Thinking about the Earthquakes in Turkey: A Call for Local Democracy

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Picture: FCDO/Russell Watkins

Professor Rabia Karakaya Polat

The earthquakes that took place in Maraş province of Turkey on February 6, together with the terrible destruction they caused, also led to the questioning of state institutions and capacity. An important dimension of the subject is the relationship between central and local governments in the country. These earthquakes and what happened afterwards have been instrumental in questioning the overcentralized structure of the state in Turkey[i]. Discussions centered on why the earthquakes were so devastating[ii] as well as the inadequacies in the post-earthquake response[iii].

In Turkey, the authority to issue city planning and zoning permits belongs to the central administration. The authority to carry out urban transformation processes in existing settlements also rests with the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, which is the relevant ministry of the central government. Therefore, the possibilities of municipalities to make cities earthquake resistant are very limited. The authorities of municipalities, such as controlling and licensing the buildings against earthquakes, are not used effectively enough.

Turkish people have witnessed that the excessively centralized structure also hindered the post-earthquake rescue efforts. It was not possible for local actors to take the initiative and act. The lack of timely mobilization of local capacity increased the loss of life. It is very important that not only local governments, but also civil society mobilize in such crises. However, there was a process in which non-governmental organizations and volunteers carrying out aid campaigns were also targeted[iv]. In a televised speech to the nation, President Erdoğan complained about critical news and declared that he planned to hold critical voices to account. Later, access to Twitter was throttled while rescue operations were still underway. The government claimed that it did so to prevent “disinformation”. Some government actors and their supporters also raised concerns about the extent to which public support and fund-raising has been directed at civil society organizations like Ahbap, rather than the government’s own relief organization, AFAD.

In fact, we have witnessed such challenges to local actors in the face of complex and multiple crises by the central government before. For example, during the coronavirus pandemic, the efforts of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality to collect aid were stopped and the donations amounting to 6.2 million liras collected in the bank accounts were confiscated and transferred to the central government bodies[v]. The 3.5 million lira aid collected by the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality was blocked. The solidarity campaigns of municipalities were evaluated by President Erdogan as “the logic of being a state within a state”[vi]. Determining the policies and practices related to the pandemic from a single center instead of being shaped according to local conditions increased the negative effects of the pandemic on the society.

Municipalities were also left alone in the refugee issue, one of the deepest crises Turkey has experienced recently. Even municipalities with a refugee population of up to a quarter of their own population did not  receive a penny of additional support from the central budget[vii]. Moreover, municipalities do not know what to do about refugees, as there is no clear legislation and coherent policy in this area. While the discourse and policy towards refugees shifts from hospitality and religious solidarity to ‘voluntary’ return, municipalities are forced to cope with this uncertainty[viii]. Despite this, they develop and implement creative and entrepreneurial projects in cooperation with civil society to meet the needs of refugees and integrate them into society[ix].

The European Charter of Local Self-Government[x], signed by Turkey in 1992, obliges the parties to implement the basic rules that guarantee the political, administrative and financial independence of local governments. Despite this Charter, which provides for the recognition of the principle of local self-government in domestic legislation and, if possible, in the constitution, trustees appointed from the center serve instead of those elected[xi]. At the local elections on March 31, 2019, the HDP (Peoples Democratic Party) won 65 municipalities in the Kurdish-majority provinces. While six of the elected mayors were not given their certificates of election, trustees were appointed by the central government to 3 metropolitan, 5 provincial, 45 district and 12 town municipalities. While the municipalities are under such tutelage in regions where Kurdish voters are concentrated, a politically motivated judicial process hangs like the sword of Damocles over the head of Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s elected mayor[xii].

Earthquake is one of the realities of Turkey. However, the strict centralist structure and the authoritarian regime, which further increases its negative impact, prevent local initiatives, resilience and solidarity not only in earthquakes but also in all kinds of crises that arise today. Complex crises such as pandemics, mass migration and climate change that we have faced in recent years and will face in the future are far from being problems that a single actor can deal with at a single level. It is not possible to deal with these crises without vertical cooperation between local, national and international levels of government and horizontal cooperation networks between state and non-state actors such as civil society organizations.

Although we can see the damages of over-centralized administration most clearly in times of crisis, the cost of not having resilient and participatory local government that meets local demands is much greater than we think. Local governments cannot be ‘local’ enough because they are financially dependent on the center and because of the arbitrary and partisan practices of the central government. If this earthquake is to be a start, taking big steps to strengthen local democracy should also be a part of it.

Rabia Karakaya Polat is a professor of political science at the Department of International Relations at Işık University (Istanbul). She recently completed a British Academy-funded joint research project, with Prof. Vivien Lowndes, analysing local refugee policies in Turkey. She published numerous articles in journals such as Security Dialogue, South European Society and Politics, Citizenship Studies, Parliamentary Affairs, Government Information Quarterly, Local Government Studies and Journal of Refugee Studies. Currently, she is working on refugee integration policies at the local level.

