Community Budgets

Brandon Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)]

Thank you, Mr Sheridan, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today.

First, I thank the Communities and Local Government Committee for securing this very important debate, which, ultimately, is on the way that public services can, and I would argue should, be delivered in the future. I particularly thank the Chairman, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for the Committee’s delivering an excellent report on the community budget pilots. It highlighted the importance of ensuring that the pioneering work of those pilots is adopted across the country.

Before I turn to the Chairman’s well thought-out and strong speech, which touched on many issues that, as he rightly said, we agree on, I will just deal with a couple of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford). He said relatively little about the topic of the debate—community budgets—and went into asides on local government finance and other issues. I suspect that he had little to say about community budget pilots because he believes we are doing the right thing. I know that on many such issues there is cross-party agreement, but on some, there is not, and I will come back to all those later.

The hon. Gentleman raised an issue in respect of which I must put something on the record. I think he said that there had been increased resources for local government under the last Government. I will put to one side the question whether that indicates that he shares the shadow Chancellor’s view that more borrowing and more debt is the way forward for this country, even though that was what got the economy into difficulties in the first place; I would not tout that as a good approach. However, he was somewhat remiss in not reminding us that council tax basically doubled under the last Government, hitting hard-working people hardest.

The hon. Gentleman represents an area that has a couple of the most deprived wards in the country, and which received the highest top-up in the country from this Government after being left with a black hole because of the last Labour Government’s decision on the working neighbourhoods fund. It is important to remember that the councils that are in the toughest positions and that have the highest levels of need, which he outlined, are also those that have the highest spending power per household in the country.

However, I appreciated the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the report, “50 Top Achievements by Labour Councils”, which he recommended as bedtime reading. I would not be so churlish as to suggest that when I am struggling to get to sleep, it might well help. However, I will happily have a look at a copy and keep it under the coffee table for the future.

I come now to the serious and key point of the debate. There are some issues on which we disagree—I will come to those later—but on many we agree, as the Chairman of the Select Committee said himself. Crucially, we agree about what we want to achieve, which is a transformation of public services for, and better outcomes for, residents. Our constituents deserve better and more cost-effective services that are designed to meet their needs. As I think the Chairman of the Select Committee said, we should be able to get more for less. I agree, but at the moment not all organisations are delivering in that regard.

It cannot be right that our elderly residents should find themselves in hospital because of a lack of support to live independently at home. Not only would they rather be at home, but supporting them in the community and thereby reducing hospital admissions will save the taxpayer money—exactly fitting the point made by the Chairman of the Select Committee.

It is also not right that a family in need of support should be contacted by countless different public sector organisations, all acting independently of one another. This confused approach does not help family members to get work, stay in school or stay away from crime, and nor does it help them to achieve the right outcomes. It means that the costs of antisocial behaviour, crime and unemployment continue to fall on the taxpayer. The family, and taxpayers, would be far better served if those organisations could come together to provide integrated services designed around the needs of the people who use them.

As the Committee’s report highlighted, the pioneering work of the community budget pilots proved that that is possible and is already happening. Cheshire West and Chester’s early support team brings together social services, police, probation, health and other services. Let me give just one example. A young mother—let us call her Emma—visited a children’s centre to ask for help with benefits and some family support. Separately, she had called the police after her partner, following an all-day drinking session, had violently attacked her. Both these incidents were picked up by the early support team, and following a 360-degree profile of the family, they discovered that Emma’s partner had a history of domestic violence and that probation had previously judged him to be a risk to children. By working together, these agencies were able to identify quickly that Emma’s children might be at risk. Under the old way of working, the children’s centre would have known only what Emma had told them, and she had not told them about her violent partner. Under the old system, it might have been weeks, even months, before family workers realised how at risk Emma and her children were. That is not helpful and it is not right, and it is what none of us wants to see.

The Government wholeheartedly support change and that type of approach. We want to see that approach being adopted by every local area, so that everyone in our country can benefit. That is why we have put in place the support to ensure that others can build on what has already been achieved. Thanks to the hard work and evidence provided by the 12 neighbourhood community budget pilots, we have committed, for example, an additional £4.3 million “Our Place” fund for 2014-15, so that at least another 100 areas can design services with their communities.

