A huge debate is taking place at present about which are the best models available to divest public services through. I have got to say I remain to be convinced. Whatever service options local authorities decide to pursue in future the benchmark against which to appraise the options is the existing in-house service. Does any alternative form of provision meet or surpass the benefits that managing services directly yourself brings.

These benefits are:

Firstly, high quality, value for money, service provision.

Secondly, the retention of public resources within the local economy and the avoidance of leakage from the local area. This point was covered extensively in our Economic Footprint research in Swindon that showed for every £1 spent by the council on services £1.64 circulated in the local economy.

Thirdly, the ability to act as a market regulator to ensure the Council achieves a fair price over the long term.

Fourthly, being an employment standard setter in promoting fair employment practice, skills training and apprenticeships. 

Fifthly, joining up wider public policy and council corporate objectives by integrating this into and across service delivery, an example of this being responding to climate change.  

Sixthly, the contribution made to financing and supporting the democratic and corporate core of the council.  

Seventhly, the flexibility to change priorities and reduce budgets without having to revert to a contract. 

Eighthly, being responsive in a crisis such as the recent riots, the vast majority of councils street cleansing teams had already returned the streets to normal by the time the public had arrived the following morning.  

Ninthly and finally, being democratically accountable to elected members and being focused on the community because the workforce from top to bottom are predominately from the community. 

In my view this list is non-exhaustive but is an important contribution to the debate on future service delivery models and is one that cannot be ignored. A number of elected members have remarked to me in the past that you often don’t realise the value of what you had, until it’s gone.

Many extravagant claims have been made about the potential benefits that co-operatives and mutuals could bring as service delivery vehicles for the provision of local public services. However, when the evidence is examined in detail do these claims stand the test of scrutiny? This is what the latest research publication by APSE ‘Proof of delivery’ sets out to explore. This research was undertaken through APSE’s knowledge transfer partnership with De Montfort University.

The first key finding was that there is very little evidence base to support any of the claims made about the superiority of co-operatives and mutuals over any other form of service delivery in public services. From 1600 sources our researchers were only able to find 12 case studies where any impact evaluation had been carried out. For a concept that is being pushed so hard as a response to the cuts agenda this is asking decision makers to take a huge leap of faith.

Secondly, from the limited evidence base that exists some key factors appear for successful operation within the public sector, these include:

• Contract lock in – an initial sufficiently long contract in terms of volume of work and financial commitment to allow bedding in of new arrangements and also ensuring the avoidance of future divestment of services that would change the character of the original body.
• Collaboration – the need for on-going support through public subsidy, advocacy and expert advice in order to support the fledgling organisation.
• Buy in – there needs to be buy in from all stakeholders, staff, elected members, citizens and service users.

APSE has argued for a number of years that without on-going support, collaboration and facilitation from the public sector the social economy will struggle to survive, this research reinforces this message.

A third point from the research to emerge is that there appears to be downward pressure on staff terms and conditions brought about by the formation of co-operatives and mutuals. At a time when statutory protection of terms and conditions are being removed from public sector workers by the government this is highly unlikely to generate great enthusiasm for a transfer to this model of provision amongst the key asset of any organisation, the staff.

A final and fundamental point is the fact that very little evidence exists of accountability to elected members and / or the wider community. In a time of diminishing budgets and intensified scrutiny of public spending are local politicians really going to handover public funds to bodies with a self interest without any influence or recourse should things start to go wrong.

APSE would like to see a proper evidence based debate on the role that co-operatives and mutuals can play in public service delivery and would support their use where they can demonstrably add real value. Anything less would do local communities a great disservice.

Some of the unsung heroes in the aftermath of the riots of earlier this week were the street cleansing crews who returned city centres to some semblance of normality with maximum efficiency and the minimum of fuss. Whilst senior political figures were quick to praise the public response with brooms and bin bags and cite it as an example of the ‘Big Society’, in reality many were turned away as local authority crews had been out from 5.30am and dealt with much of the clean up by the time the public actually arrived. It’s an example of a public service that goes largely unnoticed until high profile occurrences put it centre stage and yet there would be an outcry if our main streets were left in a mess when the rest of us got up to go to work.

All this as well at a time when Government cuts are having the impact of slashing the budgets of these services. A recent APSE survey of 102 street cleansing managers found that 77% expect their budgets to change this year, with 92% expecting this to be a significant decrease. 64% expect to have recruitment freezes, 53% voluntary redundancies, 34% compulsories and 52% expect a greater community sector involvement.