[i] Cemal Burak Tansel (2020) Reproducing Authoritarian Neoliberalism in Turkey: Urban Governance and State Restructuring in the Shadow of Executive Centralization, Authoritarian Neoliberalism, Routledge, 88-103

[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/podcasts/the-daily/turkey-buildings-earthquake-construction.html

[iii] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/opinion/erdogan-turkey-earthquake.html

[iv] https://www.mei.edu/publications/turkeys-government-prioritizing-politics-over-policy-its-earthquake-response

[v] https://www.duvarenglish.com/turkish-govt-confiscated-millions-collected-for-covid-19-victims-by-istanbul-municipality-news-60396

[vi] https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/04/turkey-erdogan-goodness-claims-may-backfire-amid-coronavirus.html

[vii] https://inlogov.com/2021/01/08/no-powers-no-funds-how-municipalities-are-working-creatively-to-address-the-needs-of-syrian-refugees-in-turkey/

[viii] Vivien Lowndes & Rabia Karakaya Polat (2020) How do local actors interpret, enact and contest policy? An analysis of local government responses to meeting the needs of Syrian refugees in Turkey, Local Government Studies, 48:3, 546-569

[ix] Rabia Karakaya Polat & Vivien Lowndes (2022). How does multi-level governance create capacity to address refugee needs, and with what limitations? an analysis of municipal responses to Syrian refugees in Istanbul. Journal of Refugee Studies, 35(1), 51-73

[x] https://rm.coe.int/european-charter-of-local-self-government-eng/1680a87cc3

[xi] https://bianet.org/english/world/259590-council-of-europe-finds-appointment-of-trustees-in-turkey-contrary-to-international-law

[xii] https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/14/turkey-court-convicts-istanbul-mayor-ekrem-imamoglu

A Japanese view of Jeremy’s budget

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Chris Game

I had an interesting Budget week. I was part-hosting a Japanese academic colleague – Prof Toshihiko Ishihara (Kwansei Gakuin University) and his wife, Midori – making their first overseas trip since Covid. They briefly visited Birmingham, where Toshi was an erstwhile INLOGOV Associate, but were based in London, where I’d agreed to organise a theatre visit.

I’d booked tickets for a well-reviewed modern-day play, Romeo and Julie, loosely based on one of Shakespeare’s. Single-sentence synopsis: Julie – a bright, Cambridge University-bound, aspiring astrophysicist – is emotionally torn between uni and her affection for young single dad, Romeo, effectively sole carer for his baby daughter afflicted with Poonami.  

No, the Poonami doesn’t feature in Shakespeare’s version, but, researcher that I am, I’d discovered it’s a real medical thing, meaning affected babies’ sudden, massive, uncontrollable bowel movements. Better still, that etymologically Poonami derives directly from the Japanese tsunami – a sudden, volcanic, unstoppable wave. My guests were delighted – and the play too was excellent.   

The following Wednesday, however, was Budget Day – followed by the Birmingham Post’s impassioned coverage of our region’s “Power grab”, the “seismic shift in devolution as West Midland leaders take more control from Whitehall”, etc. (pp.1,7) – guaranteeing some amused but tricky questions from someone who both lives with and studies serious mayoral governance.

It was the national news headlines, though, that I was obliged to address first, and the UK’s “unsustainable … biggest since the war … tax burden” – characterised by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as something horrendous and to be avoided, certainly by a Conservative Government, at almost any costs.

We’re not Basil Fawltys, but my Japanese friends and I tend not to mention ‘the war’ that much. Anyway, the timescale wasn’t really the issue. It was that highest-level tax forecast of 37.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – and yes, we do make life harder by colluding in almost invariably labelling it a “tax burden”, rather than, say, the “quality-of-life price” that the tax helps pay for.

What Toshi and other Japanese students of these things invariably query is: why the excitement/horror over a tax-to-GDP ratio currently almost identical to theirs? Yes, ours is indeed a higher ‘burden’ than those of, say, the US or Switzerland. But, as shown in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Chart A, both we – at roughly 34% of GDP – and Japan are currently in the bottom third of “advanced economies”, and even at a forecast 37.7% we’d still be mid-table and some way BELOW both most sizeable West European countries, plus bits of Eastern Europe too.

It’s interesting. Pollsters never ask us if we prefer NOT being an ‘advanced economy’ – you know, one with fully staffed and functioning health and social services, decently funded schools, reliable public transport, etc.?  And I’m not sure how collectively we’d answer. Clearly, these things do cost money, yet we obviously like visiting these higher-taxed places for our holidays.  Not Denmark perhaps – top, with its 47% tax ‘burden’ – but France, Austria, Italy, Scandinavia, Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc.

