Public institutions and governance

Councils Can…

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Victoria Ashcroft

In this post a local government professional reflects on their experience of working in local government during the covid-19 crisis. 

Working in a partnership role in a District Council has its challenges at the best of times, but working in a partnership role, from home, with kids and studying, in the midst of a crisis makes it all the more challenging. The work/life balance that we strive for is now melded together for the foreseeable future.

Since the start of COVID-19 things have moved rapidly (unusual in this line of work). We’ve been told by the Government we need to set up a Community Hub, we’ve been asked by the County Council for support, we know we need to support the voluntary sector, we know the community have mobilised in ways not seen before. These truly are unprecedented times.

Technology has never been so important; it’s no mean feat setting up an entire organisation to work remotely. The behind the scenes effort is huge. So far we’ve set up helplines, email addresses, a communications plan and produced numerous press releases. We’ve placed rough sleepers in as many available accommodation spaces as we can, we’ve set up a food bank, we’ve set up a scheme with the local supermarket to order food for isolators, this food is being delivered by our Elected Members, Solicitors and Environmental Health Officers to name a few – it’s all hands to the deck. The list goes on. We’ve closed the crematoriums and burial grounds and then opened them again. We’ve supported businesses too.

The next task is to call thousands of residents we’ve identified to see how they’re doing, if they have support in place, and if they need help or assistance or just a friendly chat. Quite reassuringly in the main they have good support networks in place but there’s a handful who need further assistance, signposting or a referral onto support agencies. Everyone is really appreciative of the call and thankful to the team of volunteers (diverted in from all departments across the organisation). They are so pleased to have not been forgotten.

Everyone is working hard, and all are doing something new and learning new things.   Such a mammoth task has been undertaken and it feels like there has been little recognition for the very important work being done in this sector, not that we need or want recognition, we are just doing our job contributing to the national effort. We’re not just bins and council tax.

Unprecedented seems to be the word of the moment, and it sums it all up perfectly.

But what comes next…we know domestic abuse will rise, we anticipate a rise in crime and anti-social behaviour, there are worries for the economy, we might lose friends or loved ones, our children will have lived through a crisis we could never have imagined. What we do know is that local government will not be the same again but how we fare in the long term remains to be seen…..

 

Victoria Ashcroft is a local government professional with almost 20 years’ experience in the sector. Currently her role is supporting business planning for the authority and she responsibility for a number of statutory duties and responsibilities. She gained her undergraduate degree in Social Science and Politics through The Open University and is now a student on INLOGOV’s Masters in Public Administration programme.

How Private Members’ legislation institutionalised ‘the free stuff’

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Chris Game

One incidental phenomenon of this extraordinary period in our lives is all the free stuff around, and not just for NHS hero(in)es or frontline workers. For us septuagenarian social distancers there are almost limitless free games, films, ebooks, magazines, video stuff, educational goodies, hot drinks, pizzas – and rhubarb complex. No, me neither.

It took me back a few years – memory-jogged by a recent report from the ‘neo-localist’ think tank, Localis, of which more shortly – to the heyday of ‘free stuff’ in the local government world. Which in turn took me back, coinciding with MPs’ so-called return to work, to Parliament and a sometimes overlooked sphere of that work that every so often genuinely enhances public life – considerably more than most Question Times, in-person or virtual.

I’m talking Private Members’ Bills (PMBs) – the means by which non-ministerial MPs and Peers can attempt to get their names into the statute books. Or – much more usually – a one-line Hansard mention. I jest not – of the 386 PMBs introduced in the extended 2017-19 Parliamentary session, just 15 received Royal Assent.

Like everything else about our Parliament – fabric, functioning, and obviously electoral system – the whole PMB thing is decades overdue for overhaul and reform. Yet, almost despite itself, it regularly does produce seriously worthwhile law.

And there was one decade in which it excelled, creating a shelf of legislation that remains today hugely worthwhile – abolition of capital punishment, reform of law on abortion, homosexuality, divorce, theatre censorship, Sunday entertainment – and that was just the headline stuff.