The Select Committee called for the Government to provide pump-priming funding to ensure that the community budget approach was implemented more widely, and that is what we have done. Others have suggested that the Government have paused that work until after the next election. Clearly, that is not correct. We have already provided a £6.9 million transformation challenge award, which is helping partners in 18 councils work together to deliver better services.

[Chris Williamson]

I am encouraged by the Minister’s remarks on Departments working together. I shall just pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), about how successful the Minister’s Department has been in persuading other Departments to break down the silo mentality. Ever since I have been involved in, or had an interest in, local government, breaking down the silo mentality has been the holy grail. Will the Minister say how successful he has been in breaking down silos?

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention, which gives me a chance to highlight how this is a whole-Government approach. If he will bear with me, I will, in a few moments, outline how Departments are coming together to ensure that these things are being delivered, as appropriate to the local area.

The funding from the transformation challenge award will, to name just a handful of projects involved, help to improve children’s services in south-west London, integrate emergency services and speed up response times in Surrey, and reduce crime in Cheshire. We have announced various measures further to support transformation, including a £100 million new collaboration and efficiency transformation fund and new flexibility to allow £200 million of capital receipts to be spent on the one-off costs of service reforms. In addition, in 2015-16, £30 million will be available for fire service transformation, £50 million for police transformation and £100 million for innovation in education.

The whole-place community budget pilots also highlighted non-financial barriers to partnership working, such as difficulties of data sharing, as the Select Committee Chairman rightly mentioned. I share his concerns about and frustration at the potential for real progress and change to be blocked in that way. I am determined that this Government will find a way through these myriad difficulties. Historic breakthroughs have been made in data sharing by the Troubled Families programme, for example, through which Department for Work and Pensions data have been safely shared with local authorities. Barriers to data sharing are as much to do with people’s perception of legislation as the legislation itself. For example, the “Data Sharing Act” might have been a better name for the Data Protection Act 1998. In working with fire and rescue authorities, which do great work in their communities, we often find that we need to weed out mythical understanding of something in that Act which somebody in a particular authority has found, to ensure that we get data sharing working correctly.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Might I share with the Minister my experience a week ago, when visiting staff at an early years centre in Greenwich? They spoke movingly about the difficulties they had in getting information that they desperately need about certain families from the mental health trust in the area. After talking to the mental health trust about that, to try to overcome this blockage, it became clear that the Minister’s point is exactly right: there are different understandings of what data protection requires, and there certainly is a long way to go to get different organisations to accept that sharing responsibly and within the ambit of the data protection rules is essential to getting good quality services, and to protecting people.

[Brandon Lewis]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and I have had experience of this. One really good example of data sharing involves Cheshire fire authority, which has put a lot of time and effort into breaking down barriers, getting to the root of what really can be done, and getting on with it. It is useful in a debate such as this for Members from all parties to spread the word—when people read Hansard as bedtime reading, or over the weekend—so that people appreciate that such things can be done if they want to do them. The Act needs to be read properly, so that it is not misunderstood or misinterpreted by anybody in an authority.

Little things, simple things, can make a difference. In Hertfordshire, a group of people consisting of representatives from the fire authority, the county council, the police and social services works together in the same room. That has broken down barriers and has got through to people, enabling them to understand things better and allowing for much better data sharing.

Whether barriers are real or imagined, we have committed to improve data sharing where it will improve services for residents. We are setting up a centre of excellence for information sharing and exploring options for legislative changes.

The pilots also told us that their attempts to work with partners were sometimes hindered, as Members have outlined, by uncertainty about future funding. As a result of these concerns, the Treasury is working with Departments to give local public services the same long-term indicative budgets as Departments, from the next spending review. One key characteristic of the whole-place community budget pilots—why they succeeded where past attempts did not succeed as well, or failed—was the close co-operation between central and local government. As the Select Committee’s report makes clear and as the hon. Member for Corby said, the pilot areas highlighted the importance of Whitehall secondees working alongside them, helping to change the way central and local government work together, and helping to bridge understanding of how both sides work.