It’s presumably at least partly these countries’ ‘quality of life’ (QoL) that attracts us – which, unsurprisingly, correlates broadly with ‘tax burden’. There are several QoL indexes, one being Numbeo’s. It’s not the most methodologically sophisticated, but it does produce nice maps, collectively summarising its measures, which include purchasing power, safety, health care, cost of living, and pollution.

Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland are currently top, scoring nearly 200 QoL points. Then the usual suspects – Finland, Iceland, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Japan (13th) etc. – down to No.21 – UK 166.4, just ahead of Croatia. Disappointing, but could be worse – bottom at 84th is red Nigeria, not with ‘nul points’ exactly, but only 40.

The underlying, systemic problem, obviously not mentioned by Chancellor Hunt, is precisely his Department: His Majesty’s Treasury – first time I’ve typed that! – and its overbearing central funding control, currently exercised politically and communicated by him. And formerly by, among others, one George Osborne – which is where the irony starts. When Chancellor of the Exchequer, Osborne launched, and currently chairs, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP) – self-described as “the leading voice of business and civic leaders across the North”.

And currently a very shouty voice. For, within days of Hunt’s Budget pronouncements, along came Osborne with his NPP ‘wrecking ball’ – a clumsily titled but potentially headline-making report: Fiscal DevoNation – The Blueprint for How to Devolve Tax to the Regions of England. The Treasury, he and his Powerhouse chums now reckon – and as local government has complained for years – far from being the provider of solutions, is itself the problem. Its voice is the overwhelmingly dominant one in what Osborne nowadays sees as a damagingly over-centralised fiscal system. Just like when he was boss.

The NPP’s solutions involve, at least eventually, full-scale fiscal devolution. The “most unfair” council tax – with its outdated property values – stamp duty (paid on purchasing residential property), and business rates should all go, eliminating the Treasury’s all-powerful role altogether. The at least eventual replacement, following a comprehensive revaluation of all homes, would be a locally set land value tax, plus three new council tax ‘super bands’ for the most valuable properties, with revenue to be shared across the country.

Yep – that’s radical, but there’s more – like the localised hotel tax that numerous other countries already have, which NPP reckons could raise an annual £5.5 millions for the Lake District alone.

But I digress – from what my Japanese visitors really wanted to talk about: that Budget highlight of a “seismic shift” in devolution, to the West Midlands and Greater Manchester regions, and their elected Mayors, Andys Street and Burnham, who will get new multi-year devolution funding deals, and be allowed to retain business rates – to be followed by further such agreements across England.

At the time of writing, there hadn’t been a direct response from Northern Powerhouse as to how far down the ‘full-scale fiscal devolution’ road this might take us. As for a Japanese reaction, well, this blog is already overlong; but their response would probably start with the country’s written constitution, and the local government chapter guaranteeing its role and “the principle of local autonomy”. It’s an ultra-crude summary, but basically the national state does currency, diplomacy and defence, and pretty much everything else is left to the 47 prefectures and 1,700 or so municipalities. And heading those municipalities … directly elected mayors!

As the American phrase puts it: ‘Way to go’ – in both senses.  

_____________________

This is an adapted version of an article that appeared in the March 23rd edition of the Birmingham Post.

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.

Forging an alliance with the NHS

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Cllr Ketan Sheth

If local councils and the NHS do not work together as trusted equal partners, our residents are the ones that lose out.

In Brent, our local communities were among those most affected by the first and second waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the local hospital, Northwick Park, making the national headlines having been caught in the eye of the storm, which acutely demonstrated the terrible impact of health inequalities on real lives.

We are, of course, particularly reliant on our NHS partners to provide emergency services, planned elective care, and a full and complex mix of outpatient and specialist services, including mental health and community services.

Likewise, NHS staff are reliant on local councils (and other local partners) playing their part in delivering a seamless patient pathway, that can go from a first GP visit right through to a tailored social care package.

Delivering high quality, equitable health services take detailed planning and a solid grasp on the needs of local communities.

In Brent, we have seen increasing levels of partnership working with the local NHS trust. Collaboration is made easier because London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust (LNWH) shows a refreshingly genuine commitment to gaining a deep appreciation of the views, concerns, and perspectives of our local populations. This is reflected in the development of the trust’s new five-year strategy. 

In addition to undertaking vast analysis of public health, demographic and other data relating to our communities, LNWH sought engagement right from the start. The trust co-created a strategy with the help of almost 900 local community members and 40 representatives from local authority and partner organisations. Over 2,300 staff also contributed, many of who live locally and reflect the diverse population of our local communities and are frontline NHS staff who know all too well the importance of good partnership working.

