A call to stop the illusion of control - and return to relational, human services that cost less
Budget pressure pushes services to be transactional - but that’s costing more money.
If you’ve ever worked on the front line of public services, you’ll know this truth: You can’t truly help people when every action needs three panels and a dozen forms.
You’re sat with a family in crisis or a young person who needs urgent support. And instead of acting, you’re stuck waiting for sign-off. By the time approval comes, the moment’s gone. The help isn’t what’s needed anymore. Everyone loses.
The same happens with community organisations. These are the people closest to residents, trusted in their streets and neighbourhoods. Yet their contracts read like assembly instructions: Do X. Deliver Y. Tick Z. No room to adapt. No space to respond to real life.
We all know this doesn’t work. The reports say so. The workers say so. The evidence says so[1].
The trap of control
When money runs short, control feels like the only lever left to pull. Another panel to approve spending. Another KPI to monitor. Another layer of sign-off.
But the tighter the grip, the less workable services become: Residents’ problems escalate, employees are demotivated or even leave, trust dissipates and collaboration evaporates – then costs rise, and more control are put in place.
So, we add more paperwork, more oversight, more meetings - and lose what matters most: human judgement, trust and collective problem-solving. That’s the trap. A vicious cycle that eats away at public servants, outcomes, and equality - while driving up costs.
It’s time to stop the illusion of control.
The hidden cost of control
Here’s what the illusion of control looks like on the ground, three examples in our work:
(1) Children’s care placements
Stricter processes, heavier paperwork and endless decision-making panels take so long that by the time a placement is approved, it’s already an emergency.
That means less time to spend with the child or young person. And less time to talk with providers and find the right match.
The result? A “distress purchase” of a placement. Councils end up paying twice as much for somewhere that doesn’t fit, and those placements are far more likely to collapse.
(2) Homelessness
Rising demand squeezes out relational work. Staff default to completing the statutory assessment - checking if someone is eligible for Temporary Accommodation - rather than working with families to find other solutions.
The process becomes procedural, even often done by phone instead of face to face. Evidence from Basis shows that when we default to ‘statutory assessment mode’, at least 20% more families end up in temporary accommodation than necessary - an enormous and avoidable cost for local authorities.
(3) Community organisations
Prescriptive contracts choke flexibility, stopping organisations from responding to what residents actually need. And that’s only for those who can even access a contract.
Many, especially those led by Black and minoritised communities, face structural barriers built into the system. Funding rules designed to “manage risk” often exclude smaller groups altogether, while stereotypes about capacity make it harder still. Staff lose motivation. Residents lose trust. Some organisations fold.
What remains is a hollow, box-ticking system that serves paperwork more than people - and, once again, drives costs up rather than down.
Breaking the cycle
So how do we get out of this? Not with another report. In the face of budget pressures, we need to respond differently.
We break the cycle step by step, not a big bang, one that quickly grows the relational practice and trust:
Take a stand: If the service should work relationally, say out loud that you want to work relationally, not transactionally.
Spot the drift: Name it when financial pressure or other pressures pulls you back into transactional control mode.
Open it up: Bring staff, residents, and partners into the conversation about what must change.
Test fast, experience the benefits (and respect the failures): Try small, quick experiments. Learn. Adjust. Measure and share the impact. Yes, do business cases but based on real prototyping data.
Keep building: Let your test-and-learn experiments grow into more relational way of working. Stay curious about what’s changing, notice the impacts as they emerge — and act like you mean it: take smart risks, be honest when you’re unsure, and hold your nerve.
It’s simple. But this kind of simple isn’t easy. It requires courage, clarity, and trust.
“But what about the money?”
The most common objection we hear: you can’t cut costs unless you tighten financial control.
But here’s the truth: relational working doesn’t mean no control. It means better control. Collaborative and collective control not transactional control. It means “relationalise” the control: some control is always needed -but it can be designed and delivered with relational underpinning.
Fewer rules, clearer boundaries. Not a jungle of KPIs - just a handful of core rules and guiding principles that everyone understands. One way to see this in action is the Liberated Method[1]: designed to give staff freedom to act responsibly, grounded in a couple of absolute rules and a set of principles that allow responsiveness and judgement.
Smarter oversight, not paperwork theatre. Instead of signing off business cases no one ever reads, managers get real-time learning through short test-and-learn cycles. You see what’s working, what’s not, and you adjust - fast.
Co-designed control: everyone knows that some control is needed so design it together to make sense for everyone. What are the KPIs that are useful to all the partners at the table, what are the reports, the conversations the reviews that help everyone’s confidence, comfort and quality.
That’s tighter financial grip than the current illusion of control.
The choice
We face a choice:
Keep tightening control, and watch services grind down, staff burn out, and costs spiral.
Or build a cycle of relationships, trust and learning — creating services that work for residents and the Chief Financial Officer.
One path makes services unworkable and unsustainable.
The other makes them human again.
By: Anne Pordes (Bowers) , Managing Director, Kaleidoscope Health and Care, formerly strategic lead , Community Public Health, Newham Council & Dennis Vergne, director Basis Ltd
References:
[1] Smith, M., Hesselgreaves, H., Charlton, R. & Wilson, R. (2025) “New development: the ‘Liberated Method’ — a transcendent public service innovation in polycrisis”, Public Money & Management, DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2025.2456120.
[2] Lipsky, M. (2010) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
[3] Lowe, T., Plimmer, G., Wilson, R., & others (2020) Human Learning Systems: Public Service for the Real World. Newcastle: Northumbria University / Centre for Public Impact. Available at: https://www.humanlearning.systems