Governance and accountability: from dull subject to hot topic

13/07/2017 / inlogov / Leave a comment

Catherine Staite
Accountability is the lifeblood of good governance. Good leaders understand that they are responsible for the well-being of others, that they need to explain their actions, really listen to those on whom those actions have an impact and act swiftly to put things right if they go wrong. They know that the higher the level of vulnerability of the people they serve, the higher the duty of care – to serve the powerless and not to demean or demonize them. Good leaders would say that none of that needs to be said because governance and accountability are written through their everyday working lives like lettering through rock. That may be true of good leaders but it isn’t true of everyone.

There are so many flaws in our fragmented systems of governance that it can be very hard to understand who really is accountable when things go wrong. There has been much focus recently on the negative impacts of privatising regulatory services but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Just think about the outsourcing of benefits assessment to a demonstrably incompetent company, the divestment of social housing from councils, the purchaser/provider split in health and the structural, professional, financial and organisational chasms between health and social care. All of those exercises in fragmentation result in the people all these different services serve falling through those cracks without ever understanding who is responsible for their suffering. Homelessness is a classic example of this phenomenon. Failure compounds failure and more energy is expended on shunting the blame than on solving the problems.

That might lead us to believe that all we need to do to put things right is tidy up a bit and then create a couple more regulatory bodies, et voila, job done. That has always appealed to me; I do love a tidy structure. But even as I crave order, I know that we’ll never achieve it. The reality is that systems, structures and processes in both the public and private sectors are complex and messy and doubly so where sectors intersect, as in public transport or primary care. If we tidy up in one place, we’ll create knock-on messiness somewhere else. We’d do better to focus on the people in the system – on developing their skills and strengthening their values so they understand the real importance of good governance and the critical role of accountability.

The key to future good governance and accountability lies in the way in which we recruit, train, develop, manage and lead our 21^st century public servants. That is also true of our democratic representatives. A democratic mandate alone does not confer wisdom or effectiveness. Yet, most councils have cut their staff and member development budgets to the bone, as development is a luxury and not a vital necessity.

We all the see the necessity of the maintenance and repair of our cars, our computers and our washing machines. The maintenance and good governance of our organisations is even more important. Mechanical failures can cause many problems but the failure of organisations destroys lives.

Catherine Staite is Professor of Public Management and Director of Public Service Reform at the University of Birmingham. As Director of Public Service Reform, Professor Catherine Staite leads the University’s work supporting the transformation and reform of public services, with a particular focus on the West Midlands. As a member of INLOGOV, Catherine leads our on-line and blended programmes, Catherine also helps to support INLOGOV’s collaboration with a wide range of organisations, including the Local Government Association and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives as well as universities in the USA, Europe, Australia and China. She was named by the Local Government Chronicle, in 2015 and 2016 as one of the top 100 most influential people in local government.

What’s it like studying at INLOGOV?

05/07/201705/07/2017 / inlogov / Leave a comment

Drs. Max Lempriere, Abena Dadze-Arthur and Karin Bottom

It is perhaps a little cliché to say that there’s never been a better time to study public management, whether in the context of local government or otherwise. The fact that local government has undergone significant reform over the years – a process that shows little sign of abating – is well known. Indeed, the political world is shifting before our eyes into something new, some would say exciting and certainly worthy of study. Clichés abound, life as a student of public management and local governance certainly won’t be dull.

Avoiding cliché then, perhaps its more apt to say that there’s never been a better time to study at The University of Birmingham’s Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV). The University’s reputation is well recognized; it was 2013-2014 University of the Year, sits 13^th in the 2017 Guardian University Guide and is among the top 100 best Universities in the world. As the UK’s leading centre for the study of local government and strategic public management, INLOGOV is well placed to make sense of what looks to many to be a chaotic system. Our research directly informs contemporary debates and legislative activity and the work we do with local authorities across the world is highly respected.

