Local Government

‘Onboarding’ and ‘Induction’ of remote staff

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Alison Donald

This week we are showcasing key findings from some recent dissertations by our Degree Apprentices. Public sector digital transformation aims to use digital tools, technologies and approaches to support transformation.  As public servants increasingly work remotely in virtual teams, what are the implications for councils?  Lessons learnt during the Covid-19 pandemic, when councils had to onboard new staff by digital processes into an almost exclusively ‘virtual’ workspace, provide invaluable guidance for future remote working in public services.  This dissertation examined ‘onboarding’ and ‘induction’ of new starters in a remote working environment. 

Key findings:

  • The impact of digital transformation on public service staff has received little research attention.
  • Remote or virtual working is increasingly important, leading to concerns around reduced (interpersonal) interaction, staying on-task and communication challenges
  • The dissertation found that the most positive induction experiences were those where new starters had daily contact with a named ‘buddy’ and regular contact from their line manager, in their first few weeks.   Virtual new starters can miss opportunities to ask questions informally during the induction process
  • There are also a range of relatively simple measures that councils can take which help staff to socialise into their new teams.  The content of induction processes often does not cover key cultural issues such as the role of councillors and the structure of the council.
  • A survey of new staff can both tested the overall degree of process compliance and highlight any gaps in routine processes that could negatively affect new starters. 
  • The dissertation identified some key improvements to inductions for remote staff, including developing a comprehensive single reference resource for new starters with clear links to relevant training and reference resources, increasing the use of videos and interactive material, and establishing new starter groups to provide a safe place for individuals to ask naïve questions and share experiences.

Background

The Covid pandemic led to rapid adoption of remote working across the public sector, with two-thirds of public administration employees working continuously at home according to a Sept 2020 survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).  This has accelerated an existing trend towards greater remote working and the use of virtual teams. 

This dissertation centred on a two-tier county authority where a transformation policy to promote remote working has been in place for some years.  Employees have been provided mobile devices and remote access to drives and applications, primarily to increase flexibility enabling better delivery of services to customers.  The policy also aims to make the best use of resources such as office space and improve the work/life balance and wellbeing of employees.

The key dissertation research questions were “how effective have virtual onboarding and induction arrangements been at during the transition to widespread remote working in the COVID-19 Response period?” and “how might the policies, procedures and practice be made more effective given the on-going requirements for digital working?”  The fieldwork involved a survey of 130 new starters at the case study council from the start of Covid-19 Response in March 2020 to the end of August 2020, aimed to cover all staff undertaking remote induction processes (the response rate was 55%).

What we knew already

Public sector digital transformation aims to use digital tools, technologies and approaches to support transformation.  The impact of this on public service staff however has received little attention.  Research by the LGA highlighted that one of the core challenges for organisational transformation is to deliver behaviour and culture change within organisations.  Meanwhile, the New Local Government Network emphasised the need to change culture and ‘trust staff, in all job roles, to innovate and develop digital competency’.

Most of the existing research on induction focusses on the employer perspective, with less consideration given to the importance of employee perceptions and the impact that the induction process has on their on-going commitment, productivity, and creativity in the role.  Research shows that poor practice in inducting new staff undermines their capacity to contribute to value creation and increases employee turnover and costs.  Conversely, employers who create high trust / high commitment relationships with employees, develop organisational cultures in which employees work beyond their job description, and who are more creative and innovative. 

Remote or virtual working is increasingly important, with a government-sponsored survey in 2020 suggesting 70% of employers were expecting to expand or introduce working at home on a regular basis.  Increasingly public servants will operate in virtual teams, as geographically dispersed groups of workers coordinating their work mainly through information and communication technologies.  Research has identified concerns including reduced (interpersonal) interaction, staying on-task and communication challenges.  Addressing these concerns requires the recreation of ‘water cooler moments’ and making time for informal (social) relationship building, beyond sharing task-related communications.  But less than a fifth of virtual teams receive training on how to work together effectively. 

Social contract and socialisation

The dissertation found that the most positive experiences were those where new starters had daily contact with a named ‘buddy’ and regular contact from their line manager, in their first few weeks.

