Business issues

Local services

Joining up different services more effectively could save £18bn from local authority budgets. This, plus better commissioning of services, would also allow the Government and local authorities to tackle complex social issues through coordinated action between health, education, police, probation and welfare services

Overview

A local authority has an important role in deciding how services in a local area are commissioned and provided to ensure residents get the services they need. Councils have a crucial leadership role in working with local partners to ensure resources are used in the most effecitve way.

Examples of coordinated action at community level include using joined-up services, rather than the 20 agencies that can be involved with one problem family. Dealing with such a family can cost up to £330,000 a year: tackling one problem family alone in Greater Manchester can cost the police up to £50,000 a year through responding to nightly reports of domestic violence. Healthcare could also be co-ordinated better with other locally delivered services.

A recent CBI joint report with magazine The MJ highlights the benefits of moving away from fragmented, siloed approaches to funding and delivering public services. Joining up, joining in demonstrates how sharing resources and collaborating at a local level will also enable government to tackle complex social issues by coordinated action, drawing on partnerships between health, education, the police, probation services and welfare services.

Building on this, a new joint report with the NLGN highlights the need for a better dialogue between commissioners and providers to support this transformation of service delivery. Drawing upon new research, Commissioning Dialogues challenges local authority commissioners and providers to pursue wider engagement, cultivate more diverse skills and adopt a more outcome-focused approach to risk.