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Hazel Blears: Greater efficiencies in the public sector

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears today said that the 13 areas chosen to pilot a new initiative to identify how local public agencies can better work together to deliver front-line services more efficiently have a unique opportunity to radically reshape and improve the quality of life for their communities.

Ms Blears added that in these tough economic times it is right that all of the public sector should look for ways of making savings - but by being creative and with different agencies working together innovatively this has the potential to not only deliver better value for money but also better local services more tailored to local needs.

Hazel Blears and Health Secretary Alan Johnson were in Sunderland today, selected as one of the pilot areas, visiting the pioneering Bunny Hill service centre that already brings together business, voluntary and public sector bodies to provide the community with a wide range of public services under one roof.

Backed by £5 million funding the 'Total Place' initiative announced in this week's Budget will map flows of public spending in local areas and make links between services, to identify where public money can be spent more effectively. This forms part of Sir Michael Bichard's work on the Operational Efficiency Programme looking at the scope for efficiency savings in the public sector.

An earlier project in Cumbria analysed how public money from national, regional and local public sectors come together in one place and how local public, private and voluntary organisations could work more effectively together on issues ranging from worklessness to climate change. This work identified improvements and efficiencies which are now being delivered.

Speaking from Sunderland, Hazel Blears said:

"The impact of the downturn means all of the public sector needs to find new and more efficient ways to serve the public.

"The early analysis from Cumbria has shown there is scope, with the right local leadership in place, to achieve significant efficiency savings while at the same time deliver improvements in public services for local communities. And in Sunderland today I have seen real innovation - a move away from the traditional model of delivering local services to providing a full range of community services as those available at the Bunny Hill Service Centre under one roof.

"These 13 pilot areas have a unique opportunity to radically reshape and improve the quality of life of their communities. I am confident this will lead to practical new ways of working - closer cooperation, more joint projects, greater pooling of budgets across local public services and crucially putting communities in control."

Notes to editors

The pilot areas are:

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