There are also a range of relatively simple measures that councils can take which help staff to socialise into their new teams, such as the use of ‘photo galleries’ of key personnel for email, using cameras during virtual meetings, more frequent provision of informal ‘digital coffee break’ meetings and more ‘screen-share’ time with team colleagues to replicate the ‘over the desk’ type of queries and to assist new starters in navigating the induction process.

Access to systems, websites, MS Teams and resource materials

With regard to induction systems and materials, new starters working virtually missed opportunities to ask questions informally during the induction process, for example regarding accessing documents and learning materials.  The dissertation also identified opportunities to rationalise the number of different sites new staff were expected to navigate during their induction, and some practical issues such as broken links in induction materials. 

Technical support

New staff may find it difficult to navigate HR and IT support systems virtually.  Managers needed to orient their new-starters to the digital culture of the organisation, and many find one-to-one sessions on navigating the technical systems helpful.

Cultural context and communications

The content of induction processes often does not cover key issues such as the cultural context.  For councils, this might include the role of councillors and the structure of the council.  Regular updates from senior officers are valued sources of information and socialisation. 

How effective are your induction processes?

With increased remote working, a level of immediate and accessible support that would formerly be offered by colleagues and managers ‘across the desk’ is now lacking.  Remote inductions can suffer from the lack of a social dimension in introducing new starters to the organisation and explaining induction materials.  Councils need to test whether their processes are fit-for-purpose in the new operational circumstances.  Systematically asking new employees for feedback on their induction can identify issues with the tone and content of the process and materials used. 

The key outcomes from the dissertation project were a set of validated findings on the effectiveness of the induction process and from which recommendations for future action could be derived. The quantitative part of the survey tested each of the elements of the onboarding and induction processes, as previously prescribed, which managers have been expected to follow.  The findings both tested the overall degree of compliance and highlighted any gaps in routine processes that could negatively affect new starters.  These could impact, for example, on a new employee’s compliance with data protection regulations. 

Improving inductions for remote staff

The dissertation identified some key improvements to inductions for remote staff, including:

  • Developing a comprehensive single reference resource for new starters with clear links to relevant training and reference resources.
  • Increase the use of videos and develop more interactive material, for example in giving guidance about how to set up a safe work-station or how to access IT support, and to introduce senior managers.
  • Set-up new starter groups to provide a safe place for individuals to ask naïve questions and share experiences.
  • Facilitate regular orientation sessions for all new starters: ideally including an appearance from a senior member of the leadership team, a councillor such as the relevant cabinet member, and an employee’s network representative.
  • Undertake new starter surveys periodically to confirm the effectiveness of the arrangements and learn of any further improvements that might be made.

Conclusions

As councils adopt digital transformation, virtual working is becoming increasingly important and potentially problematic.  The effective induction of new team members is essential, but adapting traditional processes can lead to difficulties.  The dissertation provides useful guidance and ideas on how councils can help new staff become fully effectively quickly by re-thinking parts of their approach to induction and routinely checking its efficacy with those involved.

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About the project

This research was a Master’s dissertation as part of the MSc in Public Management and Leadership, completed by Alison Donald and supervised by Dr Peter Watt.

Further information on Inlogov’s research, teaching and consultancy is available from the institute’s director, Jason Lowther, at [email protected]    

Schools buying energy

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Courtney Brightwell

Even before the rapid increases in fuel prices in 2021, schools across England faced a challenge to buy goods and services that represent value for money in terms of the price paid, quality of the product and its ease of access. The best deals, for example for energy, will often be beyond the reach of schools without significant procurement capability. 

This project explored how schools could save on their energy bills, which total over £600m per year in England.  This challenge is set to increase further as energy prices have risen to record levels in 2022, due to low levels of gas storage in Europe and lower pipeline imports from Russia, and the importance of gas-fired power stations. 