What is it like to study here, though? We offer a number of courses, taught by some of the leading authorities in the field, all of which are specifically designed to further your career in public administration, wherever in the world you choose to work. Whether you’re interested in a Masters degree, Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate and can commit full time or part time, we offer courses in Public Management, Public Service Commissioning and Social Research. It doesn’t even matter if you’re unable to physically come to the Birmingham campus; whilst INLOGOV offers courses in the form of a traditional brick-and-mortar degree, whereby students attend classes on campus, it also offers an internationally acclaimed Masters of Public Administration (MPA) online degree, whereby students do all their classroom activities outside the traditional classroom, at a distance from the University of Birmingham, and supported by technology-based tools.

For those looking for a more focused, research driven learning experience you can choose instead to undertake doctoral research, whether as part of an integrated learning package with a focus on public policy or a traditional research-driven doctorate (offered both on campus and through distance learning). Have a look at our website for an outline of our research interests.

In both the on-campus and distance learning courses, our students are very mixed in terms of their age, where they come from, and their experience of the public sector. Typically, in INLOGOV’s master courses, students with backgrounds as mid-career public servants are rubbing shoulders with course participants who just graduated from their undergraduate studies. For example, a fifty-eight-year-old minister in Jamaica’s government took our Masters in Public Administration a 25 year old who recently completed his undergraduate studies in social care in China. This makes for a fantastic learning community, where the pedagogical focus remains on the learners and how they connect their varied experiences of public management to the theoretical concepts explored during the course.

In both our on-campus and online courses, we use high-quality learning resources, which also feature animated videos and interactive diagrams and theoretical models. Mindful of the international nature of the student group who register for our masters programmes, we always add new literature on international public management and governance in the reading lists; we include a variety of contemporary case studies and examples of public management from around the world; we ask students to watch a series of short, BBC-documentary-style videos featuring practitioners and researchers from across the globe who discuss their particular experiences of public management and governance in their respective home countries; and we use an array of photo images to portray global diversity in public service delivery.

Although we use the same high-quality and interactive learning resources for on-campus and distance learning courses, there are of course important differences in terms of the learning environment, which meet different student needs. Campus-based classes require students to attend classes in person and at specific times. Online classes are free from the constraints of space, pace and time, and give students the flexibility to do their work in their own time and at their own pace, but require students to be very self-motivated, disciplined and comfortable with working independently.

Wherever you choose to take your degree – and students take it far and wide, whether as public servants, journalists, consultants, academics and so on – a degree from INLOGOV will serve you well.

For more information on the courses we offer and to find out about upcoming open days (whether virtual or on campus) please visit http://www.inlogov.bham.ac.uk. Alternatively, to keep up to date with the latest research and discussions from the department check out our blog at www.inlogov.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter@INLOGOV.

Max is an INLOGOV Associate and has a PhD in political science from the University of Birmingham. He has taught for a number of years on many aspects of politics, public administration, research methods and academic skills. Prior to that he read political economy at the University of Birmingham and Stockholm University. His research interests include institutional theory, environmental politics, local government innovation and policy entrepreneurship.

Abena has taught on a variety of INLOGOV courses on various aspects of public management and governance to a) international distance learners, who complete the programme wholly online; b) in-house local government participants, and c) ‘on-campus’ students comprising a mix of full-time and part-time-registered practitioner students Abena’s research mainly focuses on non-western and post-western public management approaches that are rooted in local subject positions, indigenous norms and values, locally embedded representational and performative practices, and mirror local history, culture, and religious or philosophical traditions, while promoting public engagement, accountability and effective public services.

Karin is INLOGOV’s Director of Teaching and Learning and directs INLOGOV’s MSc in Public Management and lectures on modules concerned with 1) party politics; democracy and public management; 2) research methods.

