New independent panel to advise on services that put people first
3 Apr 2014 01:09 PM
Announcement of an independent panel to look at
how public services are delivered.
The
Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Local Government Secretary yesterday (2
April 2014) announced the creation of an independent panel to look at how
public services are delivered.
The
new Service Transformation Challenge Panel will be part of the
government’s continued commitment to create public services which look at
individuals and families rather than working in traditional Whitehall
silos.
Already councils and services working with the Public Service
Transformation Network have shown that working in partnership to join
up services can meet the needs of individuals and change people’s lives
for the better.
The Troubled
Families programme and Better Care
Fund represent significant steps in the right direction. The
announcement of the extension of the Troubled Families programme in 2014 to
2015 at the Budget as well as a £410 million transformation funding
package to support local places demonstrate the scale of government
ambition.
The
Service Transformation Challenge Panel will advise on what needs to happen both
locally and nationally to increase the pace and scale of transformation within
public services. Where there are barriers to transformation, the panel will
make practical recommendations on how we can address such
issues.
It
is expected that the panel’s recommendation will help government to
accelerate the delivery of better outcomes for local people and support local
places to go further and faster with their change plans.
Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury,
said:
The Community
Budget pilots showed we can create better services that cost less. If
the approach were adopted nationally, it could save billions of
pounds.
I
want to see local authorities with more power to deliver better services for
people in their area. The new panel will help identify and accelerate the
changes local areas need to make to support vulnerable children and young
people, prevent crime and get people back into work.
Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and
Local Government, said:
Every bit of the public sector needs to do its bit to
reduce the budget deficit, by focusing on cutting waste and making sensible
savings to protect frontline services.
The
Troubled Families programme and the Better Care Fund both place individuals
firmly at the heart of public services, and we need to see that approach
applied across the public sector.
Public services designed around the individual, rather
than the organisations delivering those services, not only deliver better
outcomes but also eliminate wasteful duplication.
We
are now building on that with Public Service Transformation Network and the
announcement of £400 million to accelerate delivery this new panel will
make sure we use that to keep the work going in the right direction so resident
and taxpayers benefit from better and more cost-effective public
services.
Further information
The
panel will have joint chairmanship under Derek Myers and Pat Ritchie, both of
whom will bring significant policy, delivery and leadership experience to the
role.
-
Derek Myers - Chair of the Board of Trustees of Shelter
and non-executive member of Public Health England’s advisory board. He is
the former Joint Chief Executive of Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith
& Fulham councils and a former Chairman of the Society of Local Authority
Chief Executives
-
Pat Ritchie - Chief Executive of Newcastle City Council
and a former Chief Executive of the Homes & Communities
Agency
A
full list of panel members and a formal call for evidence will be published
shortly.
The
panel will report back to government in the autumn.
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