Key points

  • The costs of energy are beginning to dominate school budgets and the lack of transparency and unpredictable nature of the size and frequency of bills prevents good financial planning. 
  • The energy market is complex involving major energy suppliers on one side, and schools with limited market knowledge and experience on the other.
  • Energy costs vary markedly between schools.  Median costs per pupils are highest amongst secondary schools, particularly in London (over £100 per pupil).  Primary schools pay much less (around £50 per pupil) and special schools much more (over £250 per pupil). 
  • Schools often use energy brokers or their local authority, as they lack specialist understanding of the energy market.  Many are concerned whether these third parties are truly focussed on getting the school the best energy deal.
  • Schools can save energy and reduce costs by improving the energy efficiency of their infrastructure and influencing the behaviours of staff and pupils.  This commonly includes the use of LED lighting, solar panels, and replacement boilers.  
  • More can be done to help schools be intelligent buyers and users of energy.   Government could make it easier for schools to switch supplier and ensure more transparent pricing information. 
  • There may be potential to develop a national aggregated energy deal for schools.


Background

Many school staff are concerned regarding how the costs of energy are beginning to dominate school budgets and that the lack of transparency and the unpredictable nature of the size and frequency of bills prevents good financial planning.  This research addresses the questions: “What problems do schools experience when buying energy?” and “Why do they experience these problems?”. 

The energy market is complex and includes many major suppliers who are large private companies, so the market quite starkly poses schools, often with limited market knowledge and experience, against large often multi-national companies.  It raised the question whether public funding to schools is being swallowed up in part by the exploitation of schools’ weak buying position.

Following a detailed literature review, interviews were completed with 11 School Business Professional staff from a variety of school types (e.g. local authority, academy, special and private) and education phase (primary and secondary).  In addition, national data on expenditure in over 20,000 schools was analysed.

What we knew already

The UK (along with the USA and Canada) has increasingly decentralised decision making in education from local authority to school level.  Interestingly the opposite trend can be observed in Southern and North West Europe and parts of Asia.

The existing literature shows that energy consumers are most likely to switch supplier for an improved deal in countries with more established liberalised energy markets, and where tariff calculators and customer ratings of suppliers are available.  The availability of the consumer having time available to search for savings is an important factor.  Barriers to switching include the complexity of energy tariffs, low attention to the issue of energy prices, expected costs of switching and lack of switching experience.  Many of the key challenges consumers face in securing a good deal are magnified in the school setting, since the business energy market does not offer fixed unit costs for energy, nor access to handy price-comparison tools.

Variations in energy costs

Analysis of the national dataset demonstrated that energy costs per pupils are highest amongst secondary schools, particularly in London (over £100 per pupil).  Primary schools pay much less (around £50 per pupil) and special schools much more (over £250 per pupil).  Regions such as London, the Northeast and Yorkshire & Humber pay more than some other regions.  Generally, there is little consistent difference between the spend of academies and LA maintained schools, nor between rural and urban schools.

Diagram 1:  Median per pupil energy spend in Secondary Schools – broken down by region and school type (2017-18)

How schools buy energy

Schools often look to outsource procurement expertise on energy through a broker or reverting to an external process which they regard as being robust.  Even Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs), more likely to have their own procurement capacity and capability, were not found to be running their own energy procurement processes. This may be because the school needs not just a procurement expert, but one who fully understand the energy market, which is too specialist a role to fit in within schools’ typical staffing structures.

The most common routes to market were through a private broker, a local authority or a LA established company; some schools instead use a Public Sector Buying Organisation.  Schools generally reported finding buying energy relatively easy, particularly when using a broker or local authority route, although many were not sure they had a good deal there were concerns that the incentives of brokers or LAs may not always match those of the schools (what academics call principal-agent differences). 

Energy companies can try to pressurise schools into signing contracts quickly, as this quotation from an interviewee in a MAT demonstrates:

it’s a very high-pressure environment for a business manager.  So, for example Gazprom with my 6th form college is just rolling over at the moment there’s no particular agreement in place. They e mailed me just the other day saying oh we’d be interested in chatting, so I just e-mailed back saying yeah that’s great – end of Covid we will start to look at this as I want to ensure I’m getting the best deal … we’ll be in contact. The next thing you know I’ve got a flurry of e mails from Gazprom saying that’s great, what we’ll do is get the deal together, we need it signed by the end of the day because we’re live pricing, so you need to sign the same day. I get a follow up the same day saying have I thought about it, are you ready to sign?… That is what business managers are dealing with from these energy companies.