Personally, I think the public spirit demonstrated this week, whilst laudable, was a one off. I don’t really see that many of us wishing to contribute to the ‘Big Society’ by getting up at 5.30am to cleanse the streets and ensure that they are in pristine condition, on a voluntary basis.

Every now and again a one off event occurs that brings in to focus the immense value of frontline public services which we normally take for granted. It’s a pity that it took something so serious this week to demonstrate the high quality services most people take for granted.

Much like Colin Firth’s character in the film the King’s Speech, it has taken David Cameron some time to find his voice on his true intentions for the future of public services.

In his recent Daily Telegraph article, he stopped hiding behind Big Society and Localism rhetoric and spoke clearly about something a number of us had long suspected – that he wants a much greater role for the private sector in the delivery of public services.

The Prime Minister’s White Paper outlining his thinking on this is imminent. Local authorities of all political colours may wonder how helpful his plans will be however, at a time when they are struggling so desperately to cope with unprecedented budget cuts that threaten services upon which local communities rely.

It appears that Mr Cameron believes the only way to improve services and make them more efficient is by making markets and competition the default position for delivery, with current provision mechanisms confined to history.

Those who have been responsible for running council service for many years may be surprised by the tone of his comments as it appeared to infer that public services are a closed shop on delivery at present. The review of the ‘public services industry’ by economist DeAnne Julius in 2008 found it was worth £79bn to the private sector and growing. Anyone involved in local government knows that the Prime Minister’s portrayal of some sort of monolith dinosaur is inaccurate when all the evidence shows councils have modernised, services have improved and pluralism of provision has prevailed.

Implementing any new approach takes up vast amounts of time, energy and, indeed, resources; none of which are in great supply in local government at present. Do we really have the capacity for this type of experiment amid the current carnage that local authorities are facing?

For those with long memories, his observations may smack of a return to the failed policy of Compulsory Competitive Tendering, which was imposed upon local government in the eighties and nineties. Indeed I made this prediction myself in the first MJ of the new year, when announcements were made regarding the intention to remove the two tier workforce code.

Commentators who have championed greater involvement of third sector organisations in public services may cling to the hope that this is about divestment of services. But the fact that this has never really been about them is now loud and clear.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg opened the summit in St Albans by posing the question, how do we reinvent public services in the current climate? Perhaps he was referring to the impossible conundrum of raising standards and quality, whilst demand is increasing and huge cuts are being made.

He stressed the need to modernise public services by increasing plurality of provision, criticised the trade unions for being protectionist and argued that he was strongly against a market based approach and privatisation, as he doesn’t believe the private sector are inherently better at delivering services.

During questions the DPM was asked about the letter from 90 Lib Dem Local Government Group Leaders that had appeared in the Times that morning criticising the cuts that the coalition Government is imposing on public services. He expressed the view that he didn’t think you moved the debate forward by conducting a megaphone debate.

I then asked him whether he thought there should also be an onus on Ministers to avoid megaphone diplomacy, particularly those who have launched an onslaught on public servants who have given their working life’s to improving public services. The DPM agreed that it was unhelpful to conduct a debate in such a fashion and that the focus should be on equity, standards, responsiveness and affordability rather than a political slanging match.

David Walker lightened the mood with a much needed joke – A man says to the Doctor I am addicted to Twitter, the Doctor replies I am sorry, I don’t follow you.

David outlined his view that some of the problems with public management are permanent because culturally they are built in, he also stressed that public services are political by definition. He went on to make a plea for the voice of public managers to be heard as he believes they have a vital role to play in the debate that is taking place on the future of public services. He suggested that public services had been brainwashed by marketeers and that he found it incredulous that little effort had been made to expose the limits of markets and neo-liberalism despite the major role this had played in creating the recession.

Jon Sibson of PWC and Will Straw from IPPR then led a session on building foundations for growth, when asking them about the one area where I believe growth potential exists, the green economy, I quipped that ‘Asking a public service audience about growth at present was a bit like asking General Custer to launch a recruitment drive for the 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.’ Jon indicated that he believed it would be two Parliaments time before we experienced any real growth again in the economy.

Peter Marks the Group Chief Executive at the Co-operative offered that ‘everyone talks about the John Lewis model being the answer but this is a producerist model built on maximising financial benefit to employees, should this really be an aspiration for public service delivery?’ His suggestion was that co-operatives and mutuals should be built around consumerist models and must be about the public good. APSE's research into cooperatives and mutuals has also identified this issue.

