by Paul O'Brien
Saturday 09 May 2009
Attend APSEs annual transport and refuse seminar at Aviemore for a few days this week. It's always a great opportunity to get together with this sector of local government in Scotland. We run a massive exhibition along side the conference and it's always well attended.
Despite the 6 hour train journey each way the event was enjoyable and it was good to meet up with colleagues who I have known for many years.
Colin Mair the Chief Executive of the Scottish Improvement Agency did a useful talk outlining some of the huge financial challenges faced by public services in the coming years with a demand for £32b of services in a few years time with likely funding of £26 to £28b available meaning up to a 15% real terms budget cut.
I have got to say that I disagreed with Colin's conclusion that we should progress with pursuing alternative service delivery mechanisms despite the fact that they are untested and unproven. He agrees with me however that a job of work is required to examine any available tangible evidence of performance of different models.
