Drugs Forgotten in New Government Agreement
Wednesday/12/Dec 2007 Filed in:
Local
Partnerships and Administration
Over the past few years central government has pushed for ever increasing standardisation of the public service offer across the country, and greater accountability for treasury investment. Throughout this period, local government has argued that central control is too rigid, that regulators are too remote from local communities to know what should be happening and that they need more flexibility so that they can do what’s right for their local area.
Its fair enough. You only have to read our Guide to Local Partnerships (in the articles section of this website) to know that they're not wrong. Local government and Local Partnerships have been tied up for many years in an unyielding central bureaucracy that often leaves them unable to shift resources where they're most needed, but beats them up on a regular basis for not doing what Government thinks needs to be done.
Not any longer. The Concordat - negotiated between the Local Government Association(LGA) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) - spells out a new way for local and central government to work together. Concordat to unleash potential of local communities
The assumption will no longer be that central government knows best and that local government must buckle down and do as it’s told. Instead we're told by Hazel Blears that:
"Local devolution is no longer a fringe pursuit but now right at the centre of the Government's agenda. The historic shift outlined today will help unleash the potential of local communities, giving them new freedoms in delivering what local people want."
The 198 Local Government Indicators are the framework that's going to makes sure this happens. You see instead of Local Partnerships having to report back on every little thing they do, Central Government has said, "Look, old bean, we know you local johnnies want to do things your own way and we think that's probably for the best and will probably save us money and then when it goes wrong we can blame you anyway. But see here, there are some things you really have to do and some things that we really need to know that you've done. After all we are in charge " And Local Government has replied "Its a fair cop Gov, if you let us have our way on how we *do* stuff, we'll be happy to report back to you on the stuff that matters. What do you really need to know then? What's your bottom line?"
Since it was announced in the July 2007 Ministry of Justice green paper The Governance of Britain the LGA and the DCLG have worked immensely hard to agree this bottom line - the Concordat. Since the announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review, departments across Whitehall have contributed, identifying what the real killer information is that they need and what format they need it in. And this information has been worked up into the 198 Indicators - aka The National Indicator Set. National Indicators for Local Authorities and Local Authority Partnerships: Handbook of Definitions (full version)
The National Indicator Set (cut me open, and it's written through me like a stick of local government rock) covers everything from educational achievement in schools to building regulations to the mortality rate from cancer. Out of these 198 indicators (against which every tier of local government will report) 35 voluntary and 17 statutory targets will be identified by each local area. This is how central government will monitor that local government is improving the services and responses it offers to better meet the needs of its local population.
This is very proper. Local freedoms will lead to better, more responsive services that are focused on outcomes rather than bean counting. Rather than Local Government spending shedloads of its time answering to central government, it can spend time and effort on making sure that its answerable to the people who live in the area. And that's what local democracy is meant to be about.
Additionally the fact that these indicators and targets relate to work of PCTs, Police, Probation as well as Local Authorities means that for the first time we can properly begin to address the needs of our communities in the round. Having everyone at the LAA table focussed on achieving the same outcomes, looking at the same processes is going to make a huge difference to complex problems.
However before we start cheering, and before the DAT co-ordinators amongst you begin to look nervously at your half completed treatment plan (before Christmas? Yeah, sure ...) I need to tell you one thing.
Its not going to make a blind bit of difference in the drug field.
As I've pointed out before, only one drug treatment output measure has made it into the 198 - 12 weeks retention as the sole indicator of effective treatment. Some of the DIP targets are hanging round in APACS as proxy indicators of crime reduction, and there’s an indicator about perceptions of drug dealing as a problem in a local are. But that’s pretty much it.
There are no indicators that enable us to look at the real outcomes of the drug treatment investment. There are no indicators that enable us to look at reintegration and there are no indicators that enable us to look at the reduction of drug related harm - not even the Drug Harm Index gets a mention. If the Department of Health is getting serious about harm reduction why do we have no indicators to help us do that? TOPS is surely going to be making a real difference to the way we manage outcomes and understand how our systems work - why isn't that part of the measure of effective treatment?
