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People Driving Change

Date of speech	12 May 2009
Location	Central Hall Westminster, London
Event summary	The Local Revolution: People Driving Change conference

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Draft text of the speech - may differ from the delivered version.

It's a pleasure to be here with the men and women - from local government, their service partners and more besides - who have driven an astonishing change in communities across the country over recent years. I came into this job a believer in local democracy and my conviction has only got stronger, seeing councils, their partners and local citizens making practical change happen: new buildings, new jobs, more people proud and confident about where they live. That the Comprehensive Performance Assessment should have ended in a shower of stars is a fair reflection of the improvements of recent years.

Success, however, carries its own dangers. The risk that we think we have found "the answer;" that we fall into a set way of doing things; that we turn a blind eye to the needs of the future.

Meanwhile, the way we live and work is evolving at a rate faster than at any time in recent history. For all areas of public service delivery, there are existing pressures for change driven by demands of service users, partners, and citizens - whose satisfaction with local services has not mirrored the improvement in performance. The recent seismic events in the financial world add a further significant and obvious pressure. As the budget made clear, efficiency is the watchword for public servants everywhere for years to come. And the fact is that the future will require developments in public services that were unthought-of a decade or even a year ago. The only way to guarantee success for the future is to start laying plans today.

So today is all about the future. Our challenge is to look at the development of public services and what they will need to be capable of delivering for the next decade.

For change to be successful we need three elements to be in place - a vision to work towards; the capacity to respond; and a clear set of actions or first steps that will set us on the right track.

So to start, what is our vision?

I suggest that some fundamental characteristics should underpin every aspect of public services by 2015.

First, a rigorous focus on outcomes. The true measure of success is not that a hospital has been built, or a training programme funded: it is people enjoying better health, and having better access to learning.

Second, the adoption of 'whole system' and 'whole place' thinking. That is to say, not thinking about services in isolation - the hospital and the leisure centre, the school and the library - but thinking about how they come together. I believe that this follows naturally from a focus on outcomes, as achieving the right outcomes requires the contribution of many different parties and agencies. And it matches what people want. They don't want to have to worry about falling between the cracks of different support bodies. They care about getting what they want, when they need it, without seeing the join between different delivery bodies.

Third, a recognition of the importance of growing the capability of individuals, families and communities to develop and deliver change on their own terms. My politics are based on a life long commitment to collective action, to helping people in their communities. In many cases this involves respectful and active relationships between people and services that give them room and support to succeed. We need to shift our view of consumers: from needy, dependent, lucky to get help: to vibrant, demanding, with high expectations and little patience with poor service. Indeed, few services can deliver anything without the real engagement of the people they exist to serve; behaviour change and intrinsic motivation can make as much difference as any 'intervention'.

Fourth, a recognition that success in delivering such outcomes fairly across the UK requires different responses in different place, sensitive to local history, demography, interests, and aspirations. In other words, while there will remain a role for Whitehall setting a national framework and providing national oversight, especially on such complex national challenges as climate change, I believe we need to see greater local freedom to innovate, greater discretion to tailor services in response to what communities want.

I think the new offer will become one of 'new services for the public' rather than 'public services'; less a 'sector', more an enabler, broker, and supporter of people and communities. Services and public servants will need the capacity to reinvent themselves quickly, with their purpose defined by consumers. They will have humility rather than specialism as a core value, and will see that partnerships are no longer with other services but with everyone.

These principles may be challenging - but they are, I believe, achievable in practice. Indeed, successive independent reports have highlighted just these characteristics, and in many cases they already underlie Government policy.

I may not be a fan of the phrase 'place-shaping', but I agree with Sir Michael Lyon's concentration on local discretion in service delivery. This of course informed the 2006 White Paper and the new performance framework which is today a reality.