The 1960s, of course – as I was discovering a genuine interest in politics, had university essays to write, and became fascinated by this way of handling ‘conscience legislation’ – which is probably why I still pay sporadic attention to what goes on.

I admit, though, I had little idea of how the show-off Presentation Bill procedure had mushroomed of late. The Hansard Society counted 147 of them in that extended last session – except that there weren’t, in any physical sense. For all you need do is, well, present your proposed Bill’s title – handfuls at a time, if you feel really shouty – to a sparsely occupied Friday Commons.

This still infant session is already set to leave that 147 total standing. Imagine that Thursday a fortnight ago, first day back at school, as the shoutiest boys (you can’t imagine women MPs bothering with this stuff, can you?) presented their holiday homework. Arch-Brexiteer Peter Bone managed 15 Bills, but his supposed mate, Sir Christopher Chope, left him almost wimpering with his (I think) 41.

Thankfully, you don’t even get to air what’s bothering you, because there’s no speech, no debate, and the things are frequently not even printed. Yes, there are occasional, vital exceptions – like the recent EU (Withdrawal) Bills sponsored by Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn that sought to avoid a ‘no deal’ Brexit in the absence of the Withdrawal Bill’s ratification.

But exceptions they were. If you have a serious cause, a genuine knowledge of the subject and the deficiencies of the present legislation, plus ideally access to ‘expert’ advice and parliamentary drafting skills, then you don’t shout, but try a Ten-Minute Rule Bill and/or chance your luck in the Private Members’ Bill ballot.

It’s a big parliamentary happening, at the start of each session. Most eligible MPs enter, their anonymised numbers inscribed on ping-pongy balls and pulled out of, obviously, a goldfish bowl for total transparency. The first 20 names then get, in reverse order, a guaranteed Friday slot in the parliamentary timetable to introduce and hopefully progress their chosen Bill.

Of the 15 PMBs passed in the last session nine were these Ballot Bills. Most focus on a specific need, injustice or population group, like the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018, introduced by Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake, who came 8th in the 2017 ballot, and which has finally came into operation last month.

Labelled ‘Jack’s Law’, after Jack Herd, whose mother Lucy led the campaign for the Bill, it authorises a minimum of two weeks’ paid bereavement leave for the several thousand employed parents each year who lose a child under the age of 18 or have a stillbirth from the 24th week of pregnancy.

The difficulty in taking on an obdurate Government on a politically big issue is sadly illustrated by SNP MP Dr Eilidh Whiteford, 7th in the 2016 ballot. She tried embarrassing the Government, already five years after signing the Council of Europe’s wide-ranging Istanbul Convention on Combating Violence Against Women, into actually ratifying it into UK law, instead of merely agreeing how jolly important it was and blocking it in the EU Council.

Three years later: surprise! Shamefully, still unratified. However, with the Counting Dead Women project estimating at least 16 domestic abuse killings during the first three weeks of lockdown, Home Secretary Priti Patel is reportedly considering setting up a new cross-government taskforce on domestic abuse. So that’s sorted, then.

Apologies for the extended diversion. I do realise that at least the climax to an INLOGOV blog should ideally be both local governmenty and positive – and this one is, courtesy of Chris White, Conservative MP for Warwick and Leamington from 2010 to 2017.

With beginner’s luck, White came third in the 2010 Private Members’ Ballot, and used it outstandingly, to introduce the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012. Working ‘with the grain’ of both central and local government progressive thinking, it required councils and other public bodies to pay regard to ‘social impact’ – social, economic and environmental well-being – when making procurement decisions.

Some councils needed no convincing, but others did. Yet, really quite rapidly, social value advanced – from campaign slogan, through the development of Social Value Strategies, to statutory requirement, to an almost universally recognised consideration in dealing with both public and frequently private sectors.

The Localis think tank argues – not for the first time, but in greater depth – that the Government should now go further. Councils should be required to produce publicly available Community Value Charters defining where social value offers would be best targeted, thereby aiding both commissioners and potentially bidding contractors.

