Can it be true
We have been working for many years across public services on the opportunities available from cross sector working. The barriers are numerous, but budgets – if not right at the top of the list – comes pretty close.
The difficulty of coming together around the money really does get in the way of some very sensible opportunities. So anything coming from government to enable seamless working would be a huge breakthrough.
The notion of Place Based Budgets may sound dull but the implications are huge. Could this be the thing that opens the possibility of Public Service Without Frontiers.
This article just published in the Local Government Chronicle announces that there are to be eight new workstreams looking at new ways of working ahead of the potential introduction of place based budgets. The eight workstream leaders are real heavyweights (in the gravitas sense of the word) indicating that this might be a realistic possibility.
Ignite as real leaders in cross sector working and Public Service Without Frontiers will be following this development with anticipation.
Mark, you’re spot on – I can’t tell you how many times people on cross sector teams told me that the reality on the ground was a sense they were competing for funding; that accountability for budgets was preventing them from working together to drive efficiencies and that the way they were being measured around “the money”, as you put it, was driving the wrong behaviours.
Jenny — 10 September 2010 @ 6:16 pm