(Participant 5 – Multi Academy Trust).

Reducing energy use

The relatively high variation in energy costs per pupil between schools is partly due to tariff differences and partly due to differing levels of energy use.  High costs could be due to the age of the building, its state of repair, the energy efficiency of its infrastructure, or the behaviours of staff and pupils. There are a range of measures a school could put in place to reduce its energy costs.

All schools in the project had undertaken some kind of activity in recent years and the most common were the use of LED lighting, solar panels, and replacement boilers.  

What can be done?

There are several ways schools could be supported to lower energy costs.  The National School Buying Service could provide support walking a school through the energy procurement process and advise them throughout the journey.   Schools who represent an outlier on energy spend could be supported to understand and take action on the underlying reasons for their high costs in terms of the efficiency of their energy infrastructure, their current energy deal or behaviours in school. Since the dissertation was written this service has started helping schools with energy procurements.

Government could consider intervening in the energy market with regulation to require energy providers to provide more transparent pricing to schools so that they are clear on what their future liabilities will be, or to make it very simple for schools to switch supplier quickly if they are not convinced they are accessing value.

There may be potential to develop a national aggregated energy deal if it delivers return on investment after factors such as support with meters and bill validation is factored in and if assurance can be gathered that the new deal would involve less cost to schools than the least costly energy deals currently in place.

Conclusions

There is potential to help schools save money by improving market regulation and procurement support, and individual schools can take steps to reduce significantly their energy use.

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About the project

This research was a Master’s dissertation as part of the MSc in Public Management and Leadership, completed by Courtney Brightwell in 2020, supervised by Dr Peter Watts. 

How collaboration between local government and NHS is cutting waiting times in north-west London

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Cllr Ketan Sheth

Stories of long waits for NHS treatment are rarely out of the news. I am only too mindful that behind those headlines are real people and families who rely on planned care, emergency treatment, and a complex mix of outpatient and specialist services.

In Brent and across north-west London, the number of people waiting for an orthopaedic operation, according to the NHS, has increased by around 30% since April 2022. Whilst procedures like hip or knee replacements are not usually considered to be time critical, waiting for treatment can severely affect a person’s quality of life. Many conditions can, indeed, worsen over time, making treatment and recovery that much harder.

There is, however, some good news for people living in north-west London who find themselves on the waiting list for orthopaedic operation.

In December, an Elective Orthopaedic Centre, a new purpose-designed centre of excellence for orthopaedic surgery, was opened at Brent’s Central Middlesex Hospital (CMH). Since CMH does not provide emergency care, any planned operation is far less likely to be postponed due to emergency pressures. 

The new centre is managed by London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust (LNWUH), in partnership with three other hospital trusts in north-west London. Between them, they manage 12 hospitals in north-west London, serving a very diverse population of 2.2 million across eight London boroughs.

The model of care that the new centre works to, is simple, but effective — wherever a patient lives in north-west London, their operation will now take place at the new centre. Care is overseen by the consultant from their local hospital, who are already well practised and expert in what they do, joins them at the new centre to do the operation on the day. The rest of their care — before and after operation — takes place at their local hospital, in their community, or online at home. 

But since CMH does not provide emergency care, might that be a concern for a patient if there are complications during an operation? Well, the evidence from, for example, the orthopaedic centre at Epsom Hospital, which has been running for the past decade and performs one of the largest numbers of hip and knee replacements operations, suggests that complications requiring emergency care are exceptionally rare. 

However, for many patients, CMH may not be the easiest place to get to and so free transport is provided for those who need it. Also, for these who prefers not to travel to CMH for their operation, some procedures will continue to be provided in their local hospitals, though the new centre will treat them quicker.

The new centre is, therefore, a fast-track surgical hub, dedicated to routine orthopaedic operations. As for patients with more complex needs, the NHS anticipates that they will also benefit from shorter waiting times as the new centre will free up capacity in other north-west London hospitals. With this model of care, it is expected that many more patients will be treated much quickly, have shorter hospital stays, a better experience and follow-up care.

