The current development of Community Budgets, both at the neighbourhood and whole place levels, is based on the pioneering experience of the Total Place pilots of 2009/10. This guide distils the learning from the pilots.

The Guide makes it clear from the outset that Total Place is not a service improvement initiative nor is it a cost-cutting exercise. It is an approach to ‘public value’ that includes both improvement and innovation and a close eye on the value to the citizen being generated by each public service pound spent. It is also an attempt to bring all of the contributors to public value together in one place.

Total Place is different from the myriad initiatives that have washed over the bows during the last twenty years because it is the first time that two crucial triads have been brought together in a single piece of work. The task triad is made up of customers, counting and culture. The player triad is formed by agencies, citizens and Whitehall. The ‘task’ of Total Place has been to consider all these key aspects in the creation of public value.

The design of Total Place has been to create as much connection between the different players in public value as possible. No one agency in a place or department in Whitehall has dictated the work.

Total Place has demonstrated that local partnerships can create the relationships and space necessary to enable the community to act collectively to implement the decisions made.

The Total Place Practitioners Guide can be downloaded here .