Policy Briefing: The Christie Commission
on Public Sector Reform in Scotland, July
2011
This policy briefing has been produced by the Independent Living in
Scotland Project Team. The Disabled People’s Independent Living
Movement in Scotland can use this briefing. It can be amended for
local use, but please remove the ILiS logo and contact details if you
do this and replace with your own.
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This briefing is about the Christie Commission on Public Sector Reform in Scotland.
It covers the background to the Commission, the findings of it and what this means
for disabled people and the Independent Living Movement in Scotland.
Abbreviations used in this briefing
ILM: Independent Living Movement
DPO: Disabled People’s Organisation
LA: Local Authority
1.
The Christie Commission on Public Sector Reform in
Scotland
The Christie Commission was set up by the Scottish Government in November 2010
to make recommendations for the future delivery of public services in Scotland. ILiS
responded to the consultation on public sector reform and this can be read here.
The Commission was asked to:
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address the role of public services in improving outcomes, what impact they
make, and whether this can be done more effectively
examine structures, functions and roles, to improve the quality of public
service delivery and reduce demand through, for example, early intervention
consider the role of a public service ethos, along with cultural change,
engaging public sector workers, users and stakeholders
The Scottish Government’s vision for public services state that they should be:
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seamless, responsive and innovative
democratically accountable and delivered in partnership
address the causes and respond effectively to increasing demographic
pressures
support a fair and equal society and protect the most vulnerable in our society
To achieve this vision, a set of principles guided the Commissions work:
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reforms must empower individuals and communities by their involvement in
design and delivery
partnerships are necessary to integrate service provision
public expenditure must focus on preventing negative outcomes
the new system must reduce duplication and become more efficient
The Commission published their findings on the 29th of June 2011. You can read
them in full here.
2.
Summary of the findings of the Christie Commission
Public Service Reform
The Commission states that “the public services of the future must not only continue
to provide a safety net for the vulnerable, but make a coherent contribution to a
stronger, healthier, economically viable and more equitable society”. To achieve
this, they recommend a reform programme that:
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is built around people and communities
is collaborative to achieve outcomes
prioritises prevention, reduce inequalities and promote equality
improves performance and reduce costs
However, the Commission recognises that there are structural and economic
challenges in achieving this.
It states that Scottish public services are short term in vision, complex, poorly
coordinated, lacking in transparency, fragmented and often duplicate effort. They
state further that provision is disempowering, things are done "to" people, not "with"
them and the procurement at a macro level often reinforces the role of the biggest
players.
In addition, they note that funding available to the Scottish Government will shrink
over the next 20 years, at the same time demand for services will increase as the
proportion of Scotland's population over 60 increases by 50%, and those over 75 by
84%. They note further that Scotland is particularly vulnerable to changes in UK
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policy and cites the current Welfare Reform programme as having "potential
(negative) consequences" for devolved services as one example.
Prevention and addressing inequality
The Commission states that "no progress can be made towards positive outcomes...
without addressing the issue of inequality" and recommends that the public sector
adhere to the duties in the Equality Act. Further, it also recommends that "a human
rights based approach of participation, accountability and legality are embedded..."
in the public sector ethos”.
It proposes that demand reduction is the best policy response to public sector
reform to support this and that “....a cycle of deprivation and low aspiration has been
allowed to persist because preventative measures have not been prioritised”. The
Commission highlights 3 threats to this preventative agenda:
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a focus on immediate problems
short term results
narrow focus on outputs
They estimated that as much as 40% of all spending on public services is accounted
for by interventions that could have been avoided by prioritising a preventative
approach. And that a specific presumption towards prioritising prevention and
tackling inequalities must be adopted across the public sector.
They highlight that support for active participation, independent living,
Personalisation, Self Directed Support, community development and employability
as key to the preventative agenda and state that these should be a focus of public
sector reform.
Coproduction, empowerment, accountability and participation
The Commission sees partnership and coproduction as “vital to the achievement of
outcomes for people and communities”. They state that evidence supports the principle
of involving people in design and delivery of services and that this is crucial for
accountability. They highlight community development as crucial to this. They
therefore propose an approach to reform, based on 2 basic principles - partnership
and participation.
Currently, Community Planning Partnerships are set up to support this. However,
the Commission states that “the potential benefits of a local partnership approach
are far from being fully realised...there are variations in the effectiveness of
community planning partnerships...for the most part...community planning has
focussed on the relationships between organisations, rather than with communities”.
