With the lack of recent posts in mind – I hope you will forgive a slightly longer than normal post today as I attempt to catch up.
WLGA Conference – Innovation and outcomes
Last Thursday I spoke at the Welsh Local Government Association 's AGM in Swansea. On a political panel with Kirsty Williams, Nick Ramsay and Adam Price MP, we debated the Assembly's response to the recession and the upcoming fiscal challenges in the coming moths.It was a wide ranging debate with a dangerous amount of consensus breaking out amongst the politicians, but it was an opportunity for me to put on record some of my thoughts about how we go forward, with less money in the budget. For example, I stated my belief that this would be exactly the wrong time to be considering another re-organisation of local authorities - such a move would be costly and distracting. The starting point for any changes in spending patterns should start with this political proviso - first, do no harm.
I’ve said before that our reaction to the downturn is the great test of our political generation – but the challenge faced by public service providers, local government and the Civil Service is no less daunting. That is why I question the helpfulness of constant speculation about the exact sums involved in future budgets, I don't think it helps to be using anything other than the Finance Minister's projections at this time. The situation is simply too fluid, too uncertain to make additional, accurate predictions – we cannot become hamstrung with uncertainty or paralysed by anxiety.
What would be far healthier at this point would be a focus on innovation and an influx of new ideas and new ways of doing things and the Finance Minister, Andrew Davies is saying very much the same thing. Our new approach must have a relentless and unwavering focus on outcomes, not levels of spend. There needs to be a proper debate on the best way of doing this, but I have floated the idea of appointing somebody – an Innovation Commissioner for want of a better title - to act as a catalyst to make this happen. This isn’t about creating another layer of bureaucracy or tinkering around the edges - they would be expected to be a radical ‘change-maker’ with ‘open door’ access to the Welsh Assembly Government, and a place at the table of Social Partnership . I don't think it is too obtuse to suggest that without innovation at the heart of public service delivery, we will struggle to deliver first class services with any amount of money.
Bevan Foundation
On the same day of the WLGA conference, I had the opportunity to speak a Bevan Foundation event looking at what steps were needed to end child poverty in Wales by 2020. Each of the panellists was allowed to pick three key priorities – these were mine:Full implementation of the ‘Dignity Programme’
Back in 2006, when I developed WAGs child poverty plan, I recommended an all-Wales roll out of a ‘Dignity programme’ – which would involve new multi-agency teams operating in communities, proactively seeking out children in poverty, or at risk of falling into difficulty, and address in turn each challenge that might be facing that child's chance of development - family income maximisation, schooling, access to services, risk of substance abuse etc etc and crucially offer personalised, proactive and tailored solutions and support . It is an approach that works, there are amazing pilot programmes waiting to be emulated. I hope that recent WAG announcements about "family support" schemes are based around this approach, but we need a full roll-out, not more studies.
Accept that the Assembly can and must take the lead role in tackling child poverty in Wales
The Welsh Assembly Government has made progress on the child poverty agenda, and I know there are AMs from all parties who give the issue the priority it deserves. However, we too often succumb to passing the buck to Westminster . There is an enormous amount we can do in Wales with the powers already at our disposal and we must recognise that it is our responsibility as an institution to take a lead in this area.
Recognition that the wider education sector has a role to play and that they must help us deliver on the child poverty agenda
With the prospect of frozen or decreasing budgets, we must maximise the involvement of outside partners and agencies in delivering on our mission to make a fairer Wales. Therefore I think we need a debate on the role which ‘public’ schools can play in helping us tackle child poverty. In my view, charitable status must be earned through proper, formalised collaboration and sharing of facilities and resources . This isn’t about assisted places - subsidy must come from the institutions themselves – not from the Welsh Assembly Government.
We must also take a fundemental look at how other instituions, notably Universities and the FE sector can help us deliver in this area, and we should take a serious look at adopting a Danish style 'pedagogy' system here in Wales.
And that's about it. The length of time it's taken to type this is reason enough to keep the posts more regular!



