Paul Ward

Continuing our celebration of the dissertations of our Degree Apprentices.  The use of data and data analytics is becoming increasingly important for all organisations – an essential asset to help effectively manage and transform local places.  For a truly holistic data view of a city or place, multi-agency approaches to partnerships and data sharing are essential.  What are the key governance considerations regarding a place-wide approach to data analytics?   

This study found support for the concept of multi-agency partnerships and data sharing.  Several barriers to data sharing were identified, including technical, organisational, political, economic and legal constraints. 

The key governance factors to consider include the need to truly understand the problem which data is being asked to solve, to acknowledge and address the barriers as they are understood, to align overall governance with existing multi-agency governance structures and to create the relevant capacity for strategy and leadership regarding data and data analytics for the area.

Key findings:

• There needs to be senior level drive and ownership for data that will champion its use within an organisation and wider city, but in most cities there is not a ‘go to’ person or function that has lead responsibility and can provide guidance on data sharing across organisations.
• Local partnerships need to consider the purpose, vision and strategy for data use, the objectives that data sharing will achieve, how the public can engage and understand data, and how far organisational cultures support effective data use.  Data sharing governance should be explicitly identified within existing multi-agency governance structures. 
• Existing data sharing agreements are generally not designed to deal with the frequency, level and types of data that now need to be shared. 
• Councils could lead the ‘democratisation’ of data as a public asset
• The study identifies two key elements of successful place-wide data sharing: a senior role identified as taking ownership and leadership responsibility for data, and a data strategy which defines the city’s ambition and vision for the use of data.

Background

Public authorities collect, hold and process a significant amount of data which could be used to make services more targeted and effective through design, delivery and transformation to improve outcomes whilst delivering efficiencies.  The 2020 National Data Strategy seeks to make better use of data across businesses, government, civil society and individuals. 

Data sharing has been in the spotlight as a result of the need for analysis to support interventions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the increasing public awareness of data and data privacy, and work to encourage greater public uptake of digital services.  For example, at the start of the lockdown period data was used to identify families in the case study city likely to become more vulnerable because of lockdown.  The data had never been combined in this way before.

There is a growing need for a sustainable model and framework for data sharing across multiple agencies when considering the management and development of towns, cities and regions.

What we knew already

Organisations learn and develop when part of the organisation acquires knowledge that they recognise as important to the rest of the organisation, distribute and interpret this information efficiently and has effective organisational ‘memory’.

Data sharing can encourage innovation and help solve sector-wide challenges.  However, trust in the use of public data is very low with many believing that they have no control over their personal data. A more trustworthy approach to public data is recommended by giving citizens more control over the use of their data.

Multi-agency approaches can deliver value and outcomes that would not be possible to deliver working individually.  However, there are significant challenges such as a lack of willingness to collaborate, protecting individual interests, local rivalries, governance, funding, communication, and conflicting priorities.   

Multi- agency information sharing is difficult to achieve because of multiple barriers which may be technical (such as technically incompatible IT system, data standards or security requirements), organisational (such as risk aversion or lack of trust), political (such as avoidance of scrutiny, economic (lack of resources), and legal (concerns about the law around data sharing).

Frameworks for data sharing
Despite a number of these barriers being identified over twenty years ago they still resonant today. Existing data sharing agreements are, by design, very technical and detailed documents these do not address the use of data to understand policy problems.  They are generally not designed to deal with the frequency, level and types of data that now need to be shared.  In addition, in most cities there is not a ‘go to’ person or function that has lead responsibility and can provide guidance on data sharing across organisations.

Multi-agency working and governance

Every council area has important multi-agency partnerships in place, such as Health and Wellbeing Boards and Local Enterprise Partnerships.  Most of these are established in a fairly traditional bureaucratic style with clear lines of authority, very detailed reporting arrangements and formalised decision making.  The study found no desire for specific governance structures to be established purely for data sharing, instead this should be explicitly identified within existing multi-agency governance structures.  The governance of these structures may need to evolve beyond the current bureaucratic model.

Local partnerships need to consider the purpose, vision and strategy for data use, the objectives that data sharing will achieve, how the public can engage and understand data, and how far organisational cultures support effective data use.  There needs to be senior level drive and ownership for data that will champion its use within an organisation and wider city.  

Councils could lead the ‘democratisation’ of data as a public asset – moving beyond allowing access to the data and making it easy for people to understand the data use under principles of transparency, integrity, accountability, and stakeholder participation. 

Examples of local data sharing partners

Conclusions

The study identifies two key elements of successful place-wide data sharing: a senior role identified as taking ownership and leadership responsibility for data, and a data strategy which defines the city’s ambition and vision for the use of data.

