29/06/2011 Newsnight Scotland

been passed through the UK Border Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: has

the Christie Commission on reforming public services come up

with any useful reforms to public services? This one-stop shop for

services and West Lothian is one possible model for things to come.

We will be speaking to the commission's chairman, the finance

secretary and some experts. Public-service bodies are to join

together to eliminate waste. The Christie Commission says that

occasion across agencies needs to be cut out. The focus should be on

early prevention of problems to prevent huge costs down the line.

We now look at one area where they say at better co-operation is

getting results. This is pooling resources West

Lothian style: sharing information and working together across the

agencies. This means avoiding doing the job twice and a more

streamlined operation. Previously, the police have gone in deal with

one problem, social services to deal with another, perhaps

environmental wardens would deal with yet another. Now, we have a

combined response to it. Through analytical products, we can

actually decide who is the best unit, or the best person, to deal

with the problem. We can actually deal with it from a prevention

point of view so we can tackle the causes of crime. The one-stop shop

approach is working for local people here too. It is better if

they are all on the one building. All we need to do is phone up that

place and you get everyone you want, social work or whoever else is

there. Community service and stuff like that. Everything is there in

the one building. Instead of one building here, one building down

their... The centre in West Lothian is home to seven partner agencies:

the council, NHS Odeon, the fire service, the police, the courts and

the Procurator Fiscal. All are based here. The centre believes it

is the most ambitious public sector partnership of its kind in the UK.

The population here in West Lothian is set to grow by almost 15% by

2018. This puts council services under even more pressure. The idea

here is that by bringing everyone together under one roof, they will

be able to provide more efficient and better services. What this

enables us to do is to shift focus and the front line services. At

this time of economic restraint, it is very important for us. What

we're looking to do is to shift resources up steam so people get

help when the need it most, and we're looking to target resources

again. What is most important is the quality of service we are

delivering and a recognition that their working together as a

partnership we get more. That is absolutely vital. In terms of hard

results are many examples of new working better? With anti-social

behaviour, particularly, vandalism in the last year has dropped by

almost 28%. Our overall crime has reduced by 19%. Those are excellent

results and that is just through working in partnership. Meanwhile,

in Glasgow, tackling problems before the store up for the future.

This project is focused on helping young people into work before it is

too late. The commission supports this idea: that prevention is

better than cure, and believes money should be spent now to make

bigger savings in the future. jobs are aimed at 18 plus. You need

experience and they really do struggle. At about the age of 17,

there is hardly anything for them. I have been looking on line for

different jobs. I have filled in applications but nobody has got

back to me. In 2009 and left school. I went on a painting and decorating

course but after that I have just been trying to get the job.

Christie Commission enthusiastically supports these

models, but will the whole of the public sector are put -- adopt this

approach. There is widespread support for today's report, but

some question why they are still talking and not just getting on

with reforms. The government is commissioning reports but they do

not actually go anywhere. Quite recently, there was the Beveridge

Report. I hope that does not happen to this which I think is generally

very good. The Christie Commission says this is a once in a generation

opportunity to tackle huge dilemmas. If we do not do it now, the writing

is on the wall that the problems we are storing up for the future will

be financially insurmountable. A little earlier I spoke to the

chair of the commission, Campbell Christie. I asked him, when it

comes to one of the report with my big ideas, prevention, what would a

practical example of that be? Prevention is not a new idea at all.

It has been on the agenda for a very long paid of time and people

recognise that if you can identify eight, for example, difficult

families, and in sure you are able to be with them to help parenting

or whatever else, you can create an environment where up instead of

having people who drop out of school and end up worse drug or

alcohol problems, if you identify areas where preventative action can

produce better results than the long term. That is the sort of

thing that is meant by preventative action. I understand that, but to

be honest, this is Maugham and apple pie stuff. We're saying we

should do this and if you do... were supposed to be producing some

sort a blueprint for public service reform. What I did not see is this

general idea is that you have outlined translated into something

other than just an idea. One idea you have is that services for the

elderly could be hived off into some agency that is part of the

health service... We have not said that. We have said there should be

action taken to integrate health and social care. We have not said

where it should be, how it should be. We have said that at the moment

it operates through Community Planning partnerships or with the

health boards and local authorities. Other agencies are involved. That

is there, it is not working very well, but it can be made to work

better if funding is pooled. It then provides an opportunity to

ensure that people who need care and able to get that care.

