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In the past five years, he has collaborated extensively with Iain Duncan Smith. They produced a book together on the early years and what we should be doing about them.
It is similar to Rob Gibson’s but is more about the practicalities of producing land use plans—whether at local or strategic inter-council level—and transport plans.
Borrowing powers are not a panacea and do not produce extra cash; they permit a drawing forward of cash, which must be paid back, with interest, and interest payments eat into capacity on the revenue side of the account and affect services.
Although directly elected health board members will create yet another point of tension in the system, I do not have a problem with that because tensions can be positive and can produce dynamic solutions. My concern is that although it is true that it will be in two geographic areas, we will test only one type of pilot.
We therefore get an external body that is recognised within the industry—for example Gartner—to come in and produce a benchmark comparator, which we use to check that we are still delivering value for money.
That is question number 1.Question number 2 is about what benefits prudential borrowing produces. Without going into the complexities, the short answer is that it produces only short-term headroom.