Or take the idea of empowering services users and enabling a 'whole place' approach. Both are acknowledged in Sir Michael Bichard's contribution to the Operational Efficiency Programme as key elements in enabling more effective, efficient, value-for-money public services. Services that respond to people's need will, by definition, be more efficient as they will be closer to 'right first time every time'. Why, after all, should anyone have to phone twice or three times?

If we can embed these four principles in public services everywhere, I believe the prizes are significant:

• Services that are more responsive to people's changing needs
• Communities that are increasingly confident in resolving their own problems, and increasingly capable of getting support from public institutions when they need it
• And better outcomes for citizens

Do we have the capacity within public services, from Whitehall to my community hall to begin this journey?

I believe so.

If the response to my White Paper Communities in Control has shown anything, it is the eagerness of community groups to get involved: now it is vital to build their capacity to seize the opportunities and take greater control.

And if the past decade of success in local services has shown anything, it is the calibre of staff, of leaders and front line professionals, who have put local authorities at the leading edge of many aspects of public service reform.

Indeed, many are already thinking ahead in a truly strategic way.

On one of my recent LAA delivery workshops I heard first hand from partners in Sunderland how they want to work together on a few key themes for the people of Sunderland. Their plans include detailed action to address long term worklessness, with, for example, targeted training programmes, helping people with a long history of unemployment or sick leave to develop skills and experience for specific vacancies, such as adult social care. Or look at the North East local authority that has taken a ten year view of their likely CSR settlement and efficiency target, to help make strategic choices about service design and scope.

What we want to do today is share what is emerging in your area, the bright ideas, the people's choices and the radical thoughts that are influencing your plans for the future.

And we want to get you thinking about some tough questions:

• How do we complete a change of mindset so that involving and engaging people is part and parcel of the design and delivery of services from square one?
• What are the right conditions for bringing services together? What is the role of targets, what is the role of resource allocation, what is the role of structural change, of changing job roles and changing the way that we think of local leadership?
• And how we can use the need for efficiency as a catalyst for innovation? - an area I know Yvette will consider in more detail

Today is also about identifying the first steps, the practical things we can do now to set us on the right path towards that vision for 2015.

I suggest four areas for starters.

First is accelerating the move towards 'whole system thinking' at a local level. The budget confirmed £5m for 13 areas to pilot a 'Total Place', approach, learning from what happened with Counting Cumbria. The challenge to us all is to capture the learning from the pilots in real time and embed it in the way we work in our own partnerships and organisations - and in Whitehall.

Second is learning the lessons from implementation of the LAA process - thinking about where we go next, with perhaps fewer, clearer outcomes for each place, a still smaller set of national indicators, and an even sharper focus on what local people want.

Third is doing more to encourage and deliver shared resources - helping deliver greater efficiency. We have said all along that LAAs are about focusing effort and resources on the priorities that matter most locally. Pooled or aligned budgets are beginning to happen. The pace of change needs to accelerate.

Fourth is allowing social enterprise to shine. This is a sector whose time has come. Social enterprises are closely attuned to local needs, putting people in control. Nationally, we're hoping to ensure that social enterprise plays a big role in, for example, the delivery of the Future Jobs fund. I hope for your part you will consider what you can do to promote social enterprise, helping build a more diverse local economy.

But that's enough from me. The most powerful policies I have seen in recent years are not the product of Whitehall's ivory towers. They are rooted in the experience and genius of people at the front line.

Take the 2006 Local Government White Paper, defined and driven by authorities through the Local:Vision process. Take the 2008 White Paper Communities in Control, drawing on a wealth of experience out there in the local, public, community and voluntary sector. Or take the process of defining 'Zero Carbon Homes'. Rather than create a definition within Whitehall, a group of stakeholders, involving groups as different as the World Wildlife Fund and house builders, were empowered to think through how to make the outcome a reality. As they shared their thinking and the responsibility for creating a workable solution together, they both believe in the outcome they've reached.

So it's over to you. Be open. Be inventive. Be positive. I'll be listening with interest and keen to respond to the challenges you pose for central government.

Thank you.