Coordinating funding streams could help ease pressure on local government finance - John Denham

But what is the answer? The main political parties agree that record levels of taxation, high national borrowing and low growth mean no quick or easy financial fix for England’s public services.

So if we can’t spend more we have to spend better; and this means going back to an idea Labour pioneered 15 years ago.

The ‘Total Place’ pilots started when I was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and were the brainchild of Sir (now Lord) Michael Bichard. The concept was simple: find out how much money is spent on all the public services in an area and work out how to spend it better.

That might sound obvious, but it isn’t how money was spent then and it isn’t how money is spent now. Different services are funded in separate streams. Each siloed department jealously guards ‘its’ money and autonomy. It is accountable to an accounting officer who reports to the UK Treasury. It all gives the illusion of looking after the public purse while wasting money and providing poor outcomes.

Coordinating these streams at a local level is effectively impossible. Either there is overlap, and money is wasted on duplication – a single family in difficulty interacting with numerous different agencies, for example. Or people fall through gaps – an ex-offender is more likely to end up back behind bars than get the joined-up support they need from prisons, probation, mental health, housing and colleges. Almost every family has some experience of the broken interface between the NHS and social care.

Why this makes no sense is because real people don’t live their lives in separate departments or services. They often know very well what would make a difference. But it is currently impossible to shape services around their needs. The cost of this fragmentation is high for individuals, society and for taxpayers.

This is why many think of Total Place as the best policy that never was. And this isn’t a partisan point of view. Total Place was taken up enthusiastically by councils of all political persuasions in different parts of England, in all kinds of different areas.

Across the pilots, the potential savings ran into billions, but more important were the indicators that better services could be provided for the same money. For a moment, it looked set to become the new, better normal. A Treasury and Communities department joint paper published in 2010 committed to rolling out the approach everywhere, given the evidence. And then – it was axed. Councils and local services were plunged into the deep austerity now coming home to roost.

A new government that wants the best from public spending should revive Total Place for the 2020s by introducing place-based public service budgets. All agencies – councils, the NHS, the police - would work together to count the total money spent in each locality and match this against the needs of local people and communities. They would collaborate with local people to see how services can be improved. They would create Local Public Service Plans and they themselves would be accountable for achieving the results they promised rather than being subject to top-down departmental targets. A new relationship with Whitehall would be bolstered by a new statutory local audit service and Local Public Accounts Committees providing tougher scrutiny than exists at present.

One of the most powerful impacts of Total Place is that it would give local services and communities the power to join together to prevent problems before they became catastrophes. In its “plea for comprehensive, collaborative funding”, West Yorkshire ICS points out that investing in children’s services would support the delivery of NHS targets, help reduce acute pressures, address regional challenges and ease local government funding challenges, as well as crucially, enhancing the life chances of children and families by addressing unmet social, emotional, and economic pressures.

It will take political determination to push such changes through Whitehall’s entrenched culture.

We shouldn’t be living in a world where places like West Yorkshire have to plead to have the ability to do what’s right for their residents. The next government will inherit council finances and public services that are close to collapse. But, as the ‘best policy that almost was’ should tell us, there is hope for their recovery, and then some.

John Denham is a former secretary of state for communities and local government.