[Mr Betts]

I welcomed the Treasury’s looking at whether it can give local authorities more of an indication on medium-term budgeting than they currently have. As part of that process, will it also be the Treasury’s job to look at how far, during the spending review period, Departments will be expected to contribute a certain part of their budget to the community budget process?

[Brandon Lewis]

The Committee Chairman tempts me to prejudge what the Chancellor may decide, but he will understand if I resist him for now. The Treasury is looking at the issue and understands the importance and benefits of long-term work and giving budgets in the way that I have outlined.

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again; this is my last intervention, I hope, subject to what he says. In relation to long-term certainty, working together and sharing budgets, does the Minister agree that there is a need for much greater investment in social care? Is thinking about that being done in Departments? Investing in that would save spending further down the track, by preventing people from going into much more expensive hospital care or long-term nursing care. To make savings in the future we need to invest in the present, and that means putting a lot more resources into social care. Does the Minister agree? Can we be confident that the thinking being done will deliver that?

[Brandon Lewis]

I will not hold the hon. Gentleman to his promise about that being his last intervention; I would not want to curtail any further insights. He does not make an unreasonable point. I will mention the important issue of social care and where it may lead in a moment; it is linked in respect of the better care fund, for example. However, as I said in opening, it is true that if we can have a better service up front, people might not necessarily need emergency and hospital care. That would be better for them and mean lower costs for their areas. The Committee Chairman mentioned the potential for being a midwife; if my Department in its current format ends up being the midwife to public services working together in future, I will be proud of what we have achieved in our time in office.

The pilot areas highlighted the importance of the secondees. The Government are committed to the approach, which is why we created the public service transformation network, which has 30 officials and counting seconded from around Whitehall and local government. They are now working with the nine new areas, but they are not the be-all and end-all. It is a rolling programme. The secondees are helping the areas to learn from the pilots and quickly create a better outcome for service users; it is an evolution of what the pilots delivered.

Some areas are picking up themes similar to the ones the pilots picked up. Each area has its own focus, depending on its circumstances and the needs of its local residents: localism in its true sense. In Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset, the focus is on integrating and improving services for elderly residents and for those with mental health or learning problems. Better support for those seeking employment or training is the priority for partners in Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, and for the six boroughs within the West London Alliance, which are working superbly well together to deliver there.

I have already mentioned Surrey’s plans to integrate local emergency services, as Northamptonshire has done, but it also wants young people in their area to receive better training and education. In Swindon, partners want to create safer communities and, in particular, give better and more co-ordinated support to victims of domestic abuse. Residents in Bath and north-east Somerset could benefit directly, with more money in their pocket, thanks to the work of local partners and the Department of Energy and Climate Change to improve energy efficiency in local homes.

I have barely begun to scratch the surface of the work going on in those places. I urge colleagues to take a close look at those projects when the network’s website is launched in just a few weeks’ time. People might see something that they think should be happening in their own constituency; that touches on the point raised by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) on sharing data and best practice. Better services are not the preserve of people living in pilot areas or in one of the nine areas that are working intensively with the network. Those areas are there to share best practice. We want to learn from them and to see other areas move, too.

I agree completely with members of the Select Committee that local areas should not be held back or discouraged from proceeding with service transformation. Much of that can be done without any assistance from central Government, because it simply requires local partners to sit down, forget their differences and focus on the outcomes for residents. Partners in Staffordshire, Leeds city region, Blackpool, Tyneside, Cornwall and Suffolk are getting on with plans to improve services for residents, and others can do the same. Much can be learned from the excellent work in Suffolk, where the county council is working with district councils to share management and services. If there are barriers, gather evidence and let us know. We have already shown that we are ready and willing to aid the process by changing the way government works.