As Chair of the North West London Joint Health Scrutiny Committee, I have seen an enormous amount of work that went into making the new £9 million centre a reality. Clinicians and other NHS staff from across the four trusts worked with GPs, residents, and other stakeholders to develop a detailed plan, including the funding model, affordability, capacity, faster and fairer accessibility, and length of stay. The plan was then subjected to rigorous scrutiny at my committee. Additionally, a further 2,000 individuals and organisations contributed to a public consultation.

Indeed, the four trusts worked in partnership with my committee. This ensured that organisational and geographical boundaries did not get in the way of our shared commitment to delivering equitable services and continuous improvements at scale for our residents across north-west London.

They could, of course, have looked at a hybrid model combining NHS and private care and it is arguable this would have more capacity. But the priority was clearly to get the new centre up and running quickly and negotiating a model like that would have taken time. I know many will welcome the model as it is, and it is clearly likely to make a difference for our residents. All this shows what can be achieved when different parts of the NHS, local government and residents come together, dare to challenge, and think differently. Addressing orthopaedic waiting lists will significantly improve many people’s quality of life. As we start 2024, that’s certainly some good news for people in living across north-west London.

Cllr Ketan Sheth chairs the North West London Join Health Scrutiny Committee

How do we strike the right balance in public sector workforce training?

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Shailen Popat

I was delighted to be invited to attend and speak at the APSE annual seminar in Belfast in September 2023. For us at the Department of Public Administration and Policy, connections with elected members and council officers are an integral part of our research and teaching, so I had no hesitation about accepting the invite and being with you.

I took the opportunity in my talk to share some questions I’ve been asking myself. The first is: do you feel that your education prepared you for a role in public management?

This is an important starting point for those of us who plan continuing professional development (CPD) for others. There is no shortage of master’s degrees and CPD courses, but we must continuously consider their pertinence and relevance. Sometimes educational courses are good learning experiences that are worth having for that reason alone, however we must reflect on whether a good learning experience is also useful in the field.

Since 2008, the public service mantra has been to ‘do more with less’. As we all know this places burdens on organisations and their staff. Having to do more with less often entails operating across multiple roles and skill sets, requiring a lot of flexibility. For example, a local authority may decide that it is more efficient to have one person covering multiple roles, whereas previously, there may have been two. This can compel public service workers to try and act as experts in areas where they are not. Similarly, elected members often have to make decisions on matters that they are not experts in, whilst engaging with those who are.

Both officers and elected members need to be able to assimilate, synthesise and communicate the rationale behind policy positions and decisions that they are not experts in. This not only poses a challenge for them but also for those who support their training. We must ask ourselves, what skills do we need to train non-experts in? And how do we train them?

A further complication is that the culture, norms, and political boundaries of an organisation may not be flexible. Even though an employee may have to work and think flexibly, the structures they operate in may be very rigid. Trainers need to consider whether they are educating people with this need for flexibility in mind.

Neuroscience tells us that learning occurs incrementally – the brain’s neural networks are constantly being revised and refined as we repeat actions. The science tells us that experience matters. However, an important part of experience is making mistakes.

Therein lies the problem, for elected members and senior executives, mistakes are a luxury that they cannot afford and are unlikely to be tolerated. This puts us in another quandary: we know that learning requires mistakes, and therefore we have to train practitioners and decision-makers to be reflective, however, if decision-makers fear making mistakes, this will hinder their learning.

 I also wonder whether this fear of making mistakes stops us from challenging ourselves to think, decide, and act differently from the norm. How much do our cultures and structures empower public service workers and elected members to be genuinely innovative? A lot of our learning occurs when we are exposed to new materials that challenge our previous beliefs and understandings.

There is also a concept called disfluency which means that not only should we learn something new but when we use and explain it to others, it begins to become clearer as to how we could enact it ourselves. ‘How much do we practice dysfluency and how can we educate for it?’ I would welcome anyone who would like to continue the discussion to email me.

