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APSE launched its latest research publication ‘Getting more Bang for the Public Buck, a guide to using procurement to achieve community benefits,’ at the Conservative Councillors Association conference in London today.

Attended the awards dinner for the Northern Ireland Local Government Awards at the Slieve Donard Hotel in Newcastle, Down. This is the second year in a row that APSE has been involved in the awards and it’s really taken off as an event with the dinner packed out.

Chaired a debate today at APSE's Scottish Housing conference at Peebles Hydro. We had a first class panel of speakers with Alex Neil MSP the Housing and Communities Minister facing the opposition spokespersons for Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, Michael McMahon MSP, Derek Brownlee MSP and Jeremy Purvis MSP. Dave Watson the UNISON Scotland organiser also spoke in the debate.

Happy New Year although for many in public services it may feel as if there isn't a lot to be happy about.

Facing up to some of the largest challenges to public finances in a generation coupled with the impact of severe weather on the public image of local authority services may make many feel that they want to curl up in a ball and hide.
 

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. 
 

Speech from the Guardian's 'Capital Ambition' conference in London.

On to the question then, ‘if getting organisations working together is an obvious and simple solution, what has prevented it happening?’

Some of my experience in this area probably dates back to the period 2002 - 04 when I sat on the Office of the Deputy Prime Ministers Strategic Partnership Taskforce and I seen at first hand the difficulties of getting the cultural, political and structural ducks in a row. We oversaw the 24 pathfinder projects identified as having the best chance of success and which in the end either experienced huge delays or disappeared into oblivion. So my starting premise would be to say an obvious solution, yes, a simple solution, no as it can become too elaborate and be over complicated by consultants and experts who make a living by generating fees. 
 

In his recent book on the politics of climate change Lord Anthony Giddens called for the creation of an ‘ensuring state’ with the capacity to achieve political and economic convergence across policy sub-systems to tackle what is becoming a global phenomenon.