NEWS
Community budgets lack commitment from some Departments – PAC
The Public Accounts Committee has said that Whitehall departments standing in the way of community budgets by jealously guarding their own funds and power need to be forced into action.
The LGA said the committee’s report into community budgets is a “ringing endorsement” of the work local authorities are doing and the need to devolve power
and funds.
PAC released four reports on September 20 that committee chair Margaret Hodge MP (pictured) said shared similar themes: “A central message emerging from our four reports today is that the Cabinet Office and the Treasury together need to be much stronger if they are to exert effective corporate control over spending in departments and achieve long-term sustainable savings for taxpayers.
“For too long these two central departments have been half- hearted in their dealings with spending departments and have failed to achieve best value for the taxpayer.
“Tougher leadership from the centre of government is required.”
She added: “The Department for Communities and Local Government, which manages the whole place community budgets
Birmingham council chief executive to step down next year
Stephen Hughes, chief executive of the country’s biggest local authority, Birmingham City Council, is to step down in February next year.
Hughes (pictured) who has contributed to PSE a number of times, is to take early retirement after he turns 60. Hughes’ departure has prompted a wider shake-up of senior management at the council, including a merger of children’s and adults’ services under one director and other changes, which could see the chief executive role itself split between a number of senior leaders.
Hughes has previously blamed central government for
8 | public sector executive Sep/Oct 13
undermining its own growth and localism agendas, urged the government to relocate more departments out of London, and called for ‘radical’ leadership change at local government level.
programmes, has provided effective support to date.
“However, if central government departments are not committed to whole-place community budgets, it may, like similar initiatives in the past, fail to deliver any significant and lasting changes.”
Sir Merrick Cockell, chairman of the LGA, said: “The success of community budgets is already recognised at all levels of government and this report sends a clear message that the approach must be adopted across the public sector.
“We need to rewire the way services are paid for and delivered by devolving decision making to local areas.
“This approach is the proven way of improving services and saving money across both central and local government.
“Local authorities are pioneering
community budgets but only a fraction of the potential savings will be unlocked unless Whitehall commits to modernising the way it works.”
PAC also notes a potential contradiction between the procurement reforms and localism, saying: “The commitment to localism seems to be at odds with buying through central contracts, and Government’s desire to give more government business to small firms does not appear to have changed the way large procurements are managed and designed.
“The Cabinet Office needs to set out how it will resolve these issues, and clarify how it intends to deliver sustainable reform in its priority areas of procurement, digital services, shared services and management information over the next few years.”
More on procurement on pages 56-61.
National Audit Office criticises public sector reliance on legacy IT
Old IT systems expose the public sector to risks, a new report from the NAO highlights, making performance “patchy”.
It is estimated that in 2011-12 at least £480bn of government operating revenues were reliant to some extent on legacy IT. The report warns that failure to change these systems can lead to inefficiencies.
Legacy IT also increases the risk of security problems, being locked into support with a single supplier, shortage of skills to maintain and support the systems, the cost of new business processes to compensate for missing functionality and increased complexity through additional
interfaces, increasing costs.
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: “Legacy systems are a fact of life for most significant ICT users.
“The challenge is how intelligently they are managed, whether they are being retained, updated, replaced or phased out.
“The aim is to balance the
costs of these options against the limitations and risks to ICT capability they can present, in a way that makes sense for the user and secures best public value. Performance in the public sector is patchy.”
More on page 46.
© Dominic Lipinski and PA Wire
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