The Tale of Kensington’s Secret Cabinet

30/06/201730/06/2017 / inlogov

Philip Whiteman

Last week, I wrote about the potential scope for intervention measures by the Secretary of State against Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) following their authority’s inability to provide leadership after the Grenfell Fire Disaster. The adverse publicity surrounding the authority and its handling of the crisis should have provided a wake-up call in terms of leadership and how it manages its relations with wider public. So it was somewhat surprising that the Authority remains in hot water following an attempt to stop the public from attending a scheduled cabinet meeting, including a legal judgement overturning that ban and scorn from Downing Street.

As most monitoring officers and councillors will be aware, there are strict rules governing public attendance. So it is surprising that RKBC attempted to block public access.

Council meetings and committee meetings are formal events, not social occasions. They have a clear purpose – to make decisions – and are not just talking shops. Furthermore, they are public events; the meetings must be advertised and the press and public have a right to observe how the council operates. Exceptions are when sensitive issues are discussed (such as legal, contractual or staffing matters) and then the council can agree to exclude the press and public for just that item of business. They are not to be closed to the public at a council leader or monitoring officer’s whim.

The rules governing public access are defined under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, which states that the public (including the press) may be excluded from Council meetings if exempt information relating to one of the following paragraphs of Schedule 12A to the Act is likely to be disclosed. Section 12A sets out the following matters which shall be considered as private:

Para 1 “Information relates to a particular employee, former employee, applicant to become an employee, office holder, former office holder or applicant to become an office holder.”
Para 3 “Information relates to a particular occupier or former occupier of, or applicant for, the Council’s accommodation.”
Para 4 “Information relates to a particular applicant for, recipient or former recipient of a service”.
Para 5 “Information relates to a particular applicant for, recipient or former recipient of financial assistance”.
Para 7 “Information relates to the financial or business affairs of a particular person.”
Para 8 “Information relates to the amount of expenditure proposed to be incurred under a particular contract for the acquisition of property, or the supply of goods or services.” (see footnote 1 below)
Para 9 “Information relates to terms proposed or to be proposed in the course of negotiations for a contract for acquisition or disposal of property, or the supply of goods or services.” (see footnote 2 below)
Para 10 “Information relates to the identity of the Council as offering a particular tender for a contract for supply of goods or services.”
Para 11 “Information relates to current or contemplated consultations or negotiations in connection with a labour relations matter arising between the Council and employees or office holders of the Council.” (see footnote 3 below)
Para 12 “Information relates to instructions to, or opinion of, Counsel and advice received, information obtained or action to be taken in connection with legal proceedings by or against the Council, or the determination of a matter affecting the Council
Para 13 “Information would reveal a proposed notice, order or direction under an enactment.” (see footnote 4 below)
Para 14 “Information relates to action taken, or to be taken, in connection with the prevention, investigation or prosecution of a crime.”
Para 15 “Information would reveal identity of a protected informant.”

Under these rules, it is possible that the authority deemed paragraph 12 as grounds to restrict public access. Yet, it is an authority that is facing an internal crisis as well as having to handle the aftermath of Britain’s most serious fire this century. So it is possibly beggar’s belief that they attempted to exclude public access.

Not only are the public to be admitted to public council meetings unless exempted by Section 12A, but they are also subject to further restrictions on information they can withhold by means of The Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements)(Meetings and Access to Information)(England) Regulations 2012. The 2012 regulations created a presumption that all meetings of the executive, its committees and subcommittees are to be held in public (regulation 3) unless a narrowly defined legal exception applies. A meeting will only be held in private if confidential information would be disclosed, or a resolution has been passed to exclude the public because exempt information is likely is be disclosed, or a lawful power is used to exclude the public in order to maintain orderly conduct at the meeting (regulation 4). In the past councils could cite political advice as justification for closing a meeting to the public and press, or state that decisions being made were not ‘key decisions’. The new regulations create a presumption that all meetings of the executive, its committees and subcommittees are to be held in public. Clearly, in the instance of any decision related to Grenfell, it would have to be regarded as a ‘key decision’.

Philip Whiteman is a Lecturer at the Institute of Local Government Studies. He has research interests in the impact of central government and regulators on the role, service delivery and performance of local government and other local bodies.