DATs will not be able to work with flexibility to meet local need. They will not be able to plan and agree spending to meet local outcomes. Nor will there be any assurance that they will be able to benefit from the genuinely cross cutting and integrated approach to health and social care that localism heralds. Apparently the plan is that Local Authorities, Police Forces and PCTs are still to be held accountable to the NTA and the Home Office through a separate performance management system which will bear all the usual hallmarks of centralism and a focus on process and proxy indicators rather than outcomes.
But remember The Department for Communities and Local Government in publishing the new performance framework has said:
"The national indicator set will be the only measures on which central government will performance manage outcomes delivered by local government working alone or in partnerships. From April 2008, all other sets of indicators will be abolished."
So does this mean the NTA and Home Office indicators will cease to exist from next April? Well, technically, yes. I guess it does.
How did this happen? Why hasn't someone pulled their finger out and made sure that drug issues are effectively included in the Local Indicators? How can those concerned with drug issues locally get people committed at the LAA if the NTA and all those government departments who are responsible for the drug strategy haven’t put the levers in place that will help them do it?
There are a number of possibilities.
One biggie is that of course the drug strategy hasn't been written yet and therefore we have no strategic assessment or future plan against which to measure or monitor local investment. While the Concordat is clear that local implementation and delivery is the priority, it also rightly says that effective national strategy must be in place to support and facilitate this.
Its possible that DCLG or the LGA simply didn't think drug issues were important enough to our communities to look closely at the indicators. That in itself would say something about the marginalisation of drug strategy - and how ineffective those responsible for its design and delivery have been at putting it on the mainstream government agenda. It also tells us something about the dangers of prime ministerial patronage at a time of prime ministerial change.
Its possible that the departments and bodies responsible for our drug strategy aggressively lobbied for drug issues to be treated in the same way as other services, to be mainstreamed - and be included in the overall framework for local governance but were turned down. On the other hand they may have held back fearing that the current investment in drug treatment would not be maintained in a mainstream future if the evidence base didn't convince local people and that therefore it was better to try to retain national control of this issue. They don't seem to have considered that if they didn't get stuck in with the rest of government in the Concordat they wouldn't have any influence on local planning and delivery whatsoever.
Or maybe they were just out the day that DCLG called round.
Whatever has happened, it seems clear that chaos reigns now. Apparently all hell has broken loose this week as Local Partnerships have realised that there will be people trying to impose additional performance measures on them outside the 198, and various Government Agencies have woken up to the fact that their area of work no longer has any local status. Adequate drug strategy outcomes are not included in the only performance management framework we have. The inadequacy of the measures that are in place (and if you need a reminder, take a look at the blog postings from November that deal with this) mean that the investment and achievements of the last ten years cannot be protected without the imposition of an unwelcome and largely unnecessary additional performance management regime that is impossible to implement given the Concordat and that will cause huge resentment towards drug issues and drug strategy across local government. Even if some way is found of levering some better drugs measures into the 198, the role of a national body like the NTA to continue to measure, monitor and manage local performance is going to be highly problematic in the new climate of localism, "the light touch" and reinvigorated local democracy.
What next? Who knows. In the run up to Christmas, two policy thinktanks are sponsoring a workshop to look at what indicators could be adopted locally to ensure drugs stays on the agenda - and I'll keep you posted on what comes out. However good a DAT is and however well connected its co-ordinator is, we know its going to be a real uphill struggle to keep drug strategy on a mainstream and cross cutting local agenda when so few efforts have been made by anyone in central government to integrate it. If you're having any successes with this locally I'd love to hear from you. Hit the "get in touch" link at the bottom of the page.
We have to hope that the Westminster departments and organisations who are responsible for the drugs strategy will find a way to sit down with DCLG and resolve this before its too late. Otherwise its going to get pretty cold out here in drug strategy land as we find out that "the 198" are the only game in town and that we're frozen out, just like our client group.