The findings suggest that the key governance factors to consider include the need to truly understand the problem which data is being asked to solve, to acknowledge and address the barriers as they are understood, to align overall governance with existing multi-agency governance structures and to create the relevant capacity for strategy and leadership regarding data and data analytics for the city.

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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 Paul Ward and supervised by Dr Louise Reardon.  The project included detailed interviews with ten members and officers related to data sharing in an urban area. 

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

Gemma Carmichael

Continuing our National Apprenticeship Week celebrations, this dissertation explores what “good” leadership looks like in public service. The study of leadership within public services has evolved over the last twenty years.  Leadership continues to be understood as imperative within public services, particularly around driving reform.  There has been a shift from understanding leadership as ‘heroic’, towards an understanding of leadership as transformative.

This study provides insight into the way in which leadership is understood and constructed within public services today.  Good leadership is now understood to be transformative and strategic – with an overwhelming rejection of traditional ‘heroic’ and ‘trait’ models of leadership within public services.  

Key points

• There is a collective rejection of the role of ‘heroic’ styles of leadership within this literature.
• Leadership is not borne of a character trait, but rather can be developed in individuals.
• A key aspect of ‘good’ leadership is a positive relationship between a leader and followers. 
• Leadership is necessary for the creation and implementation of vision within an organisation.
• The role of leadership has become more important in a de-centralised, strategic state.
• Leadership is essential to driving public service reform.

Background

Over the last century, questions such as ‘what is leadership?’, ‘what makes a good leader?’ and ‘what are the benefits of leadership?’ have been explored. Over the last three decades, there has been an increased interest in leadership specific to public services.   This project uses ‘integrative review’ to analyse four core texts within the area of public service leadership and academic thinking, highlighting persistent themes within the literature and demonstrating how it contributes to understandings around leadership within public services.

What we knew already

Historically, leadership had been theorised as a collection of character ‘traits’ (such as heroism and bravery) possessed by a select few, primarily men.  These traits would be ‘God given’ or naturally acquired and would emerge at such points that leadership was required, for example during political turmoil. 

The mid-20th century saw the emergence of behavioural theories of leadership which demonstrated a shift from understanding leadership as something one ‘is’ to something one ‘does’.  Research here focused upon behaviours associated with leadership in different contexts and the desirability of such behaviours.  This work led to the emergence of further theories of leadership, such as situational and transformational. Situational theories of leadership were concerned with the way in which leaders would adapt leadership style according to varying contexts and transformational theories focused on the way in which leaders influence followers.  Transformational theories of leadership explored leaders’ interactions with others within an organisation and how leadership was co-constructed by various agents.  Most recently, social constructive perspectives consider leadership as a product of collective meaning making, developed on an ongoing basis between leaders, managers and/or followers.  These perspectives create space for consideration of the wider cultural and social implications of leadership, for example around gender or ethnicity.

Research focussing on public service leadership aims to take into account the many differences between the public and private sector, for example in terms of accountability and ownership. 

Good leadership is not ‘heroic’

The research explicitly rejects the role of ‘heroic’ and ‘trait’ leadership within the public sector, which is seen as ineffective compared to more collaborative styles of leadership in the context of complex, adaptive problems facing society in a decentralised, knowledge intensive context this form of leadership.  

Leadership is therefore seen as something that can be developed and that public service organisations have a duty to develop: leaders are ‘made’ rather than ‘born’.  That said, some personal characteristics can contribute to ‘good’ leadership, such as integrity, diplomacy and the ability to handle conflict.  This reflects the wider (private sector focussed) literature on leadership.

Good leadership is transformative

Transformative leadership can be understood as a way by which leaders can change or influence the goals of others.  Here, there is a rejection of command and control forms of leadership, aiming for commitment (rather than simply compliance) from ‘followers’.  Good leadership is seen as inspiring people through driving values and vision, persuading others, listening to others and learning from them.

The promotion of transformational leadership styles however may be problematic as for one individual to hold responsibility over ‘influencing’ and ‘changing’ the behaviour and attitudes of others is, in a way, heroic. A move away from ‘heroic’ leadership could be said to democratise the process of leadership, making it an aspect of organisational life that is accessible to those who are willing to develop, but how far transformative leadership symbolises this democratisation is questionable. The fundamental principal of changing followers’ attitudes and beliefs may still suggest an element of control on the part of a leader and the importance of character traits associated with having the ability to influence individuals, such as confidence.