Thanks significantly to Chris White, as the publication reminds us, we’ve come a long way from councillors and officers on the procurement side of a negotiating table asking, slightly self-consciously: “What about all the free stuff – sorry, the additional economic, environmental and social value?” – and bidders frantically guessing what might be required to seal the deal.

 

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.

Strategic planning that works—evidence from the European public sector

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Paul Joyce

Just over twenty years ago when I was observing experiments in the use of strategic planning and community planning in English local government I often wondered if it would prove to be a temporary management fad. There were at the time efforts by councils like Bradford Council to carry out planning with partners from all sectors. I saw councils like Ipswich Council trying to do community strategic planning and trying to engage and involve local people. There was leadership from councillors and officers at the tops of councils. I was really impressed at the time with their drive to innovate and serve the public better and often to use strategic planning as a tool to do this. But would enthusiasm for it last ten years?

Not only do local councils still use strategic thinking and planning but it has also been picked up at national level of government, with long-term strategic visions and strategies, all put to the service of reformed and improved public governance (which has been abundantly reported on by the OECD).

One of the most important things that academic researchers can do is to ensure that empirical research is carried out which really investigates what is actually happening in the public sector – what choices are made, and what actions are carried out – and what the consequences of them are. When this type of study is done it may be possible to have a serious examination of the usefulness of strategic planning for the public sector. It is therefore good that the journal Public Money & Management has just (in early 2020) published an issue that includes a series of empirical studies investigating the effectiveness of strategic planning in various European countries and in various parts of the public sector.

The editorial is by the four co-chairs of the Permanent Study Group on Strategic Management in Government, which was set up by the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA) in 2009. This study group has fostered research and discussion of the realities of public sector strategic planning with the intention of contributing towards a better understanding of how strategic planning works in practice and the causes of variations in its effectiveness.

In the editorial, I, along with my co-editors, drew attention to previously published research studies indicating individual public sector practitioners typically feel strategic planning has provided them with a range of benefits and studies assessing the contribution of strategic planning to public service performance. We also noted a recent meta-analysis by Bert George (Ghent University) that supported the value of strategic planning being formal as well as comprehensive.

It should not be assumed that we were arguing that strategic planning always succeeds and is always a perfect tool for public governance and for steering public service delivery. We do contend that, although strategic planning may rarely (if ever) be successful in respect of all the goals set, we do think there is evidence that it is quite successful. We also underline a view that Ewan Ferlie and Edoardo Ongaro, two UK based academics specialising in management in the public sector, have championed. This is the view that context matters. We say, “So strategic planning exists in many different shapes and forms—some effective and some less so, and one needs to think strategically about how strategic planning can be made most adequate for the context and issue at hand.”

In introducing the various studies in the issue, we were struck by a theme running through them. This was the theme of “alignment”. One that you would probably think of immediately is the alignment between strategic plans and the long-term visions and priorities set by elected politicians in the authorising structure. But we concluded the editorial by noting a set of alignments that we think are a good idea: “So, strategic planning needs to be aligned with its public governance context (i.e. strategic public governance alignment) and its networks (i.e. strategic network governance alignment), as well as being aligned with departmental plans (i.e. strategic vertical alignment), organisational structures (i.e. strategic horizontal alignment), and strategy implementation activities (i.e. strategic implementation alignment).” All this takes a lot of work to create and sustain. The big issue is, perhaps, how these alignments come into being – does strategic planning coordinate other things or adapt itself or both?

 

Paul Joyce is an Associate at INLOGOV, University of Birmingham. He is also a Visiting Professor in Public Management at Leeds Beckett University. He has a PhD from London School of Economics and Political Science and is currently writing a book on the execution of strategy in the public sector. His recent books include Strategic Management for Public Governance in Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, with Anne Drumaux); Strategic Leadership in the Public Sector (Routledge, 2017, 2nd edition); and Strategic Management in the Public Sector (Routledge, 2015). In 2019 he became the Publications Director of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, IIAS, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.)

