local area agreement
LGPIH Act Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act
LPSAs Local Public Service Agreements
LSP Local strategic partnership
NAO National Audit Office
NEET Young people not in education, employment, or training
NOMS National Offender Management Service
OEP Operational Efficiency Programme
OGC Office of Government Commerce
OGD Other government departments
PBR Pre-Budget Report
PCT Primary Care Trust
PFI
Private Finance Initiative
RDA Regional Development Agency
RIEPs Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships
RSG Revenue support grant
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Appendix 1
Funding – Del/Ame switch funding mechanism
The DWP funding for employment projects is a fixed budget, which is called the
Departmental Expenditure Limit (Del). The DWP funding for benefit payments can not be
fixed as the DWP is not able to control it. It is funded through the Treasury in the same way
as other “uncontrollable” expenses, such as tax credits, and is known as Annual Managed
Expenditure (Ame). These costs can be managed but can’t be controlled.
The flaws that were identified from this system were that:
• firstly, it was cheaper to get someone into work than to keep them on benefits
• secondly, the amount per claimant to help people into work decreases as claimant
numbers increase
This results in programmes which can only ever support limited proportions of the total
claimant population, currently estimated to be 25%-33% of all claimants.
In his 2007 report David Freud proposed resolving this anomaly by using benefit savings
to pay providers once someone had secured sustained work, thereby releasing
substantially increased funds resulting in
• Higher proportions of people into work
• Adequate funding for those who require greatest support.
His proposal, commonly known as the “Del/Ame switch”, was supported in the 2008
Green Paper, “No one written off”, and pilots will be run in a number of counties from
2010 to test the mechanism.
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Appendix 2
Deep dives
‘Deep Dive’ is a group of techniques used to rapidly immerse a group or team into a situation
for problem solving or idea creation. After choosing their theme, pilots began to look at
where and how the money was being spent and also at the cultural elements of partnership
working – the ‘how do we do things around here’ questions. Again, the ‘Deep Dive’ process
was not centrally driven and how the pilots tackled it was their own choice.
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Appendix 3
DEFINITIONS OF CASHABLE AND NON-CASHABLE EFFICIENCY SAVINGS
Government advice (Efficiency Technical Note January 2005) sets out 4 categories from
where efficiencies might be attained:
• Reducing inputs for the same outputs (Cashable)
• Reducing prices for the same outputs (Cashable)
• Getting greater outputs or improved quality for the same inputs (Non-cashable)
• Proportional Efficiencies (Getting more outputs/increased quality in return for an
increase in resources that is proportionately less than an increase in output or
quality.) (May give rise to both cashable and non-cashable savings).
Each of these 4 categories is considered further below.
Reducing inputs for the same outputs.
This is probably the most straightforward of the categories covering those efficiency
savings that are identified year on year through the MTFS process. As indicated in the
definition there must be evidence of reduced inputs (i.e. less expenditure on staffing,
contracts, running costs etc) and no reduction in outputs/quality for an efficiency to arise.
Cuts in service or increasing unit charges are not efficiencies, neither is the use of grants
to reduce net expenditure.
Reducing prices for the same outputs
Efficiencies in this category will typically arise from improved procurement (for example
from tendering, changing providers, introduction of corporate contracts etc.) as a result
of which the price of purchasing the same level of goods and/or services reduces. It is
also allowable to count inflation in calculating the savings from holding down
procurement prices. For example if prices are fixed for 3 years a saving can be counted
equivalent to the effect of inflation in years 2 and 3 as measured using the GDP deflator.
The GDP deflator to be used for each year is quantified by Government; for further
advice contact Corporate Finance.
Getting greater outputs or improved quality for the same inputs
This category of efficiency does not produce cash savings, as inputs are the same.
However the outputs are increased or quality is improved so the efficiency benefit is
‘getting more for the same cost’. An example is a reduction in staff sickness, which
increases productive time leading to increases in outputs and possibly quality. In this
example the level of non-cashable efficiencies can be quantified by reference to the
increase in productive days, expressed as FTEs, and the relevant cost of an FTE.
Another example is where increases in activities occur but are delivered without an
increase in resource inputs.
Proportional Efficiencies
In cases where there is a proportionately larger increase in outputs/quality than the
increase in inputs then a non-cashable saving arises. The increased input cost needs to
be netted off the value of the increased output to arrive at the efficiency saving. For
example planning applications increase by 7% and resources to process the
applications are increased by 4%. So long as there is no detriment in the speed and
quality of processing of these applications then a non-cashable saving is countable. This
can be quantified by reference to the 3% reduction in input resource per application.
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There may also be instances where outputs increase and inputs reduce. For example
accepting electronic application forms rather than requiring hardcopies to be sent
through the post. Input reductions (e.g. costs saved in stationery/postage) would be
cashable savings whereas the increase in outputs/quality (e.g. increased applications,
accessibility for the public) would be a non- cashable efficiency.
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