Shailen Popat is Director of the INLOGOV full-time MSc in Public Management. In 2022, he was awarded the accolade of the University outstanding Teacher of the Year, and in 2023 was awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. He can be contacted via email at: [email protected]

This article was first published in the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) newsletter, Winter 2024

Zilch for timing, but this Resolution Foundation report is important

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Chris Game and Jason Lowther

If you wanted some serious reader attention for something West Midlands local governmenty, you really, really wouldn’t have chosen this past November. The war in Gaza was seriously hotting up, there were the COP 28 talks in Dubai, Christmas was coming, and Aston Villa were en route to becoming the Premier League’s “foremost home team”, whatever precisely that means.

Serious distractions, but competition for headlines was only part of the challenge facing the Resolution Foundation’s early November release of its In Place of Centralisation report setting out a proposed and far-reaching Devolution Deal for London, Greater Manchester, and the West Midlands. There were other diversions and potential confusions too.

It was barely a month since Birmingham City Council – the principal West Midlands local authority involved in this proposed ‘Devo Deal’ – had issued not one but two Section 114 notices, reportedly declaring itself doubly “bankrupt”, unable to meet the Council’s financial liabilities relating to Equal Pay claims and an in-year financial gap within its budget, and handing over its governance to Communities Secretary Michael Gove’s appointed Commissioners.

And, if that wasn’t potentially complicating enough – for those directly affected as well as onlookers – in that same previous month representatives of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) had ratified the “Deeper Devolution” aka “Trailblazer” deal announced in the Chancellor’s March Budget.

That deal, comparable to that agreed by Greater Manchester back in March, but relatively little of which we’d heard in the meantime, would devolve more powers to ‘Metro-Mayor’ Andy Street (or, given the May Mayoral elections, potentially his successor), the 30 WM local authorities (7 met boroughs, 4 unitaries, 19 districts) and their 6 million population, and simplify funding arrangements, with £1.5 billion to spend on long-term infrastructure projects and services such as transport, skills, housing and regeneration.  A key element is a single block grant negotiated with the Government, like a central government department, as part of next year’s Spending Review.

Key ‘highlights’ include:

  • A ‘landmark’ housing deal worth up to £500 million, offering greater flexibility to drive brownfield regeneration and funding to deliver “affordable housing at pace”;
  • Greater control over local finance, including retention of an estimated annual £45 million of business rates for the next decade [hold on to that version of ‘local financial control’!];
  • Up to six ‘levelling up zones”, backed by £25-year business rate retention, with an estimate total value of at least £500 million, to target investment and encourage regeneration in areas agreed with the Government;
  • Measures to tackle digital exclusion, including greater influence over high-speed broadband investment across the region and a £4 million fund to get more people online.

In anywhere other than one of the most centralised governmental systems in the developed world, describing this package as ‘trailblazing’ would be wildly OTT. Here, though, it was rightly welcomed as constituting serious devolutionary progress, and Mayor Street, not surprisingly, was enthusiastic, seeing it as “marking the beginning of the end of … the ‘begging bowl culture’ where we must regularly submit bids for various pots of money on a piecemeal basis.”

Here’s the thing, though – well, two things, actually. First, the really rather big thing. The leading West Midlands council in this new ‘Trailblazer’ era is currently, following the issuing of those Section 114 notices, (a) in severe financial straits, and (b) being run until quite possibly 2028 not by elected councillors, but by Lead Commissioner Max Caller, his associate commissioners and political advisors – none of whom have ‘Trailblazing’ as a core part of their brief.

The second and, in Birmingham’s current circumstances, almost other-worldly thing, is the Resolution Foundation’s In Place of Centralisation report which is, incidentally, not the first RF report to be covered in these pages. It’s other-worldly too in the sense that it’s just one, albeit important, product of a bigger, wider-ranging academic project: The Economy 2030 Inquiry – a Nuffield Foundation-funded collaboration between the Resolution Foundation, an independent think-tank, and the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance.

UK economic growth is their primary project – not boosting local democracy – one persistent obstacle to the attainment of which they identify as “the decades of underperformance of the big cities of Manchester, Birmingham, and more recently London” – the key cause being, they reckon, the centralisation of the British state. No startling news to INLOGOV blog readers, but a contrasting starting point to, say, that of the authors of Trailblazer deals, and their prescriptions go a good deal further.