other thing that struck me reading this was not so much what you said,

but the question she did not ask. Close to the beginning of the

document, you say that since devolution, any quality in Scotland

has either not got any better or in many cases got worse. In the next

paragraph, you point out that public spending in Scotland over

the same period has increased by 60%, an enormous increase. Isn't it

a rather obvious question to say, if those two things are true,

doesn't it show that throwing public money at problems is not a

good way of dealing with them? shows that if you use public

expenditure to provide different and more and more things, it

dissipates. I'm sorry, but if there has been a 60% increase in public

spending since evolution and inequality has gotten worse, that

would seem to be something verging on a national scandal. Where has

the money gone? You don't provide any analysis at all. What we have

said is that action has not been taken in the right place at the

right time. That is what preventative measures about. You

spend what you require in it ad is that will provide an opportunity

for good outcomes. We have not measured outcomes, we have measured

out pit. What we have said is that... You are concentrating on

one area, there is a whole range of... The position is that we know

that our report is based on evidence we have had from people

who are actually working on site delivering most of the things we

have been talking about. It is not being done very much but it is

being done successfully. Things like empowering individuals and

communities so that it is not at top-down arrangement. These are all

just slogans. It is not slogans. Let me as you simple question. You

called Alex Salmond's Council of economic advisers making the point

that public spending per capita on health and education is roughly 10%

more in Scotland than in other areas of the UK. There is no

examination in your report, and this is the poster be about

fundamentally delivering public services, you don't ask why

Scotland is more expensive? What is happening elsewhere that is

different? We were asked to identify in the medium to long term,

how we could sustain public services in Scotland of a quality

that would allow us to resolve some of those problems that we have

talked about. Don't you think asking why health cost 10% more in

Scotland per capita than a dozen the rest of the UK might be a

rather fruitful question to ask? we didn't. Scotland, geographically,

is separate from England. There are all sorts of arguments as to why it

might cost more. That was not what we were doing. We were looking at

how we could deliver public services in Scotland and a way that

could be sustainable, and in a way that could tackle the problems that

were identified. How can we do that in a positive and constructive way?

That has a remit and what we have been doing. You have a chapter

called improving performance and reducing costs. It contains not one

single figure on either improving performance for reducing costs. It

is like reading a philosophy journal. There is nothing specific

in it at all. Didn't you have economists who could have costed

some of these ideas out? You can costed until the cows come home one

not resolve it. The trouble is that we have not addressed some of the

real issues that people have in relation to public services: how

they are delivered and how the impact communities. Maybe cost is

not the best way of doing it? He also talk about evidence-based

policy by you do not produce evidence for anything you say.

There are a few individual stories... We visited many areas of

Scotland and met hundreds of people. We talk to them about how public

services are being delivered in their areas. How they could get

better value out of the loving those services and we looked at

that, and we have said, if we can transfer the sort of arrangements

more generally into how the deliver public services, how can we give

communities more power? How can they make sure people are able to

stay out of hospital and stay out of care homes? How can we do that

I will be talking to John Swinney about this. If there was one thing

in your report you want him to do right now, what would it be?

would want him to agree that we strengthen the Community Planning

partnerships, that we should have all of the sources providing public

resources together, they should be funded on the basis that funding

for health and the local authority is integrated to get good value for

money. That would be an important thing for him to do. Thank you very

much indeed. I am joined now from Dundee by the

Finance Secretary John Swinney. Could you hear that? Yes, I heard

the whole interview. Would you agree with the last point that he

said about Community Planning partnerships, that is the thing he

would like you to do immediately? Two things about that, the first is

that the focus in the Community Planning partnerships is an

approach that the government has driven forward in the last few

years, so I think they welcome the sentiment that Campbell Christie

has identified. The second point is that in the budget this year we

have put in place for the first time a change for and which was

designed to ensure greater integration of particularly health

and community and social care services at local level, which is

the concept of pooling budgets which Campbell Christie was

referring to. I think we have started in that direction but it is

important the government considers carefully all of the points raised

by the Christie Commission in that respect. I certainly think we will

do that. Was there anything in this report you did not know? I think

what the report does, I don't think it opens up a new direction of

travel, but what I think it does do... I think Campbell Christie

believes extremely strongly that it does. I think the direction of

travel that the report talks about is one which the government is

broadly comfortable with, and it is the broad direction we are going in.

