Back in the constituency for the Christmas holiday, I’ve been spending time meeting and talking to constituents, to managers, staff and union representatives in the public sector, to local voluntary organisations, and to community groups. And – not at all surprisingly – the picture they’re painting is a worrying one.
Of course, we already knew that slashing local authority budgets would lead to hundreds of redundancies in individual local authorities (140 redundancy notices were issued by my own local authority , Tory Trafford, in the week before Christmas, and we expect more to come), with frontline services cut. We knew the voluntary sector would face funding cuts that would limit their capacity to support the most vulnerable in our communities. We knew the threat to jobs. But while the government’s ideological obsession with cutting back the welfare state comes as no surprise, and we’ve been all too well prepared for the vicious impact of their cuts, what I didn’t really anticipate until I spoke to people in the constituency was the incompetence and clumsiness of the way plans are being implemented, and the additional risk that this creates.
Now, uncertainty’s everywhere, whether it’s about securing future funding, about the design of new organisational structures, or simply about whether you’ll still have a job. Decisions are taken in a rush, announced then reversed, or simply left unclear. Important questions about future delivery and service design are overlooked or ignored. Consultation’s curtailed. Unrealistic deadlines abound. No-one knows where they’re headed, or what’s coming next.
It’s impossible to plan in this sort of situation, and frontline service standards will suffer as a result. Take the NHS. There are, of course, very well rehearsed and serious concerns about the motivation for and the impact of Andrew Lansley’s plans. But add to that concerns about competence, as managers battle constant changes of direction. Today’s model of delivery is gone; tomorrow new, but often short-lived, structures and models appear. First we’re told some services will be commissioned nationally, then we’re told they won’t. Bodies are earmarked for abolition, but functions left up in the air. Naturally, many of the best staff are leaving, with gaps in provision opening up. With the very best will in the world, and despite the efforts of managers and frontline staff, the fragility this creates in the system puts patient safety and patient care at risk.
Or take the impact on the voluntary sector, at the heart of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’. Many voluntary and community organisations still have no idea what their funding will look like after March. They can’t give guarantees to either their service users or their staff. Some have been asked to submit new funding bids on ludicrously short deadlines, or to deliver on a totally different scale (some face drastic cuts, while others are asked to scale up to deliver contracts double the size of their present provision), or to form new consortia in timescales that are simply unrealistic if partnerships and relationships are to be properly and sustainably developed, and outputs and standards guaranteed.
Either the government doesn’t realise the effect it’s having, or it simply doesn’t care. The ambition and ideology of ministers like Lansley, Gove and Pickles clearly trump attention to process, yet process matters to outcome. So Labour’s been right to attack on both fronts, as, for example, John Healey and Andy Burnham have begun to do. Just a few days into what threatens to be a deeply difficult year for so many, it’s clear there will be plenty of potential – and pressing need – for us to keep up the attack.
Kate, I couldn’t agree more! The area of the voluntary and community sector that I work in has been hit both ways. Not only do we have little clarity as to what areas are priority areas for the coalition government 9 months into their term of office, we also have absolutely no idea as to whether any future initiatives are likely to be supported through funding from central or local government streams and in the absence of any ringfencing the new ‘localised’ approach has ensured only one thing. It’s miserable, whatever way you choose to look at it! My own organisation has the potential to be in receipt of both central government and the majority of our income at present comes from partnership and support working with local authorities. We did the hard work diversifying funding streams a decade ago when the last government cut our significant core grant and have been in receipt of a very small amount of central government funding ever since. I am currently applying for the new streams of central government funding that have been announced – incredibly short time scales – 14 days to express interest with the smallest number of words and then once I learnt that we had been successful in reaching the next stage (on the 22nd December) we have until the end of the month to work up a more detailed proposal – again with not more than 400 words in any one section to explain how we might support a wide and varied programme of work on a VFM basis. Local authority teams have in many areas all but disappeared and those where there are still individuals answering the phone and responding to email are so completely in the dark as to what the future holds for their areas of work, we are all facing a state of overall paralysis. As a CEO attempting to pull together a budget and ensure the sustainability of her organisation, not to mention keep employed and out of the ever growing dole queue, the seven members of staff that the charity employs I have little idea as to what their funding will look like after the end of March. And as for the ‘Big Society’ that’s all about doing public work on the back of private individuals donations. In another lifetime, it was known as ‘Poor Law’. It’s evident that the government doesn’t realise the effect it’s having – one Minister expressed surprise that local authorities, having been told since the formation of a coalition government that they were going to have to make significant savings – were issuing ‘at risk of redundancy’ notices before the CSR spending settlements were announced, but I would be minded to say that it doesn’t care either.
Kate talks about due process, isn’t the issue here Due Diligence. Shouldn’t the DoH be forced to make a proper assessment of the risks involved in thei r plans
Thank God for the comment above by the chief executive. Alas, she’s a minority voice in the sector: too many of her fellows are talking about the “Big Society” as if they know what it means and cannot wait to be a part of it. Where they show a reservation is that their funding cuts won’t let it happen. What they clearly imply (even if this is not what they mean) is, “Give us the money and we will build the Big Society so that the government can dismantle the public sector”. Why no one remarks on this I don’t know. Cameron is very clear: a) that’s what it means and b) even in better economic times the money taken from the public sector will not be restored.