Situational irony, coronavirus and the French local elections

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Chris Game

One of Birmingham’s most enterprising theatres is one of its smallest, the Old Joint Stock – a studio theatre above a pub that was once the Birmingham Joint Stock Bank – which found itself an early and particularly unfortunate Covid-19 victim. For the Government’s March 16th announcement of the effective closure of all theatres came literally on the eve of the OJS’s five-day run of The White Plague, the scheduled second leg of a European tour, following a successful launch at Greenwich Theatre the previous week.

The title derives from an IRA-era sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert, whose vengeful Irish molecular biologist creates a particularly discriminating (in both senses) plague, in that, while men are the carriers, it kills only women. The feature of this Ferodo Bridges theatre production, though, is that audience members are given masks or goggles that ‘white out’ their vision, thereby supposedly immersing them in the world of the blinded victims.

I was sorry to miss such a topical example of immersive theatre, but found some consolation in its ill-timed cancellation providing a rather classier example of situational irony than the standard fire station burning down, or the Facebook complaint about how useless Facebook is.

Which was neat, as the same week offered a further, and more democratically pertinent, Covid-19 example of situational irony in France’s municipal elections – partly in the results, but mainly in their happening at all.

President Macron faced a dilemma. French municipal and mayoral elections happen only every six years. This year’s, therefore, would be the first since he became President in 2017, thanks rather amazingly to his newly created LREM party, La République En Marche!, winning a substantial majority in the National Assembly elections.

This, therefore, should have been Macron’s big chance to establish a grassroots power base. In Paris City Hall, Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo, notwithstanding a radical manifesto – including a referendum on Airbnb, plans for a “100 percent bicycle” city centre, and a municipal police force comprising 50% women – looked vulnerable, and there were early visions of scores of LREM mayors and thousands of councillors across the country.

That’s right, thousands – this is France, with over 900,000 candidates contesting seats in over 35,000 villages, towns and cities, though excluding this time, rather sadly, the 757 British citizens currently serving as municipal councillors – which, incidentally, is nearly 300 more than in all seven West Midlands metropolitan boroughs combined.

Macron himself, however, was at less than peak popularity, following months of protests and strikes – by the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement against rising fuel taxes, then by rail and health care workers, teachers and others against under-funding and pension reforms. Added to which, LREM’s Paris mayoral hopeful had had to abandon his candidacy in a sex video scandal – on Valentine’s Day!

And now France was showing the second highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Europe. Yet, having himself just shut down restaurants, museums, big sporting events, most stores, and the whole education system, Macron announced that the coming Sunday’s first round of the two-round municipal elections would go ahead – with strict sanitary conditions imposed, naturally.

The situational irony: the one man who could have saved his very personal party from a probable serious electoral thrashing, by doing the apparently responsible, expected thing and without any loss of face, chose not to.

Having merely a global citizen’s concern with French public health, I was actually quite pleased. Partly because French local elections are always fun to write about, but especially following the outcome of our own head of government’s Flip-Flop Friday.

In the morning of, yes, unlucky Friday 13th, Number 10 insisted – “driven by the experts”, of course – that May 7th’s local, mayoral, and Police & Crime Commissioner elections would go ahead, in defiance of the Electoral Commission’s postponement recommendation and Electoral Administrators’ warning of possibly insufficient polling station staff.

But then, literally within hours, all elections were off – and not, as proposed by the Electoral Commission, until the autumn, but for a year.

What makes French local elections fun? Well, not least – and making Macron’s go-ahead seem even more extraordinary than Johnson’s dithering – because there are just so many of them and they really are so genuinely local.

England’s local government currently comprises 341 principal councils, of which just Rutland, fractionally, has a population of under 40,000. By contrast, over 98% of France’s 35,000+ communes have under 20,000, and over half under 500.

Voting – in larger communes at least – is by proportional representation, potentially over two rounds, and mainly through party lists, which Parity Laws decree must comprise as many women as men, listed alternately. Mayors are indirectly elected: voters electing the council, the council then electing the mayor.