The challenges of being part of the local government family

27/06/2017 / inlogov / 1 Comment

Catherine Staite

Local government is made up of very diverse institutions, in terms of size, tiers, geography, demography and politics. No two local authorities are the same, even those who seem similar in many ways. Each has a unique combination of history, cultures, structures, systems and relationships. Each will have different strengths and weakness. Some councils are flourishing and others are floundering. Yet we often refer to ‘local government’ as if it was one thing, when it clearly is not. Some of that sense of ‘family’ has its roots in long traditions of competitiveness and rivalry as well as cooperation and mutual support. Some can be traced back to the need to be united against the ‘common enemy’ – an over-centralised and capricious central government machine – regardless of any allegiance owed by local politicians to their party when in power.

Local government has occupied a rather eminent moral high ground in recent years. Demonstrably the most efficient part of the public sector, it has remained remarkably resilient in the face of cuts which would have brought any other sector to its knees. Many councils have used the pressure, generated by cuts in income from central government, to drive change, experimentation and innovation but others have not. Some have become highly commercial, with varying degrees of success, while others seek to avoid all risk. Some have streamlined their corporate functions and outsourced support services, in order to be able to focus their remaining resources on frontline services. Some have engaged communities to co-produce and maintain services which were previously the sole responsibility of the council, while others have simply cut non-statutory services. Some have developed excellent and productive working relationships between officers and members. Others are known for toxic and destructive internal and external relationships. Some are supporting and developing their staff to be adaptable, flexible and resilient. Others have downgraded their officer leadership capacity and hollowed out their organisations to the point that they cannot respond to a crisis.

In spite of so much divergence in organisational structures, systems and behaviours, the sense of being part of a family remains. Officers and members share ideas, through writing in the trade press, meeting, talking, arguing and sharing. That level of interaction may mislead us into thinking we have a good picture of what is going on but since the demise of the Audit Commission, no-one has an overview of the state of local government, in all its rich political and organisational diversity. Councils are quick to boast of their achievements, as evidenced by the burgeoning awards business, but very slow to admit to their failures. Its no-one’s job to counsel, warn or intervene when misguided choices have resulted in serious risks to the vulnerable.

As is the case with our own families, the notable failure of a family member reflects badly on all. Our first reactions may be to blame them and to disassociate ourselves from them. We may say, quite rightly, that councils are sovereign bodies. They make their choices and they take the consequences. What duties, then, do other councils owe them when bad choices bring disaster? Perhaps they owe them the duties we all owe to our own family members when they go astray: to challenge them to listen, to accept responsibility, to explain themselves, to put things right but above all to learn from their failures. We should support them if they are willing to come clean and share that learning so all can take heed. That way, perhaps, some small good can come out of catastrophic failure.

Grenfell Tower: Not Local Government’s Finest Hour.

26/06/201726/06/2017 / inlogov / 1 Comment

Philip Whiteman

The Grenfell Tower disaster has not been local government’s finest hour in terms of their apparent response to the emergency. So, if the media reports on the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) have been accurate, their behaviour clearly differs from the LGA’s statement that, “Emergency planning is a key issue for local people and the reputation of councils and fire and rescue authorities can depend on the effectiveness of planning and response.” But to compartmentalise this is a reputational issue alone would be wrong, as lack of emergency response may highlight wider performance problems. It is therefore not surprising that the chief executive of RBKC, Nicholas Holgate, resigned after being asked to do so by the communities secretary, Sajid Javid. It transpires that Javid required the leader of the council to seek Holgate’s resignation, according to various media reports.

The Local Government Act 1999 enables the Secretary of State to intervene in the conduct and operation of local authorities. Whilst government does not use the instrument lightly, there are plenty of examples from some authorities graded as poor under the extinct Comprehensive Performance Regime to the scandals surrounding Doncaster, Rotherham and Tower Hamlets. Javid clearly had a sanction at hand when dealing with the troubles at RBKC.