What is new about the report, I think, is that it essentially

crystallises the challenge that we face with dealing with a shrinking

volume of public expenditure, a rise in demand for public services,

and the need to improve the outcome as we deliver for citizens in our

country, and I think the report shapes that clearly from all of us

involved in politics in Scotland today, and that is the important

challenge the government will respond to. Does it really out like

any plans for fundamental reform? If it does, what exactly is the

fundamental reform you will make as a result of it? The government will

look at the Christie Commission's report and also look at that within

the context of the approach we take to our spending review in the

autumn. I am clear in my mind and the Cabinet is clear on this as

well, that we have to embrace a more significant agenda of public

sector reform to ensure that we can meet the demands that will be

placed on public services in the years to come. A lot of reforms we

have made over the last four years, particularly in relation to

entrenching the responsibilities of the Community Planning partnerships,

requiring public sector bodies to work closely together, the example

you have had tonight, the West Lothian examples, a concrete

example that has come about of joint working at local level is to

take that Agenda further forward for the improvements that people

were quite. I am curious, everyone says John Sweeney, all of the

issues about cuts were addressed to you in the election campaign --

John Swinney. The decisions he has made so far will not get us through

because of the cuts. Is any of that true? What you have done is frozen

public sector pay, and that is a huge proportion of the Budget. You

do not replace vacancies when they come up unless it is something

important. Do you need to do something fundamental other than

that, and it so, what? I think I have made the point before that the

largest reduction in public spending to that we have got to

face in all of the financial years for which we have information is

the one for which I have set a budget, the current financial year.

In that sense, this is where I took exception to folk saying I was

dodging the question in the election campaign, because in

February I set a budget that reduced public expenditure in

Scotland by �1.3 billion. I did not enjoy it... The point is, your

argument would be you faced the big choices, you cannot keep cutting

pay in real terms indefinitely, but eventually the financial situation

will get better, but there might be a desirability in Campbell

Christie's terms looking at the Democratic sin -- demographics in

the long term, but you would argue you have dealt with it? I would

contend that I have dealt with the stiffest year of public spending

reductions so far. Some of the measures have been difficult

because they involve freezing public sector pay and reducing

significantly some of the funding support that we can make available

for certain programmes and projects. In the medium term, and by that I

mean the year's 2013-14 and onwards, we will face some of the pressures

of increasing demand without saleability to freeze public-sector

pay because you cannot freeze public-sector pay forever, and also

budgets that are not rising as fast as they were in the period of which

the Christie Commission is critical about at the start of the decade.

What we have to focus on is the substantial choices, and that is

what the government will do. Have you said you do not want to freeze

public sector pay beyond 20 getting? What I am saying is you

cannot freeze public-sector pay forever -- be on the 2013. You seem

to be implying in your last statement that you would not be

freezing public sector pay beyond the next two years. I think a two

year freeze in public sector pay is the likely course we will take.

do not want to extend that? because I think we have got to

undertake some of the reconfiguration of public services

to make sure we can meet the demands and expectations placed

upon as. John Sweeney, thank you for joining us.

I am joined by John McLaren for the Centre for Public Policy for

regions, Rachel Cackett from the Royal Society of Nursing, and the

assistant editor of the Scott men - - the Scotsman, Peter Meg Munn. I

want to get your reaction to reading this report -- Peter

McMahon. My general reaction is that it offers a very strong

challenge to the government in terms of asking for

transformational change in areas like emphasising preventive

measures. Except isn't that apple pipe in this world? If it is not,

it is a huge challenge. If it can be pushed forward and the

government reacts to it, and he is saying it does not open a new

direction of travel, and if it does not I think the document has failed

because the purpose of the document is to say that we do have to

emphasise preventive measures or do something fairly radical in a

number of areas to get through without a declining quality of

public services. Rachel, what did you make of its? What the document

does is distil together a lot of the conversations that have been

going on for some time in Scotland, and there was a lot we were pleased

to see in there, but I agree with John that if you went across the

public sector you would have a fair consensus that something different

needs to happen. The detail is in what that will look like if you are

a member of the public, patient, member of staff in the NHS, for

example. Will you find any answers in that document? I think it gives

useful direction of travel. For instance, it sets out criteria

against which to look at whether change should go ahead or not. That

is useful to have. I think the focus on outcomes and prevented did

spend, they are not necessarily new, we had a parliamentary inquiry on

that. To take your own area, health care, the very idea of measuring

outcomes is itself ambiguous. What are you measuring? There has been

consistent criticism of the NHS in Scotland that it measures lots of

things but cannot answer sensible questions like, is it more

efficient to do an operation in hospital X or Hospital wind. -- Y.

If nobody knows what the outcomes are, it is difficult. One of the

recommendations remade is that we need to be clear what we are

measuring. There are areas in the health service where outcomes are

measured successfully, which tends to be in the acute sector for

things like specific operations like hip or knee replacement. It is

harder to say that we can measure success the lid on a national basis

outcomes in other areas, so if we are going to go down this route we

need to be clear what we are measuring so staff are clear what

we are delivering and patients are clear what they should expect.

