Challenges and Change Colin Mair, CEO, Improvement Service

The Completely BL…Obvious Reducing budgets: 3% per annum to 2019/20 (?) Growing demand: older population; child population; dependency ration : population shift Internal factors: tied in costs and cost growth: e.g. PPPs ; auto enrolment etc Disruptive technologies: public expectations Public Service Reform: public services and communities

The Core Problem For Councils Scottish Government very dependent on UK Government but…….. Local government highly dependent on Scottish Government: 82% (Euro average: 50%) Council tax freeze: Cumulatively over £2.5 billions foregone Scale of cuts have little to do with local decision making Local accountability : “what” to cut rather than “whether” to cut

So…….. Severe downward pressure on current budget Education will be relatively protected and social/personal care will grow Other services will face disproportionate pressure over time: environmental, regulatory, corporate, etc. UK, Scottish Government and local political priorities Tax and spending options in Scotland : anti austerity majority

Scotland is ageing Steadily

Health and care costs rise with age in Scotland

Making the Shift: Rethinking Public Services The outcome focus Reducing inequalities: “failure demand” Prevention and early intervention Public service integration around people and place Working with communities to work better for communities

The Ambition ‘Public services must improve outcomes, and reduce the outcome gaps within populations and between areas’ ‘Total resources will be targeted to deliver priorities’ ‘Promoting prevention and early intervention’ Delivering demonstrable improvements in peoples lives’ 8

Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act Common duty on public sector partners to work together to improve outcomes through Community Planning LOIP: general improvement + specific focus on communities with poorest outcomes Duty on all partners to make community planning work; to build LOIP into their own planning; and to contribute the resources necessary to deliver LOIP Duty to enable and resource community participation

Related Measures Participation request: communities can bring issues, improvement proposals, etc. and public services must engage with them Land and asset transfer: default position is agreeing to community requests Ministers can direct public authorities to promote and support participation in specific or general terms

The Change Challenges Timescales and horizons: short long term Cultural bias: ‘Proving the future’ Structures, accountability and complexity: services and outcomes Capacity and focus : hanging together or separately Interdependency, roles and relationships; e.g. prevention 11

E.g. Shared Services 3 or 4 councils: 5 year horizon 32 councils: 15 year horizon Short term selective interests vs long term collective interests Voluntarism and compulsion; structures and interests; whole system issues 12

For Example: Prevention Predictably negative outcomes: mitigation / avoidance So Analysis and understanding: levers for intervention ‘Chains of causation’: intervention points Most of what we do is preventative: stance not newer type of service (E.g. community benefits clauses; literacy and numeracy in primary school; winter gritting; waste management; planning and regulation etc) The public service role: The community role 13

Strategic Change Options The same things differently: e.g. digital transactions Different things similarly: e.g. prevention projects Different things differently: e.g. empowering communities Leadership, control and accountability 14

Designing Change Vision Strategy Programme Project The authority structure: designing to fail; underpowered matrix ; reporting lines Resourcing change: benefits; costs; investment model Managing Interdependency :Partners; co-producers; agents; contractors (e.g. voluntary and community organisations) 15