The resignation of the Chief Executive may be insufficient at addressing what are possibly wider performance and governance issues, as there are clearly significant weaknesses in the ability of the authority to discharge its duty in responding to emergencies and in providing competent civic leadership. Let’s take the first issue on emergencies. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places a duty on local authorities to stablish a clear set of roles and responsibilities for those involved in emergency preparation and response at the local level. RBKC would have been acutely aware of such requirements given its location within one of the world’s greatest capital cities and densely populated parts of Britain. Irrespective of the public inquiry, the government could ask two key questions:

Why was RBKC so seemingly slow at responding to an emergency situation?
Why was RBKC unable to perform an important fundamental duty towards its population in such as situation as Grenfell Tower?

Was the authority’s political leadership sufficiently competent to deal with resourcing emergency planning

There are questions regarding governance issues related to RBKC both in terms of its ability to respond to the immediate emergency from a political and managerial leadership perspective and the more historical aspects related to the purported complaints by Grenfell Tower residents on the high risk nature of the property.

As a London based authority, RBKC may not be alone in terms of its apparent lack of competency to discharge its statutory duties. So, we need to learn fairly quickly why RBKC fundamentally failed in order to address wider weaknesses throughout the rest of local government. So over and above the Javid’s intervention regarding Holgate, further examination is required to investigate the root cause of RBKC’s failure through Sections 10 and 11 of the Local Government Act empowering inspectors to investigate in detail the operations of RBKC, but without prejudice to any immediate police investigation.

Typically, an intervention usually results in the organisation being placed into a process of turnaround led by government appointed commissioners or consultants. Turnaround processes naturally differ from one authority to another. In the most extreme example, councillors may find their decision making powers withdrawn. At the other end of the spectrum, turnaround may focus upon business process re-engineering focussed on a particular issue. To situate where RKBC could fall within the spectrum would be mere speculation.

In terms of wider values, the aftermath of Grenfell Tower has not portrayed the ability of local government to respond and lead at times of crisis very well. The woefully inadequate responses by managerial and local political leadership are well publicised and sufficient for government redress. This distressing situation may well provide an important wake-up call but also highlights policy changes as a reaction rather than by prediction. Returning to the LGA statement, local government’s reputation can rest upon the ability to plan and effectively respond to emergencies.

How other countries deal with the horror of a hung parliament.

19/06/2017 / inlogov / Leave a comment

Chris Game

In amongst all the election analysis on the Friday morning after the night before, there was a widely reported quote from Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission: “As far as the Commission is concerned, we can open Brexit negotiations tomorrow morning at half-past-nine.”

My first reaction was quite defensive. While kicking someone when so obviously down may not be all that un-British, surely we should be allowed time to have first go. Besides, Juncker’s own prime ministerial career hardly ended in glory, so I thought I’d make it the peg for this blog about how some other EU countries, starting with Juncker’s Luxembourg, might handle Theresa May’s little parliamentary arithmetic problem.

During the two-year Brexit negotiation, several EU states will hold parliamentary elections, any of which could produce changes of government – though not necessarily instantly or overnight, as Juncker’s jibe seemed to imply he expected of us.

Luxembourg’s elections are due next October – five years after those held prematurely in 2013, prompted by Juncker being forced to step down from his record-length 18-year premiership, having lost parliament’s support for presiding either unknowingly or untellingly over years of illegal activities by the state intelligence agency.

His Christian Social People’s Party (CSV) had been in government since 1979, latterly in coalition with the Socialist Workers Party (LSAP). The CSV again won comfortably the most seats, but the resultant government was what we might call a rainbow coalition, or ‘minimum winning coalition’ – of the smallest number of parties able between them to form a majority. This one was popularly labelled the ‘Gambia coalition’, with the participating parties’ red (LSAP), blue (Democratic Party) and green (Green Party) colours matching those of the Gambian national flag. More relevant, though, is how it was negotiated.

