Frequently asked questions
These are some of the most frequently asked question about Total Place. Click on each question to see the answer. If you have a question about Total Place that’s not answered here, why not join the Total Place Community of Practice – registration required? Alternatively, see the Contact us page for details of the best person to help you with your query.
Are any other authorities looking at these types of efficiency savings?
What sort of issues will the pilots look at?
How long will the initiative run?
Is this enough time for the pilots to make a real impact?
Who is supporting the initiative?
Who else is involved in the pilots at the local level?
What is the role of Tribal Consulting in the Total Place initiative?
How did you arrive at the method pilots are using?
What would we expect to see changing as a result of Total Place?
What sort of savings can be made?
What sort of obstacles would Government be prepared to lift?
Haven’t you done this all before?
What is Total Place?
Total Place is an ambitious initiative that will consider how a ‘whole area’ approach to public services can lead to better services at less cost. The impact of the economic downturn means all of the public sector needs to find new and more efficient ways to serve the public.
There are 13 pilot areas across England participating in the scheme, with each area ensuring a diverse mix of economic, geographical and demographic profiles.
Where are the pilots?
There is at least one pilot in each region in England:
| Region | Pilot Area |
| East | Luton & Central Bedfordshire |
| East Midlands | Leicester & Leicestershire |
| London | Croydon |
| London | Lewisham |
| North East | Durham |
| North East | South Tyneside, Gateshead & Sunderland |
| North West | Manchester & Warrington |
| South East | Kent |
| South West | Dorset, Poole & Bournemouth |
| West Midlands | Birmingham |
| West Midlands | Coventry |
| West Midlands | Worcestershire |
| Yorkshire & Humber | Bradford |
These 13 pilots were chosen to help show how local public agencies can better work together to deliver front-line services more efficiently and have a unique opportunity to radically reshape and improve the quality for life of their communities.
Are any other authorities looking at these types of efficiency savings?
Across England, there are many parallel places working to improve services at reduced cost. For instance, Newcastle is working collaboratively with key public sector partners to map spend across the city and is seeking to identify opportunities for efficiency savings. They have asked for access to the key Total Place policy documents and methodologies and are willing to feed in the learning from their activities into the Total Place pilots exercise.
What sort of issues will the pilots look at?
Each of these pilots has selected at least one particular theme to explore in more detail. This will allow them to examine how the money flows, and how the delivery system can be improved and made more efficient. The issues covered include such things as children’s services, aged care, drugs and alcohol, housing, crime and mental health services.
How long will the initiative run?
Pilot areas are already undertaking analytic work and we expect that following some initial findings in time for this year’s Pre-Budget Report on the 9th of December, pilots will report back their full analysis in time for next year’s Budget.
This does not mean that areas should not spot and act on opportunities that they can do locally. Things can start to change in places as soon as the Chief Executives and Leaders of all the services in the area agree on the best way to change them. We want early ideas to be tested in practice so that they can be shared around the country – we don’t want all the good ideas to be stored up for a written report next year.
Is this enough time for the pilots to make a real impact?
We believe significant progress can be achieved over the 8-9 month period. The pilot sites are all places that have an excellent track record for effective leadership, strong partnerships and delivering results.
Who is supporting the initiative?
Key Government Departments (including Treasury, Health, Work and Pensions, Home Office) are working closely with the Leadership Centre for Local Government, the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs), the Government Office (GO) network and the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) to ensure that Total Place is successful.
This work forms part of the Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP) strand led by Sir Michael Bichard seeks to create the environment where collaboration and innovation on the frontline leads to reduced costs and new ways of working, to live within more constrained resources while meeting the public’s expectations of higher quality services.
Who else is involved in the pilots at the local level?
The initiative involves Chief Executives and Leaders from each local authority, Primary Care Trusts, Jobcentre Plus, the Police and all other partners in the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP). Some partners outside the LSP, for example the Courts Service, might also become involved where the pilot is looking at a theme which is relevant.
What is the role of Tribal Consulting in the Total Place initiative?
Tribal have been commissioned to help support pilots in counting public expenditure, deep dive into specific policy themes within the area, and customer insight work. They will work directly with the pilots to help build a picture of what’s known so far and where more information is needed. Their involvement from an early stage will help increase the potential for the Total Place initiatives to reach well beyond the boundaries of local government to meet the needs of customers now and in the future.
How did you arrive at the method pilots are using?
The pilot method is modelled on the Leadership Centre’s work in Cumbria, which looked at how much public money went into Cumbria, which organisations it passed through and to what end. It considered in turn the total public spending picture, spending by Cumbrian bodies, spending by non-Cumbrian bodies and spending to support the community strategy. Early analysis from the Counting/Calling Cumbria pilot project, led by the Leadership Centre proved that using this method, with the right local leadership in place, can achieve efficiency savings and improvements in outcomes across public services.
What would we expect to see changing as a result of Total Place?
Better services and better value for money. This won’t all happen overnight, but it will give us a far better idea on how we implement innovative service redesign, in line with the needs of the customer.
Lots of the initial work is happening within organisations to identify ways that they can design and deliver services in a way that are more responsive to the needs of their citizens – and in a more streamlined and efficient way.
Delivering locally requires re-weaving national policies together with local priorities and implementing them within the constraints and opportunities of a local operating context. A system-wide approach would also cause a greater focus on the regulatory environment in which local public agencies operate.
What sort of savings can be made?
During the last spending review period, councils made great strides on efficiency – achieving up to £1 billion savings every year and meeting their target a year early. We expect councils can free up a further £5.5 billion by 2011 – supported by £0.5 billion of invest from central government.
Councils can reinvest the efficiency savings they make to reinvest in local services or use to hold down council tax. HMT has been committed from the start that the purpose of Total Place is not about trying to deliver a single percentage or number on efficiency savings. It’s about piloting an approach to improved value for money, where agencies work together better through collaboration and local leadership. It’s critical that the pilots present rigorous evidence about the potential for improvements and engage with Whitehall departments about how removing any national delivery barriers to collaboration could enable them to go further. They will want to see indicative examples of value for money improvements that may be realised from particular local initiatives or programmes in the PBR09, and these to be further developed for Budget 2010 – but this is not the same as trying to identify a figure for funding reductions.
What sort of obstacles would Government be prepared to lift?
Some suggestions might be able to happen in local places without anything changing in Whitehall, whereas other things will need some ‘loosening’ of policy guidance or reporting requirements. Some ideas might need legislation and while it is too soon to plan what that might be, it is certainly not being ruled out.
Haven’t you done this all before?
Total Place is new, but service improvement and greater efficiency isn’t. Local government has a strong track record of making efficiency savings – £4.5 billion since April 2004.
Total Place is not just about efficiency within organisations. It seeks to identify and avoid overlap and duplication between organisations – delivering a step change in both service improvement and efficiency, by using the pilots as a laboratory for learning and seeking lessons, ideas and solutions that are shared across local government and partnerships.
