THE Local Government Bill sets an alarming expectation that councils do not favour in-house service provision over potential private, community or voluntary sector competition. And councils will now group together to buy in services; in all likelihood from the private sector.

Reading between the lines, this appears to be a crude quality-cutting exercise; a presumption to privatise.

And surely, by tying up local councils for years to come in numerous long-term contracts and negotiations with neighbouring local councils and private companies, the Government also risks flying directly in the face of its own espoused aims to empower local neighbourhoods in a drive for “new localism”.

Take just one sector of local government: housing. Market forces have driven competent local housing associations to merge into, or be swallowed up by, larger organisations. The result? Large organisations, potentially inflexible to local factors because they lack local accountability and are not rooted in communities.

It is also a safe bet to say that any cost savings will be dwarfed by consultants’ invoices, after being commissioned to devise and deliver these grand plans.

Can it be right that a community represented by locally-elected councillors should have its hands tied by the missives of highly-paid outside consultants whose commercial interests are best served unlocking and “managing” even more marketisation?

And, if we do hand over these services to large regional clusters, how customer-respon-sive will they actually end up being?

Efficiency is undoubtedly a sound goal. But the road to achieving it is not through marginalising local voters even further and handing over control of their precious public services to management consul-tancies and private companies.

Sheila Pringle, director in consulting at Deloitte, is convinced that shared local services will succeed in the public sector

SHARED services have been successful in the private sector for more than a decade. Now the attention is turning to local and regional government, where new ways of sharing are being implemented.

Unlike central government departments, local authorities have nearly identical goals: to provide basic services such as rubbish collection and street cleaning while charging residents council tax for the privilege. It’s often easier to knit together several council services by introducing standardisation than it would be to bring together, say, two central government finance functions.

Some councils have been quick to apply this shared concept successfully. Surrey is even looking to offer its solution to other councils, producing a benefit for both sides: early adopters gain from economies of scale while new customers experience reduced set-up costs and shared learning.

Is this just another route to outsourcing, as some suggest? No, it is about increasing efficiency both within and across councils using shared services intelligently and so developing better ways of working.

Unlike central government, councils are made up of elected representatives who play a key role as to whether their council will take on new ways of delivering services.

To facilitate this process, these councillors have become smart buyers of consulting services. Why? Because a good consultant brings an independent perspective and skill-set to complement those of the senior public servants.

In addition, consultants can help to equip elected members with the evidence they need to convince employees, constituents and unions that a shared approach ultimately means better citizen services.

These innovative ideas are more likely to boost service delivery and cut through bureaucracy to focus on the real customers. Smart councils should seize the opportunity.

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