After a few days of election recovery and exploratory inter-party talks, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg nominated Xavier Bettel, Democratic Party leader, as formateur – literally the person judged most likely, and now with official responsibility, to form a viable coalition government.

The whole process, as Juncker knew at first hand, took over five weeks – and that with a parliament a sixth the size of the Commons. The politicians weren’t “teary and exhausted”, with “everyone knackered, new or under-resourced”, as Theresa May and her office were reported as being (Sunday Times, June 18, p.16). The country didn’t shut down, and a stable government was formed.

Likewise, following Germany’s last elections in September 2013, when Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic/Social Union (CDU/CSU) achieved its best result since 1990, with close to 42% of the vote, but finished five seats short of the 316 required for an overall Bundestag majority. Statistically, a position almost identical to that of May’s Conservatives. The difference was that the ‘Grand Coalition’ of the CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats took three months to finalise – but again without the heavens falling in.

As Juncker also knew, though, the UK is not like most EU countries, particularly those with proportional representation electoral systems, for whom coalitions and working collaboratively with one or even more ‘other’ parties are seen as natural and even positive. For our politicians – and, it must be said, media – anything short of a stonking, wildly disproportional one-party majority signifies some fearful and embarrassing systemic failure, to be somehow papered over at the earliest opportunity. My personal guess, then, is that the Commission President’s Friday morning remarks were gently mocking the political frenzy he knew May had unleashed almost as much as the PM herself.

And that was probably before he knew the best bit. How this of all PMs – whose inability to share any decision with even her own Cabinet had created this potential constitutional crisis – was about to make a desperate, unplanned, ill-considered lunge for some, any, kind of voting support from the Democratic Unionists (DUP). And to do so, moreover, before she even knew the final total of her own MPs, and with nothing remotely to match the DUP’s “12-page route map of 45 priority demands” fully prepared and waiting.

The formateur system, with its institutionalised recognition of the importance of the inter-party negotiations required to form a sound and lasting coalition, seems a sensible one, which explains why it’s also used by, among others, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Israel. Not, though, by the French themselves, because the combination of their strong presidential system and their two-round elections aims, like our first-past-the-post ones, to render post-election fixes unnecessary.

This weekend, then, we’ve have the second, or run-off, round of National Assembly elections, within a month of Emmanuel Macron being elected President, the constitutional aim, highly effectively achieved, being to give the new President and his new centrist party government a ‘double mandate’.

Last time, in 2012, support for newly elected Socialist President Hollande wasn’t as great, in which circumstances the French way is – to adapt the rugby retaliation tactic – to get your negotiation in first. It’s a kind of effective version of what the Progressive Alliance was trying for in our election: an agreement among the supposedly ‘progressive’ Labour, Lib Dem and Green parties that their candidates – of all three parties, not just the Greens – would stand aside for another progressive candidate with an apparently better chance of winning that particular constituency.

In France, Left, Right, and this time Centre parliamentary party groupings are negotiated and publicised in advance of the elections. And candidates really do withdraw prior to the second-round vote in favour of a rival in the same grouping more likely to win, while voters know in advance who their candidates will ally themselves with, should no single big party achieve an overall majority.

In 2012, the Socialist Party’s 280 seats did fall short of the 289 majority figure by almost precisely the same distance as Theresa May’s Conservatives. Hollande’s party, however, already had a Left grouping negotiated with the Greens and several other smaller parties, holding an additional 48 seats. Majority effectively secured.

Across Europe as a whole, this approach and its speed are the exception. Even so, the example illustrates the obvious lesson: whether you do your negotiations before or after you know the detailed numbers, government formation following an inconclusive election result needs, deserves and almost certainly repays time.

Chris Game is a Visiting Lecturer at INLOGOV interested in the politics of local government; local elections, electoral reform and other electoral behaviour; party politics; political leadership and management; member-officer relations; central-local relations; use of consumer and opinion research in local government; the modernisation agenda and the implementation of executive local government.

INLOGOV Blog

The Institute of Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham

Local Government