Manchester ... just the start

The news that Manchester is to cut its overall budget by over £100 million was no surprise, and the details were inevitably going to be painful. But a cut of over 25% in children's services, while protecting and indeed increasing front-line children's social care, will mean that other children's services will be cut to the bone, and in some cases amputated entirely. While many of the lost jobs will be 'management' this will not hide the pain - front line services need managing to get the best out of a limited resource. Predictably the government (in the persons of Eric Pickles and Grant Shaps) has reacted angriliy, saying that savings should, instead, have been made in back-office functions. But in a senior management local government career of 25 years (I am not ashamed to say this!), I have seen more than a few 'magic bullet' proposals for improved efficiency; computerisation, one-stop-shops, shared services; they have all, without exception, failed to deliver the cashable savings promised, though admittedly some have improved outcomes. And the speed and depth of the cuts needed means that local authorities will not have time to learn fom each other and to evolve services.