They start (p.4), unsurprisingly, from a different array of statistics, demonstrating the extreme centralisation of the British state.

Only 5 per cent of the UK’s tax revenues in 2019 were collected by local    government, compared to 14 per cent in France, 23 per cent in Japan, and 35 per cent in Sweden. Accordingly, local government relies on grant funding, with only 19 per cent of all local spending in the UK funded locally, compared to 37 per cent in the average OECD unitary state.

They concede that “recent advances in devolution have begun to unwind this”, but, following a decade of austerity, significantly further fiscal devolution is required to improve growth without increasing inequality – in the form of a ‘triple deal’ negotiated between the Government and the Mayors of Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, and London as a trio, going “beyond the recent ‘trailblazer’ deals” and into which other mayors would be able to opt in the future.

The core of the triple deal would be fiscal devolution, “which would help to end the centrally-imposed local government funding crisis for the three cities by widening the local tax base, and resourcing improvements in the local economy.” Everyone would be a winner – the mayors, borough and Exchequer all benefiting from a new revenue-neutral fiscal settlement, including (pp.4-5):

  • A local share of income tax receipts, with Greater Manchester and West Midlands keeping a larger share than London;
  • Complete retention of business rates, and control over the ‘multiplier’;
  • A single grant to the mayors distributed on a per person basis;
  • The ability for mayors to reform council tax.

It would then be up to the mayors, in negotiation with the boroughs, to distribute this revenue across local government’s various responsibilities across their city. And in the medium-term?

Well, big IF … but the higher growth in the three cities that would be “likely”, if this fiscal devolution were accompanied by other policy changes, would then translate into higher local tax revenues for the mayors – with, by 2038, Greater Manchester raising between £49 million and £230 million, and the West Midlands between £40 million and £187 million beyond their current level of funding.

That was from p.5 of what is a 64-page report, so there’s a very great deal more explanation and explication. But the key, and hopefully obvious, point of this blog is to enable you, if it crops up in conversation, to disabuse anyone of the notion that the Resolution Foundation’s contribution to this debate is just ‘Trailblazer deals’ writ large.

Our view is that the current local government finance system is bust. Business rates penalise high street shops, the council tax is regressive with hopelessly outdated valuations, and councils spend too much energy chasing central government largesse through competitive funding pots.  Democratically elected councils rely on a begging bowl and lack basic revenue raising powers that are commonplace internationally.  We will be saying more on this as the General Election approaches…

Chris Game is an INLOGOV Associate, and Visiting Professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan.  He is joint-author (with Professor David Wilson) of the successive editions of Local Government in the United Kingdom, and a regular columnist for The Birmingham Post.

Jason Lowther is Director of the Institute for Local Government Studies (INLOGOV) and Head of the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Birmingham.

The value and necessity of our green spaces and natural assets

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Rebekah Roebuck

Witton Lakes, Stockland Green, Birmingham: Photo by Tom Roebuck

Open spaces, whether green spaces (e.g. parks or forests), blue spaces (e.g. canals or rivers) or grey spaces (e.g. urban squares) have long been understood to be of great importance and value to society. Be it the creation of the Porticus Pompeiana in Ancient Rome or the wider opening of the Royal Parks to the public in the UK throughout the 1800s, the connection between open spaces and society’s wellbeing is complex but enduring. However, with the increase in financial precarity across local government, their status and quality may be at risk. This blog emphasizes the value of citizen relationships with open spaces using flash ethnographic research from four cities across the world, including the role of community organisations before considering potential impacts of local government finances for green spaces in Birmingham.

Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa: Photo by Lauren Richards

Open spaces entail a wide range of places, including recreational facilities, public parks, heritage sites, beaches, and public squares. On an individual level, citizens around the world connect with local open spaces for a variety of often highly contextual and personal reasons. Open spaces can be places where people connect with heritage, with art and culture, developing a sense of self and connecting with the environment they live in. They are spaces we might use alone but can also act as hubs for community building and socializing.  We may choose to visit a park for a few hours, stay at a beach all day, or simply sit outside in public squares during lunch breaks.