In a workshop on organisational change I asked the panel if they felt that there was a clear narrative on the big society and what we are trying to change to over the next three or four years? I suggested that it feels a bit like a science lab experiment that could go wrong and can we really afford this approach. Local authority Chief Executive Katherine Kerswell was the most vociferous in her response by suggesting that we don’t want a blueprint for the future, it's better if we create our own future and leave room for entrepreneurial creativity.

Christian Bason the Director of the Danish Government’s innovation unit then gave a brilliant talk on how to create the correct environment for innovation to flourish; he illustrated this by using numerous examples of approaches taken in Scandinavia.

Chief Executives John Barradell from Brighton and Andrea Hill from Suffolk then outlined their visions of what the public should expect from the state in the future. John spoke about a reduction in provision and the use of models such as cooperatives to make up shortfalls in provision.

Andrea then spoke about Suffolk’s vision of being strategic but not a provider by divesting itself of services, she spoke of reductions in residential care, library provision and even Lollipop people, this provoked a pretty hostile response from much of the audience with one person making the plea don’t let me grow old on your watch. Others asked if elected members were having an input in Suffolk or whether it was just Andrea’s view. Richard Kemp from the LGA suggested that the big society approach may be okay for middle class people but in areas of deprivation such as in Liverpool, for groups such as dementia sufferers there isn’t an army of qualified volunteers to fall back on – the less fortunate in society desperately need public services.

Peter Holbrook the Chief Executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition was asked if social enterprise was the panacea we are looking for and he said no but it was gathering momentum as an economic model as a result of market failure.

All in all it was a useful event to assess if the alternative models of delivery and approach to public services that are being touted have any legs, having heard from the experts I think the jury is still very much out amongst them and I remain a long way from convinced that this isn’t just distracting people from dealing with the impact of the severe cuts that have been made to public services.     

Francis Maude’s announcement to scrap the code of practice on workforce matters, which protects workers on outsourced public sector contracts from having different pay and conditions to colleagues working alongside them is a regressive step taking us back ten years prior to when the code was negotiated through the social partners forum which I was involved in for APSE.

This is a regressive step in the public services marketplace. One of the greatest problems with outsourcing in the past was the perception that outsourcing contracts was a means to generate profits from public services at the expense of the workforce. The two tier code was designed to address that. By scrapping the code it reinforces a message that the terms and conditions of the workforce are viewed as expendable.

The code has been replaced by a new ‘Statement of principles that reflect good employment practice for Government, Contracting Authorities and Suppliers’ but this statement does not have any statutory effect and will be merely circulated to suppliers as part of good practice literature.

Government has argued that the Two Tier Code was prohibitive to third sector suppliers bidding for contracts but the main  beneficiaries from the scrapping of the code will not be third sector suppliers but the more unscrupulous amongst contracting organisations. There is a danger that less scrupulous contractors will see this as a nod and a wink to return to some of the worst practices of the CCT years. It is likely to create huge tensions amongst the wider public sector workforce and trade unions at a time when local councils are considering a range of new delivery models to cope with cuts of up to 30%. Decent employers had nothing to fear from the two tier code and that included those in the third sector. I would hope that many of the enlightened contractors who provide public services continue to treat all of their staff with equal status.

Contractors should not enter negotiations assuming that savings can be made from the workforce and contractors, and third sector suppliers still needed to vigorously adhere to domestic and European employment rights legislation including the Transfer of  Undertakings Protection of Employment.

Progressive austerity appears to be the message on public finances for the foreseeable future. In local government this translates to reducing costs or cutting services in order to pay for the sins of the bankers.

For those who have been in local government over the last few decades this is not exactly a new phenomenon. From the mid-1970s onwards every few years another government financial crisis appears, often originating from another source; from the International Monetary Fund intervention to CCT and from Black Wednesday to Gershon.

And as much as we can blame others for all of this, the reality is that the public sector has rapidly become the media whipping boy once again.

There is much talk of incremental improvement being exhausted with innovation and step change being the only solution. But is this really true? Or is it a convenient truth for those who stand to prosper from alternative forms of service delivery?

My view is that creating an environment in which efficiency and continuous improvement flourish will allow a culture of innovation to develop. It will also place local authorities in pole position to lead other public sector agencies in the total place agenda. So what might this environment look like?

