Greater Manchester to pioneer public service revolution
GMCVO is delighted that Greater Manchester has been selected as one of only four ‘Whole Place Community Budget’ pilots in the country.
The pilot represents a unique opportunity for Greater Manchester and the Government to work together to develop a ‘whole place’ approach to public service delivery – ensuring the best possible value for public spending. The Greater Manchester pilot will focus on four themes that reflect the priorities of the Greater Manchester Strategy: under-fives, troubled families, transforming justice, and health and social care.
The successful bid to the Communities and Local Government department was made by a partnership led by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and involving key public and private sector bodies, including GMCVO.
It means that senior officials from Whitehall and the Greater Manchester strategic partners will now work together over the next two years to explore in detail how these ideas will be implemented, with the intention that lessons will be learned that can apply nationally.
The vision of the Community Budget is to create a system where public bodies can be free to invest to save. For example the pilot will focus on people who are very dependent on a wide range of often very expensive public services, but who, with the right support, could become more self-reliant and productive. The pilot will test new ways of public services investing in much more joined-up ways of helping such people to help themselves and then capturing some of the public money no longer being spent on them to do the same with more people.
Success could yield dramatic savings which can be reinvested into public services, in time further reducing spending on dependency. For example, taking 4,000 Manchester families out of dependency would save around £50 million across public services.
Another positive outcome would be that more Greater Manchester people would be contributing productively to the local economy and reaping the benefits of better paid work.
GMCVO’s director Alex Whinnom said: “GMCVO believes that in the context of ongoing public service cuts, one important solution to meeting rising demand with fewer resources will be to commission more from local voluntary organisations which can enable people to help themselves and each other. The Whole Place themes very much reflect the strengths of the Greater Manchester voluntary sector and I hope you will be ready and willing to become involved.”
♦ An excellent briefing on neighbourhood level and whole place Commuity Budgets, including a look at how the VCS might engage in the new service arrangements, has been produced by Voluntary Sector North West. Click on the link below to download the document.