Central Business District, Nairobi, Kenya: Photo by Saina Kiprotich

Some of our open spaces are treasured and achieve status such as becoming a UNESCO world heritage site. One such example is in Morocco, where Chellah, an ancient archaeological site and fortified necropolis, is listed and protected by the Moroccan authorities, and well maintained so visitors can feel safe and secure while enjoying the natural beauty and historical significance of the area. The standard, cleanliness and perceived safety of an open space impacts the desire of local residents to use it. In many places, including Birmingham, Nairobi and Cape Town, the standard of open spaces varies significantly, with more affluent neighbourhoods often having better maintained spaces

but some are simply ‘left behind’, neglected, or subject to fly tipping or dumping, causing visual pollution, and spoiling open spaces.

Chellah, Rabat, Morocco: Photo by Ilias Defaa

This lack of equality around green space access is well recognised by Birmingham City Council, who have a 25-year City of Nature Plan, with an ambition to be recognised as a city of nature, with the Birmingham Future Parks Accelerator Project developing an environmental justice map of the city by ward with ‘access to green space’ comprising one of the factors that generates the score, the first local authority in the UK to develop a tool to measure environmental justice.

The relationship we have today with our open spaces is gaining focus both here in the UK and globally. Increased attention to climate change, the importance of biodiversity and the value of open spaces as assets which can help with climate mitigation and adaptation is growing, alongside the intrinsic benefits to local people and communities.

However, despite this growing recognition, and plans such as the BCC City of Nature Plan and the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA)’s five year Natural Environment Plan, funding for parks in the UK has been cut significantly. The State of UK Public Parks 2021 report published by the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) found that the UK has lost a total of £690 million funding for parks between 2011-2021, providing ‘woefully inadequate’ funding for local authorities.

Community groups, such as in Birmingham, often provide support voluntarily alongside accessing grants not available directly to local authorities to improve and develop the space for use. Birmingham Open Spaces Forum coordinate and support the 130+ ‘Friends of’ and other community groups across Birmingham that caretake and protect not only those spaces that seem traditional to open spaces; parks, fields and gardens, but also litter pick in the streets, and maintain other smaller patches of ‘green’, which some may overlook, but are of equal importance. Cotteridge Park in the south of the city provides a gold star, ‘Green Flag’ awarded example of the success possible with volunteers.

‘The Shed’ at Cotteridge Park, Birmingham: Photo by Rebekah Roebuck

The value of open spaces is not always easy to quantify. However, under the concept of natural capital, there is an increasing drive to define a financial value on the services provided. Birmingham’s 600 blue and green spaces (over 4,700 hectares (47 Km2), not to mention the famed ‘more miles of canals than Venice’), is estimated by Birmingham Future Parks Accelerator to be worth around £11 billion, with £4 billion linked directly to the wellbeing of its residents.

In the light of Birmingham City Council’s proposed service cuts, including city operations which includes responsibilities for parks, the role that community groups play in the protection, maintenance and guardianship of our green spaces feels even more critical. BOSF are backing the ‘Save Birmingham’ Campaign, formed in response to concern about the prospect of a ‘fire sale’ of vital spaces. They are asking local residents to nominate spaces and other facilities as an “asset of community value”, to demonstrate the public support for these and with a view to potentially developing further co-operative solutions for spaces in the future.

Be it simply the reduction in servicing and maintaining our parks, to the more serious prospect of the selling off or repurposing of open space assets, it seems likely that despite the recognition of the growing necessity to protect these open spaces, they may be at risk. To achieve environmental justice and equality of access to open spaces in Birmingham, how parks are funded, maintained, and improved must remain a focus for local government.

Rebekah Roebuck is undertaking a PhD on the governance of energy decarbonisation in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Birmingham. She is also interested in environmental justice, disability rights and community engagement. She can be contacted at [email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebekah-roebuck/

This blog derives from a longer blog on Open Spaces and Mobility published for the University of Birmingham developed via a EUniWell project focused on international collaboration, written by the author alongside Ilias Defaa, Lauren Richards, Nana Amponsah and Saina Kiprotich.