Like Andrew Webb in Stockport, I helped to create the new Children's Services Directorate in Dudley, and having done that, and seen the fall-out of too many structural changes, I am very reluctant to take on trust the notion that a new structural change is all we need. Reducing the number of Directorates by one will save, typically, part of one Director's salary, as that person's skills will often be replaced at a lower level. And bringing back office services together will certainly save some money, but of course many Councils have done that already, in some cases, years ago. The problem with efficiency improvements is that once you have made them, that's it, and you can't go back to the well again.
And, much though I respect Andrew, and he has achieved genuinely great things, he is falling into the same trap as the Coalition Government. The Coalition Government is saying that local authorities should be autonomous and that localism should rule, with voters able to throw out inefficient Councils which do not do what people want; but at the same time they are saying that Councils must not increase local taxes, must maintain weekly bin collections, and all the rest; micro-management at its worst. Andrew says that "we must forge a culture that provides autonomy for professionals and personalisation for individuals"; the localism debate writ small. But of course professionals, including him and all his colleagues, operate within many constraints, notably the budget, and the many statutory and regulatory standards. So professionals are not autonomous and never can be. If Andrew means that individual professionals will have to manage their own budgets, then that also will lead to inequity, as the decision made by one autonomous professional may well be different to that made by another autonomous individual. In that respect, I really do want to see common standards of support and care against which I can hold the Council (or the NHS, or the police) to account.