Most impressive attribute of French local elections, though, is that voters like them, and like voting in them, much more than in National Assembly elections. Evidence Exhibit 1: in reporting turnout in even local elections, the French way is to cite not the turnout percentage but ‘Abstentions’ – and then to worry when in 2014 the 36.45% abstentions (they’re also very precise) constituted “a record high” .

Exhibit 2: my favourite English language election preview, bemoaning how coronavirus was “eclipsing the elections in national conversation”, because “87% of the French people are discussing the coronavirus, while ONLY 52% are discussing the upcoming elections” (my emphasis). The last time over half an English electorate were caught discussing upcoming local elections being …?

Nevertheless, there clearly was concern that, even with voters queuing three feet apart, their own pens poised to sign the register, and voting machines wiped with hydro-alcoholic gel, polling stations were almost custom-made germ-spreading venues, particularly for older people.

Still, however, they recorded an estimated abstention rate of “up to 56%”, and a turnout therefore of around 45% – immediately seized on by the media as an “historic low”. In context, though, the last time turnout in our metropolitan district elections, for example, touched 45% in a non-General Election year was 1990 – poll tax year.  The recent average is 33%.

Macron’s decision was surprising, avoidable, predictably politically costly, and – given the second round’s almost immediate cancellation – probably wrong. It was not, though, without its integrity.

 

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.

Making the Green Book green, fair and transformational

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Stephen Hughes

Even after Coronavirus has been resolved, the Government faces significant economic and social challenges. Meeting net zero carbon emissions by 2050, closing the economic gap to those left behind and massive infrastructure investments to improve productivity are urgent tasks.

Getting it done is primarily about political will, but Government is complex, and it helps if the internal drivers for action are aligned with the direction of political will. Otherwise usual practice can override and frustrate the policy priorities.

To this end, it seems that the rules of the Treasury’s “Green Book” are worth examining in detail. The Green Book sets the framework through which all significant public spending proposals are evaluated. The rules are critical in determining what does go ahead and what is blocked.

Here I want to provides an introductory look as to what might need to be changed in the Green Book rules to help deliver the new key priorities of Government. The discussion here is drawn from a longer, more in-depth report, which can be accessed by clicking here.

At its heart, the Green Book uses orthodox neo-classical static equilibrium analysis, aiming to maximise collective “utility” as revealed by market prices as a measure of societal value. It is an excellent tool for deciding between marginal projects set in a fixed landscape, but how well can it manage changes that are designed to change the equilibrium?

To tackle current weaknesses and to help better deliver the policy priorities I conclude that the Green Book and associated guidance should be amended in six main ways:

  1. As evaluation methodology is inherently value laden, set out clearly that the purpose of evaluation is to help deliver transformational change for the economy, reduce income and wealth inequality between groups and regions, and deliver a sustainable environment including meeting carbon reduction targets.
  2. Expand the viability testing of projects to include tests for a sustainable environment as well as public sector finances.
  3. Ensure that projects are not evaluated in isolation from the contribution from all projects and programmes that impact on the social objective being pursued, so its value and priority is seen in the context all alternatives. This process will test the assumption that only additional spending is required to achieve improvement, when changing the structure and use of existing programmes may deliver outcomes more effectively.
  4. In order to assess intergenerational equity, include assessments as a comparator that as appropriate either exclude discount rates or demonstrate no deterioration in the environmental balance sheet.
  5. Include a methodology for assessing the quality of evaluations and business cases in order to test how well projects meet the objectives as an additional challenge to the viability tests.
  6. Get better use of the commercial and management tools available and assess how well this has been achieved in order to reduce the failure rate of public projects.

In addition, a new Government should consider other changes to the way policy is developed and evaluated, especially:

  1. Requiring all public spending, capital and revenue (not just new programmes and projects) to be subjected to the new evaluation criteria (transformational change, greater equity and environmental sustainability) to test its fitness for purpose. Ensuring that current projects are tested as well as future ones.
  2. Making allocations of new infrastructure funds conditional on a review of existing spend to ensure that it also prioritises the new objectives.
  3. Create carbon budgets for every Government Department for both their own spend and for those parts of the economy they are responsible for. These can be used to test environmental viability with the same absolute rigour that applies to funding.
  4. Create or consolidate central support resources, to provide critical technical advice on the use and application of new evaluation techniques, to assess the quality of their application and to ensure that proper commercial considerations have been built into project design and delivery.

