London council tax bills cut or frozen 'thanks to improved efficiency'

PA Consulting Group's local government experts, Karen Cherrett and Richard Barton comment: "It is unsurprising to see a growing number of councils pledging to freeze or reduce council tax as we enter the run into the most uncertain and potentially dramatic general election we have witnessed in more than a decade. Whether that is a sign of policitical slight-of-hand or true efficiency saving is a matter for each council's conscience. What is clear from our own experiences is that there are many councils who have consistently over-performed against government targets only to find that their core processes and systems remain woefully inadequate and inefficient to weather the type of unprecedented storm now deluging public finances.

"The rise of 'Total Place' budgeting as well as the promise of a greater focus and harder tests of the use of resources were already aligned to drive deeper business analysis and scrutiny of councils before the economic downturn began to bite. The depth and ferocity of the bite is now being felt keenly across the public sector and the majority of public sector analysts predict that we are only as yet experiencing the first nibble! 
 
"The question facing many councils is not 'how can we do this more efficiently?' but 'how can we afford to do this at all?' Local authorities need to look again at exploiting the powers they already have to trade and raise revenue. They also need to embrace the best of the commercial world to re-engineer and re-organise and evolve their businesses if they are to adapt and survive.

"Many of our clients already recognise this challenge and are working alongside us to develop new approaches to service delivery, separating the management of market demand from traditional responsibility for service supply. This demands more sophisticated approaches to public sector collaboration as well as different leadership styles and real community engagement with the democratic place shapers. There will be difficult decisions and tough compromises but the councils that can face up to and meet these challenges are the ones which will set the shape of the future. "

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