Sharing the public sector pie

The relationships and networking going on between councils, charities, central government and the private sector is quite astonishing as the hasty retreat of Sir Derek Myers from Shelter exemplifies:

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"Two board members of the housing charity Shelter, including its chairman Sir Derek Myers, have resigned amid reports of internal disquiet over the organisation’s allegedly muted response to the Grenfell Tower fire."

"Myers is a former chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea council, which owns Grenfell Tower, while trustee Tony Rice is chairman of Xerxes Equity, the sole shareholder in Omnis Exteriors – the company that sold the cladding used in the tower."

"On Friday afternoon, Shelter confirmed the pair had resigned from the board but offered no reasons for their departure..."

"Asked subsequently to explain the joint resignations, a Shelter spokesperson said: "The trustees decided to step away from their roles in the interests of the charity. They would not want there to be any unnecessary distraction from the work we are doing to help people affected by the Grenfell fire..."

"Myers is a qualified social worker and respected former local government manager who jointly ran Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham councils between 2011 and 2013. Until recently he led the government intervention team running Rotherham council in the wake of the child abuse scandal."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/23/two-shelter-board-members-derek-myers-tony-rice-quit-after-grenfell-tower-fire

Sir Derek Myers speaks on behalf of the Service Transformation Challenge Panel -- very new world order -- which is transforming public service delivery.

"In most of the places we found some form of transformation happening," he said. When asked what were the panel`s key recommendations on transformation he added: "Well we do think that this emphasis on being thoughtful about those people who`ve got complexities - or sometimes called high demand, those households who one way or another take a slightly larger slice of the public sector pie than others - we think those are the people who both deserve a joined up approach but also it`s in everybody`s interest that we move those households to a position where they are less demanding, more independent, more self-sufficient and so on."

"So we think however you analyse this you come back to: Where are we spending the money and how can we spend that money more smartly?"

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No thought that spending more smartly can cost lives.

Not only that but anybody who watched UK Column on Friday 23 June 2017 will have heard Brian Gerrish talking about the millions of pounds that councils across the country have been stashing away under the radar. So where is this piece of the public sector pie going when it is not providing much needed services?

See also http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2015/02/myers-appointed-lead-commissioner-rotherham