I want specifically to address the idea that the work of the community budget pilots is somehow unconnected with other important areas of policy or that big Departments are not engaged. We must not get caught in the trap of thinking of community budgets and service transformation as an initiative cut off from other Government projects, work and reforms. The principle of neighbourhood and whole-place community budgets is simple; it is about partnership working across public services, local and central, to create not just cost-effective services but services designed around people rather than structures and organisations. The same principle is at the heart of the troubled families programme, the integration of health and social care budgets, the pooled local growth fund and many more areas of work; it is not a top-down exercise. We are working closely with local partners and others on the design of the expanded programme.

The troubled families programme, for example, is being extended, as the Select Committee noted, to an additional 400,000 families over five years, with £200 million already committed for the first year in 2015-16. The hon. Member for Corby asked about the assessment of the programme, which is subject to a three-year independent evaluation. Initial findings are due later this year.

On health, it was partly thanks to the hard work and the evidence provided by the four whole-place community budget pilots announced by the Government that we could develop the £3.8 billion better care fund in the spending round. Health and social care services are already working together to ensure that our elderly residents receive the support they need to stay at home and out of hospital. We have also established a network of 14 integrated care pioneers that will, like the community budget pilots before them, work closely with central Government to develop the solutions that others can then adopt. Locally led public service transformation also has the potential to promote economic growth.

Although I understand that the Select Committee and the Essex pilot are disappointed that not all of Essex’s whole-place proposals were adopted—the Essex pilot was particularly commented on—it is possible that such areas can do far more within existing Government policy. Essex has done great work in establishing an employment and skills board that involves local employers and skills providers, and the board’s labour market intelligence has already influenced millions of pounds of capital investment by further education colleges.

A number of the nine new places are reviewing how skills and employment support is provided, and the network is working with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Jobcentre Plus, the Skills Funding Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions. Again, the support is not just for the select few.

[Mr Betts]

The Minister is right to say that the Select Committee drew particular attention to the Essex problem—or the BIS problem, as it should probably be called. He has given a long list of things that Essex has been able to do, but the people from the Essex pilot were clearly concerned when they came to give evidence to the Committee. Will he take the Committee into his confidence and indicate precisely what BIS did when those points were put to it? How did BIS respond? What commitments has BIS given to change?

[Brandon Lewis]

There is still a lot that Essex can do within the abilities and powers that it has been given. We arranged a meeting with BIS directly, which I think has now happened, but I will pass on the hon. Gentleman’s message and ask BIS to respond directly to him on where it is at.

The Government have invited local areas to make public service reform proposals as part of the local growth deals, which are currently being negotiated with the cross-Government local growth team. We have also provided an extra £10 million a year for Jobcentre Plus, working in partnership with local authorities, to help young people find apprenticeships and traineeships. I hope that we can all agree that the focus on better outcomes, which is at the heart of the community budget pilots, is evident across all Departments and all parts of the public sector.

Members asked, “What exactly is there?” The network has 30 staff and a budget of £2 million. The network is accountable to Sir Bob Kerslake, but it reports to Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury.

The Chairman of the Select Committee made a point about localism. The community budget pilots, the transformation network and some of the great work being done by councils across the country to bring public services together and to get on with changing how we deliver services for the better—this is what really matters—proves that the power the Government have devolved to local communities and local councils goes way beyond the central process that we had in the past. That is a revolutionary change that, hopefully, local government will grasp and take forward. It would be wrong for us in central Government ever to pretend that we have taken a vow of silence on what we think of certain decisions or on pointing out good examples of best practice for providing residents with the great services that all taxpayers deserve.

[Andy Sawford]

Bin collections.

[Brandon Lewis]

Whether for weekly bin collections or any other service that the council provides. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that most council tax payers would expect, at the very least, to have their waste collected in a good and weekly manner.

I welcome today’s thoughtful debate. We can all agree on the critical need for public services to work together in the interest of residents, service users and taxpayers. The community budget pilots showed how local services can be transformed. Continued commitment and strong leadership, both locally and centrally, means that everyone can benefit. There is an opportunity to see something different and something better for our country. I hope that local councils will take a grip, make the most of it and deliver for all our residents.