Firstly, there needs to be a focus on good local performance management data. Not centrally driven targets, but meaningful useful information that identifies a baseline of performance which can be scrutinised for competitiveness and challenged by both elected members and local people.

Phase two is about process benchmarking with others to identify who has outstanding performance at present then examining how to get to that standard or level of efficiency.

This can be done in a variety of ways, but the management tools and techniques associated with systems thinking approaches could prove a useful start rather than simply attempting to replicate others.

Involving staff from all levels of the organisation from the outset in this process will help spread the message and build ownership of the solutions.

Having untangled staff from the organisational straitjacket of the past, you are now into level three where innovation can flourish. Transformational service redesign can take place by eradicating waste and bureaucracy and enabling such innovations as the co-production in service delivery we have seen in recycling and waste minimisation over the past few years.

This has encouraged residents to take more responsibility for their actions while having greater input into service design and allowed more to be done for less.Of course it may prove easier to achieve the benefits created by such an environment if you have retained control of your own destiny.

For councils locked into long-term contracts, it is likely to be someone else who reaps the rewards.

Claire Fox succeeded in fulfilling the brief to do her usual thing and ‘stir it up’ when she spoke at our annual conference in Cardiff. She also took the opportunity to make her usual rallying cry for less state nannying.

The underlying tenet that what once constituted the public sphere is being eroded while the state delves further into the private lives of citizens warrants consideration. But is perhaps lost amid her evocation of some sort of municipal Dystopia; complete with spying helicopters and a moratorium on anything remotely resembling fun (Stop monitoring the public, The MJ, 1st October 2009).

We welcome debate on how scarce resources can be best targeted to achieve public value, which was, indeed, the theme of our conference. I think Claire is being slightly mischievous in her interpretation of this point. For us - and for service users - front-line means collecting the waste, cleaning the streets, providing affordable housing, caring for elderly and vulnerable people, feeding school kids, repairing the roads, cutting the grass in parks and a whole host of highly tangible services upon which people rely day in day out.

These local services have a huge bearing on the health and well-being of local communities. They are also important economically; with our research showing every local authority pound spent can generate £1.64 in the local economy. Promoting behavioural change that will reduce the longer-term economic and social costs of ill health and create a better environment actually means more effective use of public resources.

‘Co-production’ was a term used by speakers at our conference with first hand experience of making service improvements and multi-million pound savings by finding effective local service solutions from within their own in-house teams and communities. And doing things ‘with’ residents, rather ‘to’ or even ‘for’ them is surely the intention of all of us in local government. The reality is that the majority of people are happy to recycle and don’t want their taxes used to clean up after the few who drop cigarette butts or beer bottles. Is Claire suggesting that, instead of encouraging healthier lifestyles, school meals and high quality public spaces, councils should instead be promoting deprivation, misery and a return to the dark days of public squalor?

Since way, way before the recession began, APSE has been supporting the delivery of excellent front-line services and fighting against bureaucracy and waste. But focusing on the front-line does not mean councils should stop taking a wider approach to the health and well-being of residents; it goes hand in hand.

And yes, service users will defend against cuts that affect not only their lives, but also their life-chances.

Spend a couple of days in London at a variety of events and meetings.

Attend a Fabian event on the future of local government at parliament where local government Minister John Healey speaks along with Simon Jenkins from the Guardian. It quickly turns into a debate about localism and whilst it's all interesting I started to think that I have been hearing the same arguments over and over again for the last 15 years. And I think some progress has been made with devolution to Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. However my mind starts to drift to the fact that there may be some more urgent priorities facing local government at present.

I go over to the MJ and meet the Editor and Deputy Editor, Michael and Heather for a catch up. This weeks edition has already gone so we exit to the pub for a chat, where I wax lyrical about how local authorities can deliver business process reengineering themselves without bringing in external help. I should have known better the next day I receive an email from Heather asking for 700 words on the subject for the next edition.

The following day I attend a rountable discussion with the Centre for Public Service Partnerships and Unison on 'Public Service Partnerships and the Workforce'. It was Chatam house rules so I can't really say to much but I put forward points about a lack of uniformity of approach to the workforce by contractors, how we need joint monitoring on agreements that are in place, that we need research in this area and that we need to understand local economic value rather than just looking at cost.

The event was chaired by John Tizzard and Dave Prentis of Unison made an opening contribution. It was good to have such heavy hitting representatives of the private and public sector together and it brought an interesting dynamic to the discussion.

It was a lively discussion and I think it is one which will run for a bit.