To address this gap the Commission proposes:
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A full and proper public process to determine and develop outcomes through
local partnerships that involve people and communities (including working at a
more local level that LA level)
Collaboration to design and deliver integrated services
Development of ways for all partners to be accountable to each other and to
the public for the delivery of the agreed outcomes
A role for public sector staff as ‘champions of participation’
Public services understand their collaborative role and so develop a shared
identity e.g. ‘Public Services South Lanarkshire’
A new set of common and shared powers and duties for the public sector:
o budget and resource pooling
o mandatory integrated provision of services
o long term plans for asset management between agencies
o the development of national standards and targets which encourage
partnership and flexibility
In addition, they highlight the "Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill" as
having the potential to promote improvements in participation in service design and
delivery and in building community capacity.
Joined up provision
The success of partnership working “is dependent on the ability of organisations to
pool budgets”(Association for Public Service Excellence). To compliment this the
Commission focuses the reform agenda on long term, joined up planning, provision
and budgeting for public services and states that this is essential to achieve the
outcomes needed to address inequalities.
However, they recognise that “resources within public services...have...a strong
organisational ‘identity’” and argue that “creating a focus on the needs of a particular
place or a group of people, rather than the funding streams of individual
organisations, can be an effective way to target attention and provide a basis for
partnership”.
To do this, they recommend an agreement, between Scottish Government and local
government to develop joined-up services, that is backed by funding arrangements
that require integrated provision. They also suggest new inter-agency training to
help people to work together and build a common public service ethos.
In terms of localism, the Commission wish to see local flexibility in determining
outcomes. However, they state that national policy drivers are useful where they
support the achievement of outcomes for communities and individuals and build
their capacity, prioritise prevention and address inequality. Thus the Commission
states that where it is necessary for the Scottish Government to set targets and
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agree entitlements, these should be jointly agreed between LA’s and communities
and should be explicit in how they relate to agreed outcomes.
Improving performance and reducing costs
The Commission recommends a public sector that is transparent and can
demonstrate a link between value and shared outcomes and recommends that Audit
Scotland extend it’s remit across the wider public sector to consider shared powers
and duties.
They also suggest that a ‘single public service model’, used in the Northern Isles, is
monitored closely as a model for service delivery elsewhere.
To support a focus on longer term, shared outcomes, the Commission suggest that
the Government should set budgets over similar multi-year cycles across the whole
public sector.
3.
What this means for the Independent Living Movement
It is important that the ILM set their approaches for policy change in the context of
the Christie report and there is a lot there to build on. Many of the issues ILiS
highlighted to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (click here to watch the
evidence session) as important for the progression of independent living;
empowerment, prevention, coproduction, joined up provision, shared resources and
consistency; need public sector reform and the Christie report highlights many
similar issues and potential solutions. As a key piece of mainstream policy,
Christie’s report has the potential to support progression of independent living, not
just in it’s action but in it’s promotion and reasoning.
The report presents many opportunities to progress the principles and outcomes of
IL, including:
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As highlighted in the ILiS response to the Christie Commission (click here to
download it), the ILM share a desire for prevention. To help overcome the
threats to this (highlighted above) the ILM must:
o demonstrate how today’s immediate problems could have been avoided
by taking a preventative approach e.g. hospitalisation vs. appropriate
community care
o gain the support and will of the general public, so that perceptions of
failure e.g. when crisis management fails vs. a longer term vision, are
recognised
o support and promote the future integration of services
The ILM has long campaigned for joined-up working and budgeting, and so
the recommendations to reduce short-termism, work collaboratively and to
pool budgets, underpinned by new duties on public bodies and roles for
workers as ‘champions of participation’, is useful
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Participation of this sort needs coproduction and that needs empowerment
and capacity. If we are to move to localised decision making and shared
working and budgeting, it is essential to empower disabled people and the
professional first. Without this, disabled people will be left behind, decisions
will be taken without them and expertise is lost from the system. This itself is
needs a preventative approach, where capacity building; rather than just front
line provision; is resourced
The ILM should engage with the “Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill”
to ensure that ways to support participation and community capacity for
disabled people are central to it’s development and implementation
As one of the basic rights of independent living and as less than half of
disabled people of working age are in employment, employability is a useful
common focus for public sector reform. The ILM should work to ensure that
support and provision in this area optimises choice, control, freedom and
dignity
Portability of support (across LA boundaries and across life stages e.g. from
children’s to adult services) and consistency of provision has been important
to the ILM for many years. Localism has threatened this agenda. With a
focus in Christie on flexibility locally, it is important that the ILM highlight
portability as an issue as one that needs national direction; that supports the
achievement of outcomes for communities and individuals, prioritises
prevention and addresses inequality
Reinforcing the role of key tools such as laws on Equality and the Human
Rights, in delivering our public services, is useful in carrying the message
wider
July 2011
Freepost
RSHG-GZXY-YYAL
Independent Living in Scotland
Equality and Human Rights Commission
58 Robertson Street
Glasgow
G28DU
[email protected]
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