Ambitions for achieving better value for money and better public services across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent are starting to take hold. For years individual public services have spent money on the same things but in different ways with the aim of reaching the same goals.
The Police and Crime Commissioner’s ambition is for a fully integrated system across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent where criminal justice and community safety services provided by different agencies and organisations are aligned towards common goals.
It’s not easy but the obsession is to get all organisations spending public money better by working together.
The ultimate aim is that commissioning of services would be undertaken by agencies pooling money around a theme such as reducing offending and tackling domestic abuse. Commissioning alignment has just been agreed with the County Council who has agreed to join up finances with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner around domestic abuse. This means that one budget of over £1m can be used to jointly commission services, avoid duplication and identify any gaps where services don’t meet people’s needs.
Evidence supports that integrated funding and commissioning is effective in terms of social outcomes and reducing future service demand and more sustainable in terms of value for money. It’s a brave new mind-set that is set to deliver better services for less money.
Talks continue with Stoke-on-Trent City Council and some scoping work is underway between the PCC and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue.
Matthew Ellis said: “This is a huge step forward on the road to delivering better value for money and better services for the people in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. It shows that there is clear joined up ambition to do better and work towards common goals.
“Improving joint working and dealing with things that potentially cause harm earlier is at the heart of my 5 year strategy. It’s ambitious and it’s not easy but this progress clearly shows public services in Staffordshire are starting to have a change of mind-set and fills me with confidence that together we can spend money better to achieve so much more.
“I’m confident that this is just the start of willingness from other agencies to share responsibility and combine budgets around themes such as offending, re-offending and domestic abuse.
“There’s no doubt that there are substantial challenges ahead but things are looking pretty good and I’m excited at future prospects for policing, other public services and the wider criminal justice for Staffordshire.”
Mike Lawrence , Staffordshire County Council Cabinet Member for Children and Community Safety, said: “As a county council we are committed to working together with partners across Staffordshire to ensure residents get the maximum benefit and maximum return for every penny of the public purse.
“When tackling areas such as domestic abused it makes sense for the county council and the police to pool resources and expertise to focus even more on education, prevention and early intervention to help keep more families safe.”