Here I have provided an introductory look as to what might need to be changed in the Green Book rules to help deliver the new key priorities of Government. I hope it stimulates debate and helps make the needed changes, as the issues we are concerned about are urgent and can’t wait.

 

Stephen Hughes

Stephen Hughes is the former Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council. He has worked at local government associations and run finances at Islington, Brent and Birmingham. Since leaving Birmingham he has been a consultant and is currently a Non-Executive Director at HS2, the VOA and chairs Housing 21, and Associate at INLOGOV.

Planning and Politics: Opposite Political parties, same local economic development agenda?

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Milagros Gimenez

If you read Argentine newspapers or watch national TV news you might think that the political polarisation (left-right) in Argentina is extreme. Consequently, it is expected that this political polarisation translates to action, and that different types of public policy are designed that are strongly influenced by the ideology of the political party in charge. However, my experience working as a consultant in strategic planning in local governments in the North of Argentina suggests there are more similarities in the type of public policies than the literature suggests. To understand this seeming contradiction, I addressed this relationship in my master dissertation, submitted as part of the MSc Public Management at INLOGOV.

Argentina is a federal country divided into 24 provinces and more than 1300 local governments, and is one of the most decentralised countries in Latin America. After the last constitutional amendment in 1994, local governments have, by law, (defined in each of the provincial constitutions) a wide range of competences regarding not only the usual issues tasked at the local level (such as public street lighting and waste treatment), but also the promotion of the local economic development. Unfortunately, there is an incredible gap in the literature about the role of local governments in Argentina and an even bigger gap in our understanding of the role of local government in promoting local economic development.

My research explores what types of initiatives influence the extent to which local governments in Argentina promote local economic development and if, when an opposing political party is in charge at the local level, similar strategies will be carried out (shaped by the party ideology).

Interestingly, even though local governments have the competence to decide which initiatives they design, local governments are leading the local economic development (LED) area with similar strategic plans and almost identical initiatives. Local governments under comparison in this research have introduced initiatives to improve the employability of the population (labour supply) and for increasing labour demand using the municipal competencies, such as the use of land and creating new local sales channels. Moreover, the LED initiatives are, noticeably, identical; the Mayors‘ speeches communicate using a vocabulary similar to that of the political party to which they belong. These findings challenge the conventional idea that opposing political parties prioritise different public policies, an idea that is particularly prevalent in a country with strong party polarisation like Argentina.

Nevertheless, the next question is why how we can interpret these outcomes.

My research suggests four possible explanations, which can be the basis for future research. First, it could be that there is no political polarisation. Second, the cases may be outliers. Third, this may be a technical agenda rather than a political one. Fourth, and the most likely based on the evidence that I already have, is that local governments do not have `real` autonomy to decide LED strategy. That means LGs in Argentina in LED are not autonomous when it comes to the ‘real‘ distribution of power/competences/budget. With this in mind, LGs have two alternatives. First, they accept the LED initiatives promoted by other levels of governments or other actors. For example, public employment service was promoted at the national level and covers funding for the PES programme. The benefit of this is that these options are comparatively cheaper, as they involve investing only in human management resources. The downside is that local government does not have much influence on the initiative´s design and fewer opportunities to contextualise the programme to local needs (as the local economic development approach suggests). The second alternative is to develop and fund their initiatives. These initiatives are in general based on local strengths, for example close relationships with the local entrepreneurs.

In summary, this research provides evidence and valuable clues for further research about local governments’ room for manoeuvre in designing LED policies in a decentralised country such as Argentina and the relationships between politics and planning in a seeming polarised world.

Milagros Gimenez  is  an Argentinian economist, Chevening scholar and studying on INLOGOV’s MSc in Public Management.