Peter, judging by the Scotsman this morning, you did not enjoy this?

does sound like it is out of a script from the Thick Of It. John

Swinney said direction of travel twice, as did one of my colleagues.

If you read this report and try to see what it is recommending, there

is not much there in the substance. You ask the question and you, don't

we know all of this? We have had the Beveridge Report, a great piece

of work which outlined some solutions. In case the viewers get

can be used, I did not make a beverage, but Lord Beveridge! -- I

did not mean a beverage. And the report did produce a good report

for where savings could be made. Susan Deakin did a report on early

years, we have had reports on procurement. We have reports and

commissions coming out of our ears, and what I find disappointing about

this is that it did not address what to do, it just spoke a lot

about these wonderful concepts of how everybody should work together

and we should have a joined-up government, but did not spell out,

specifically, for somebody who needs care for their elderly

relative or a young person who need extra tuition and help from

teachers, it did not say how this applies to real people and how to

make things better. Isn't that the problem? Governments can interpret

is anyway a night. You may have just seen -- you may have seen John

Swinney interpreted as he wanted to, so what is the point? That could be

a problem. I am guessing the committee saw their role as not

doing a fundamental review of each area, I think they thought that

should be done at a later time. as Peter said, I cannot remember

how many reports I have read produced by the SNP administration

and the previous Labour-Liberal Democrat administration going on

about prevention rather than cure, how we are breaking things down. It

is a strange world of language that exists in this report and nowhere

else. There have been thousands of them are. But I don't think they

have been taken in the context of the current budget cuts, unlike the

UK where they have radically looked at the NHS, education, both higher

and schools, law and order. Whether you like the result or not, they

have radically looked at them and I do not think we have done that in

Scotland yet. It is when you start to do that that we may come up with

more radical solutions. My worry is we may not do that, we may just

have efficiency savings that are going to make everything all right

and that will be across the board cuts. You reduce public sector pay

and do not replace lost posts. John Swinney was suggesting he needs to

come up with something else by 2013, that pay cuts would do for now but

it was not -- was not an indefinite thing. The biggest cut was this

financial year. However, a large part of accommodating that was

things that might have to be, something that will have to be

reserved -- the first, like Scottish Water, so you have not

only to find that money but the same again. Her you have to find a

wage settlement... On the wages, you are in the NHS, your members

are working in it, everyone seems to have been reasonably happy to

accept a pay freeze, effectively a pay cut of 4% or more. Will people

be happy to put up with that for more than a year, do you think?

agreement we made was to two years, but what John has been saying and

what you mentioned earlier was the other cuts around that, so if you

have a mess that is now in a position of being a pay freeze --

if you have a nurse, you mentioned vacancy freezes coming in as a way

of making short-term gains, because that is the way that we are seeing

savings being made now in the short term. The difficulty comes when you

put that alongside the Christie Commission report, which is talking

about long-term preventive spend, about benefits being realised way

into the future. The risk is by taking the approach we are doing

now is we made a lot of small cuts in a lot of areas, we freeze

vacancies, do not replace posts, but the impact means that the more

that we do that the less likely we are to be able to make the

transformational change that people are talking about for these long-

term gains that deal with the intractable problem we seem to have

about inequality it. We are running out of time, but isn't that a

point? Of fears comparison, British industry uses devaluation every

time there is a crisis, you do not reform the strictures of the

industry because you devalue. You can keep salami-slicing, but do not

produce better public services? think that is right, and you could

said the benefit of the Christie Commission is they have thrown down

the gauntlet to ministers and say, we make certain recommendations and

have all of these reports they can look at, so the challenge has to be

for John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond to look

at these reports and decide, do they want to do that, do they want

to do the salami-slicing or do something more radical that might

be better for the long-term teacher? Thank you very much indeed.

A brief look at tomorrow's front The Scotsman and the Times's

leading on Scottish universities. That is all we have time for

tonight. I am back tomorrow, until Pretty chilly outside tonight with

largely clear skies. A fresh start to their stay morning, it will be

another day where the sun will shine in most places but there will

be a fair few showers to chase around, particularly in the north-

east England with some intense downpours with the risk of a flash

of lightning and rumble of thunder. Some heavy showers, too, against --

across East Anglia. The South West of England will see some showers

mostly in the morning. By the afternoon, many places here find

and bright. The same across Wales, some showers in the morning but

most places having a fine end to the day. Scattered showers will

come in their across Northern Ireland throughout the day. Showers

across North West Scotland throughout, they will tend to die

out in the Glasgow area but for Eastern's: Some heavy showers

possible in the afternoon. -- but for East and areas. Friday

generally a dry and bright day. Still some cloud bubbling up

through the day, so a small chance of a shower across the extreme east