Pickles: councils will have to share planners
Communities secretary Eric Pickles has said sharing staff, including planners, and merging services between councils is the future of local government.
In a speech to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham yesterday, Pickles said that local authorities teaming up over education and planning would mean “no duplication and more productivity”.
Despite slamming the previous government for a wasteful approach to running local government, Pickles confirmed that its plan to encourage public sector bodies to pool their property resources, under the Total Place initiative, was the way forward.
He said: “Councils must fundamentally rethink their finances. Councils should share services, work across boundaries to drive down costs and protect front line services.
“Is it really necessary for councils to have separate education or planning departments or, heaven forbid, separate press offices? Take Hammersmith & Fulham with Westminster. They will save the taxpayer £100m by merging services, such as education. Christchurch and East Dorset councils are among the growing numbers that now share a Chief Executive. This is the future of local government.”
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Surely the debate on property resources must move towards who owns or should own the public estate (national and local), as well as how you manage it. Currently many organisations own and occupy and this often encourages a view of property as a free resource. But the debate obviously has to balance centralisation with localism.
Ownership and occupation can (and probably should) be separated and more users and occupiers need to understand the cost and value to their service of their use of and demands for space. A more commercial and agile business model might well bring about more commercial focus and a greater ability to react to changing demands.
Total Place is certainly a common sense approach and a good starting point to address the current duplication and poor utilisation of property, management and other resources across public sector. So perhaps the model should be centralisaton of assets and localisation of service delivery ?
This inevitably leads to the debate to consider public sector internal accommodation charging (http://wp.me/pObKg-5U)and working beyond boundaries (http://wp.me/pObKg-9x).
Paul Allsopp
http://www.agileproperty.com
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