Learning from the NHS

The NHS is not often considered a source of enlightened management thinking, but the tremendous financial pressures it is currently under have led to some innovative thinking about the problems of introducing real customer-focus in a public service.

One of the emerging trends is a clearer separation of the "commissioning" of services from "provision" of services. In other words the organisation which allocates where public funds are spent and how they are prioritised should not be the same as the organisation which carries out the services - the idea being to make the public services more responsive to the needs of the local community. If we apply this thinking to local government, it suggests that a Town or Parish Council could commission services (such as refuse collection, street cleaning, and so on) from the Local Authority, which would act as the local "provider" of such services.

This is an idea with lots of potential, which I'll return to later.

Subsidiarity - local authorities and town and parish councils

The recent White Paper about local government opens a useful debate about transferring powers from the big local authorities down to town and parish councils. I think there is also a principle of "subsidiarity" involved in all this - things should be done at the lowest level that it makes sense to do them at. A good example was that issue a while back over the extra taxi parking space, which suddenly appeared in Pocklington at the behest of East Riding Council and without any local consultation. Taxi spaces don't need to be decided by Brussels, or London, or East Riding Council in Beverley - surely that is a job for the local community and the elected Town or Parish council?

Local area forums - a missed opportunity?

The new local area forums should have been an opportunity to take a fresh look at how the public services meet the needs of local communities. Unfortunately, instead of being organised around natural communities they are being setup under the auspices of the big local authorities. Our area - Pocklington - is only 12 miles from York, and York is the economic, social, and cultural hub of the area. (In fact, I think it is known as a "city region"). Unfortunately the local area forum for our area reports in to East Riding of Yorkshire Council in Beverley, 25 miles in the opposite direction.

Powers of un-elected planning inspectors

I have spoken to the Planning Inspectorate this morning. I have found out an astonishing fact: even if a Planning Inspector has been un-professional, or has acted illegally, or made any kind of error, there is no further appeal process. Neither can there be any appeal simply because he has ignored the views of, for example, the democratically elected Town Council. No wonder local democracy is plagued by low turnouts, why bother to vote when on the things that really matter these external agencies can just ignore democracy.

Council tax increases

I'm disappointed that despite the interesting outcomes from the Goole budget meeting, East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC) has still increased council tax above the rate of inflation. There seems to be an institutionalised view amongst ERYC officers that council tax is a one-way escalator – it can only go up.

Ever-increasing taxes are unfair on the local community, given that there is no competition for local authority services in the area, and I suspect bad for the local economy. This succession of above-inflation increases is clearly not a sustainable policy. It will be interesting to know at what point the Council will call a halt?