Salami-slicing local services

The cuts planned by local authorities across Wales are deeply disappointing in many ways.

The services taking the hit, as always, seem to be those affecting older people, young people and disabled people.  So Powys is cutting public toilets, Rhondda Cynon Taf is raising the age of school entry, Neath Port Talbot is closing libraries and Wrexham plans to close at least one leisure and community centre, to name just a few of the proposed cut backs.

This round of spending cuts is bad news for the people and the workers  affected.

As well as the loss of 10,000 jobs forecast by WLGA, hundreds of thousands of people will be affected by cuts in services themselves. For example, transport is relied on by older people and children to get out and about and maintain or develop their independence.  Libraries too are mostly used by older people and children, getting free books to keep their minds active or learn to read in the first place. Meals on wheels – set to be cut to 5 days a week instead of 7 in Rhondda Cynon Taf and outsourced in Merthyr Tydfil – mean older or disabled people who cannot cook for themselves at least get one hot, nutritious meal a day, instead of subsisting on toast.

The short-term impacts are bad enough, but the long-term consequences are even worse. For when people lose their independence, they rely on someone else – may be family and friends, but more likely the local authority that cut that ‘little bit of help’ in the first place and now has to provide much more expensive forms of care.  Yet these false economies are being imposed at the very time that councils face pressures on their budgets for years to come.

That we’ve ended up with the same old approach is hugely disappointing, not only because of the cuts themselves but because radical approaches to budget setting seem to have been abandoned in favour of good old-fashioned ‘salami slicing’. We’ve got a trim here, another reduction there, instead of a rethink about doing things differently.

It doesn’t have to be like this.  There is a wealth of alternatives, from ‘radical efficiency’ to community budgeting to zero-based budgeting – to name just a few.  Economies of scale may be on the cards if the number of councils is reduced, but frankly I am not holding my breath as few reorganisations seem to achieve the promised savings.  Even if local government reorganisation does take place and makes significant savings, there will still be a need to innovate – people want 21st century services, not the same old ways from the 1950s and 60s.

New approaches are not just management speak – from Manchester’s “common assessment framework” for mothers and babies to Tower Hamlets’ “ideas stores” to Community Toilets and “sat lav”, local authorities and others are developing practical ways of saving money as well as meeting people’s needs.

But thinking about innovation, whether it’s bringing together related activities, about better targeting of services or about preventative services to reduce demand, seems to be off-limits in Wales.  We will all be poorer for it.

If there are examples of local authorities developing innovative approaches we’d be delighted to learn about them.

Victoria Winckler is Director of the Bevan Foundation.