Good leadership is strategic

There is a marked emphasis on leadership as strategic – the ability to plan ahead and enrol others in transforming the organisation.  Leadership is understood as essential to developing, implementing and managing strategic plans.   Leaders are important in setting the cultural ‘tone’ of an organisation and acting strategically to achieve a shared future vision.  Looking to the future is particularly challenging in circumstances whereby resources are scarce, and demand continues to rise.  Critically, this understanding of good leadership demonstrates the need for public services to have a greater function than just to ‘survive’.  

This project notes the lack of research on ways of promoting the role of non-leaders within an organisation in developing strategy.  For example, this could developing strategy in a way that involves stakeholders, such as trade unions or staff groups, to make use of the knowledge and wisdom of ‘non-leaders’.

Leadership is important for driving reform

Leadership is imperative to public sector reform and as a key driver in enhancing organisational performance, establishing and promoting values and building relationships in order to drive change.  Leadership is important to managing strategic issues (developments or events that risk the achievement of key goals) in order to realise the organisation’s strategic goals.

The challenges, expectations and demands of public services are changing, thus leaders have a responsibility to ensure that public services can rise to each of these.  Leadership can be understood as a means by which stability is provided in a period of change.  The findings here echo arguments that flow through the wider literature, for example that leadership is imperative to driving organisations change and reform.

Challenging leadership theories

The textual analysis carried out within this research has demonstrated that the role of leadership within the public sector remains unchallenged.  There is no coverage of the limitations of leadership in the core texts reviewed. This is reflective of the wider literature, whereby leadership is accepted as a phenomenon and, though attempts are made to define and understand it, challenges to it remain scarce.  The most powerful challenges to leadership include that leadership serves to reinforce existing social beliefs and structures about the necessity of hierarchy, and that leadership enables the maintenance of the status quo.

A core criticism of leadership theory is that it is underpinned by the assumption that leadership is a while, male construct.  Black and minority ethnic people remain underrepresented in the top 5,000 leadership roles across the public and voluntary sectors.  In addition, women’s leadership is often viewed less favourably because traditional ‘leadership behaviour’ is not desirable in women. The exclusion of any discussion around gender or ethnicity in any one of the texts dismisses the reality of leadership for those who are often excluded from leadership roles, and the wider conversation around promoting inclusion.

Conclusions

This research has argued that understanding ‘good’ leadership within public services is increasingly important in an age of public service reform. It has outlined a distinct effort within the literature to distance ideas of ‘good’ leadership within public services from ‘heroic’ ideas of leadership and to align ‘good’ leadership with transformative ideologies of leadership. It has also demonstrated that leadership is a key driver of good public service organisation.

Furthermore, this research has highlighted that this role of leadership within public services has not been challenged, nor has there been consideration into the potential problems associated with leadership. This research has argued that the way in which leadership is constructed within the literature has real life implications for the reality of leadership within public service organisations, arguing that further research into leadership would benefit from being both follower-centric and providing more critique of the ‘leader’ role.

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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 Gemma Carmichael and supervised by Professor Vivien Lowndes. 

For further information

Please contact the Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV)
Jason Lowther, at [email protected]

Saiqa Khan

This week we are showcasing some of the recent dissertations produced by our Degree Apprentices. Much of the work councils do involves delivering projects.  Project managers increasingly seek to apply an ‘agile’ project management approach as a more collaborative way of working, inclusive of elements that encourage coproduction to develop services that meet citizen needs.  Some of the key strengths of agile project management are that the staff closest to a problem are the ones best placed to solve it, and that staff that are empowered and trusted to do their jobs are more productive than staff that are not.  

This project explores how council governance, culture and leadership affects the adoption of different project management approaches and hence the effectiveness of delivery.

Key points

• Project management approaches were traditionally linear, but more iterative and flexible ‘agile’ approaches may be more effective and efficient for some projects.  
• Hierarchical structures with high levels of ‘control’ cultures remain dominant within Local Authorities, so they are often comfortable with the traditional linear approach to project management.
• Some councils develop supportive and encouraging leadership styles able to balance the need for transparency and accountability whilst also creating an environment where staff feel empowered to take risks and be innovative.  Many councils developed a more collaborative way of working in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• ‘Agile’ project management approaches are not understood by many council staff, who may associate this with ineffective governance mechanisms. 
• Decisions about which project management approach to use are highly influenced by tradition (“the way it’s always been done”), training, and member/manager preferences, rather than the needs of the project.
• More effective project management will need project staff to have the time and training to explore ‘agile’ approaches, and leaders placing their trust in staff within streamlined governance arrangements.

What we knew already

A ‘project’ is a temporary activity which should result in a unique product, service or outcome; project management concerns how one plans, organises and manages the staff and resources available to complete a set project within an agreed timescale.

