Cash-strapped services to join forces in cutback plan

THE emergency services and cash-strapped councils are set to change the way they react to issues including child protection by potentially providing joint services and sharing facilities, according to the chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police.

Scotland's public bodies are understood to be discussing radical proposals to see how the public sector could be reorganised.

Under the plans, staff would work on issues such as violence prevention or domestic abuse, rather than working strictly within health, social work or policing.

David Strang, chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police, said he was in talks with the heads of other emergency services and council chief executives to look at alternatives to the status quo.

He said: "We have to look at cutting the pie a different way. We are in talks with other forces about shared services and we are also working with the public sector and talking with the health boards and fire service as well.

"Rather than saying it is a health or a crime problem, we all have a responsibility for people's wellbeing.

"We are exploring with partners how we might put this into action. It might be focused on dealing with a particular problem in a neighbourhood or with a particular child."

Police forces and the rest of the public sector have been told to expect budget cuts of up to 25 per cent over the next four years.

Mr Strang said: "One part is whether we save money by sharing facilities. The other bit, which is more radical, is for completely joint service provision.

"The sort of areas we could look at would be child protection, antisocial behaviour and domestic abuse. Where there is overlap with health and other services, such as education, it is worth looking at this."

Local authorities, police and health boards are said to have improved their joint working in recent years, particularly in relation to child protection.

"It is worth looking at whether there might be a new model of public sector leadership with a child-centred approach," said Mr Strang.

"It is radical because it might include shared budgets and shared governance and accountability.

"Barriers still exist between different services. Currently we all work together but then go back to our different organisations. We come together for case conferences but still manage cases separately.

"We could say in an area such as child protection that you could have one person in charge. Rather than the police, health and education all having their separate databases, you could have one single database so there could never be any accusation that police or health are not sharing data on a particular person."

Mr Strang said he was due to meet with council bosses next month.