Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

By Ethel Bangwayo
Strategic Engagement Officer, Herts CVS


No, it’s something rather uncomfortable appearing on the horizon! Statutory bodies are busy trying to figure out how best to lessen the potentially negative implications of the recently announced CSR. As part of that process, HCC has been running consultation sessions to get views about the way forward.

The Health and Wellbeing Unit is currently consulting on a way forward and encouraging providers and others to share ideas about services that they can provide better and cheaper. Ideas about how to make savings while achieving outcomes, how providers can be better co-ordinated, what engagement might look like etc are welcome. Existing contracts will be reviewed and assessed according to the priorities of the Prevention and Wellbeing strategy.

Cllrs Robert Gordon and David Lloyd recently hosted a ‘Let’s discuss’ session in which delegates were given HCC’s budget and asked to suggest savings and efficiencies. In the words of a colleague, “it’s like turkeys being asked to vote for Christmas”. It is and in recent weeks, I have made a worrying observation. Said turkeys are indeed voting for Christmas while simultaneously positioning themselves such that it is not them, but others who will eventually constitute the Christmas feast - never mind all that stuff about partnership working and collaboration! Hostile events will do one of two things – bring people together or have them sharpening the daggers. Fortunately, I have observed more of the former however, there is a bit of the latter at play - not only in Hertfordshire, I hasten to add. Something tells me there will be echoes of ‘et tu, Brute?’ up and down the country ……

‘Survival of the fittest’. That is certainly what Herts County Council and others have been suggesting: ie. that everyone pulls up their socks and demonstrates their value and worth. Efficiency is key. Understandably, there will be less sympathy for duplication and wastage. Murmurs from funders are suggesting that a demonstration of partnership (as well as worth/ outcomes etc) will stand you in good stead. My advice would therefore be to put the daggers away and start talking to others, including those you would have never previously considered as potential partners and, more importantly, those who have previously been your competitors. ‘New and improved’ sounds painfully cliché but that is the approach we will all have to take because the days of ‘the same old, same old’ are well and truly gone!

If you would like to participate in the budget setting exercise described above, please see the ‘Have your say >>Let's discuss’ section on the Herts Direct website. If you would like to contribute to the discussion about the future of the Health and Wellbeing Unit, please see the Consultations section of the Herts Direct website.