Traditional project management approaches (known as ‘waterfall’) are linear, where each process group is executed as specified and all stages of the project follow a sequential configuration.  Here, the product/service is delivered as defined by the scope, which is created at the start of the project.  In contrast to the traditional approach, the ‘agile’ approach is iterative and flexible.  The project team work on small stages of the project and obtain customer feedback/ agreement before moving on to the next iteration. The planning adapts to the needs of the project and understands that change in one area may be connected to another stage of the project, thus providing a high level of adaptability and flexibility.   An agile approach is particularly appropriate if uncertainty is high and the requirements of the project are expected to change frequently.

Organisational culture is the underlying way employees are expected to behave and operate within an organisation based on shared values and beliefs.  There are many frameworks exploring culture in the academic literature.   This project adopted Schneider’s cultural model, which identifies four distinct “core cultures” by using two dimensions: content (what the organisation pays attention to) and process (an organisation’s approach to decision making), as illustrated in figure 1.

Figure 1  Schneider’s cultural model

		Process
		Personal	Impersonal
Content	Actuality	Collaboration	Control
	Possibility	Cultivation	Competence

Projects are affected by the culture of the rest of the organisation, so understanding the organisational culture is essential to successful project management.  Different levels of culture can impact on project delivery: corporate, project organisational and project team.  The last two have a direct influence on project delivery and performance as they can influence how decisions are made, especially in the case of a multi-agency project team. 

Hierarchical structures with high levels of control remain dominant within Local Authorities.  This aligns with Schneider ‘control’ classification of culture involving very structured environments where documentation has great importance.  Local Authorities have historically been comfortable with the traditional approach to project management as this fits well with this type of organisational culture and reduces the need to delegate authority to project managers.  However, organisations that have high hierarchical structures and bureaucratic processes might be inflexible towards decision making, which impacts on project management and may decelerate the decision making process.

This research involved an online survey of 214 officers involved in projects in a council, a cultural questionnaire sent to 66 members of staff, observations from a live website development project underway within the organisation, and interviews with ten council officers.

Theme 1:  Traditional approaches are most widely used and understood

The research found that 63% of respondents used traditional project management approaches such as PRINCE2, in comparison to 32% who used an agile approach to deliver projects.  An unexpected finding in the research was the lack of understanding of what is meant by an ‘agile’ project management approach and the incorrect perceptions that people associate with it – such as a belief that agile project have no effective governance mechanisms. 

Decisions about which project management approach to use were highly influenced by tradition (“the way it’s always been done”), training, and member/manager preferences (figure 2).

Figure 2  What factors are most important in determining your decision on which project management approach to use?
(‘1’ being the most important)

Training is a key issue.  Interestingly, ‘self-help’ learning approaches, such as e-Learning or information on the intranet, were viewed as insufficient for staff to feel confident in trying approaches other than PRINCE 2 when delivering a project.

Theme 2:  Culture influences project management

Culture is a key influencer when project management approaches are chosen within local authority environments.  Public sector requirements for accountability and transparency can lead to high levels of control with hierarchical structures and high levels of bureaucracy.  This ‘command and control’ culture and complex governance results in projects being delivered using a traditional project management approach. 

Hierarchical, bureaucratic cultures can negatively impact on project effectiveness.  Risk aversion can filter down the organisation, resulting in employees working within low autonomy levels which curtail their ability to be innovative.  Projects can be delayed by the complex system of gateways for approval, updates, and decisions, which are often not tailored to the size of a project. 

If the culture is collaborative, employees feel more empowered and are more comfortable with trying new ways of delivering a project and are more likely to use an agile approach to deliver projects.  Some councils develop supportive and encouraging leadership styles which were found better able to balance the need for the transparency and accountability whilst also creating an environment where staff feel empowered to take risks and be innovative.  Interestingly, many councils developed a more collaborative way of working in response to the Covid-19 pandemic – it is not yet clear whether this will continue in future. 

Theme 3:  Trying new approaches takes time and leadership

To explore non-traditional approaches effectively, staff must have the time to explore options other than the ones that are ‘tried and tested’.  They need the capacity, knowledge and confidence to explore adopting non-traditional approaches to project management.

A major challenge in investigating more efficient project management approaches can be the resistance to change from the organisation’s leadership. Managers and members will need to become comfortable with giving up some control and placing their trust in staff delivering the project which may appear to leave the council open to a higher level of risk.  Under the agile approach, it remains important to establish appropriate checks, for example to ensure financial spend is in line with budgets.

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About the project

The research was a Master’s dissertation as part of the MSc in Public Management and Leadership, completed by Saiqa Khan and supervised by Dr Louise Reardon. 

For further information

Please contact the Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV)
Jason Lowther, at [email protected]