I hosted one of the open forums for the trust where the local residents had an opportunity to say what they felt should be the trust’s priorities. Working in partnership with local communities and improving the quality of care came out as key themes.

This is not surprising. In Brent, our communities experience significant health inequalities when compared with regional and national levels. Local councils like Brent can only provide so much support to address these issues, so we must work with NHS partners to combat health inequalities right across our health and social care system. Indeed, we are now seeing an increased trust present at place-based and neighbourhood meetings.

One of the biggest challenges facing LNWH is the level of emergency activity. As a local council, we must work collaboratively to address systemic issues like this that the trust cannot resolve alone. Indeed, the emergency pathway is a key touchpoint for the most deprived people in Brent and partnership working presents us with a real opportunity to connect them earlier with more appropriate support in the community.

The trust’s discharge processes are perhaps the most reliant on partnership working — the NHS isn’t just its hospitals. It’s vital that we work collaboratively across organisations — the rest of the local NHS like GPs, district nursing, mental health and social care — to help the trust improve the flow of patients through its hospitals.

LNWH has called its new five-year strategy ‘Our Way Forward’. It sets out a welcome commitment to local authorities, communities, and people. We must take joint responsibility for Our Way Forward, because by working together we will forge a far better health outcomes for our residents than we can alone.

Cllr Ketan Sheth is Chair of North West London Join Health Scrutiny Committee

Mission Possible? 

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Jason Lowther

With under 700 days to the next UK general election, political parties are busy developing their manifesto documents.  In February, Labour leader Keir Starmer made a major speech laying out his “five missions for a better Britain”.   How do these five missions relate to local government?  And is the turn to “mission driven” government likely to work?

The five missions vary in their level of specificity and challenge.  Securing “the highest sustained growth in the G7, with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country…” is a little vague but likely to be difficult, especially given we are currently ranked 6 out of 7 in terms of output per worker.  Mission #2, “make Britain a clean energy superpower”, accelerating the move to zero-carbon electricity from 2035 to 2030, is specific but very challenging.  Mission #3, reform of health and social care and reducing health inequalities, will require a re-focus from secondary (hospital) care to social care and addressing the social determinants of health.  Mission #4 is about community safety, and likely to involve more community policing.  Finally, mission #5 is to “break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage” through reform to the childcare and education systems.

Local government potentially has important roles in each of the five missions.  Local education, skills and economic development functions will be critical to improving productivity.  On energy, Net Zero requires at least a doubling of electricity generation by 2050, from decarbonised sources.  Decarbonisation strategies need to be place-based, taking account of the geography, building types, energy infrastructure, energy demand, resources and urban growth plans.   We’ve recently argued here for the key roles of councils in this area. 

Turning to health and care services, local government clearly has leading roles – including ensuring place-based planning to address the social and behavioural causes of health inequalities.  Analysis by the Liverpool and Lancaster Universities Collaboration for Public Health Research in 2021 concluded: “investment across the whole of local government is needed to level up health including investment in housing, children’s, leisure, cultural, environmental, and planning services”.  Similarly community safety, child care and education are areas where local government could be enabled to have much greater positive impact.

Perhaps as important as the specific “missions” is the approach to governing which the party is proposing.   Labour’s document characterises this as a move from top-down, target-led, short-term, siloed approaches, to government which is more “agile, empowering and catalytic”, working across the public and private sectors, and civil society.  This, it argues, requires organising government around a shared vision, focusing on real world outcomes, concentrating on ends with flexibility and innovation concerning means, devolving decision making from Westminster, increasing accountability including central and local data transparency, and adopting long-term preventative approaches including greater financial certainty for local areas. 

In some ways the idea of mission-driven government echoes the 1990s thinking of Ted Gaebler and David Osborne’s book “reinventing government”, which argued for a more entrepreneurial approach to the delivery of government.  Their work pointed to entrepreneurial companies setting overall missions and goals, and then leaving managers to figure out how best to deliver these – for example, by providing an overall budget for a service rather than detailed line-by-line budgets which disappear if not spent by year end.  The focus on managers rather than considering the perspective of politicians is one of the problems identified in subsequent evaluations of the reinventing government model, together with difficulties in sustaining the approach.

Mission-driven policies addressing ‘grand challenges’ of society are increasingly common, for example in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and various EU policies.  Mazzucato et al recently argued that addressing such challenges requires strategic thinking about: the desired direction of travel, the structure and capacity of public sector organisations, the way in which policy is assessed, and the incentive structure for the private, public (and I would add community) sectors. Labour’s paper makes a start (albeit at a very high level) on thinking through these areas. The litmus test, though, will be in developing the detail and how far this engages with local areas.   

Over the next few months, we will be contributing to the debate on the upcoming party manifestos with some research-informed thoughts on a variety of local government related policy areas.  If you would like to be involved in developing these, please get in touch. 

Jason Lowther is the Director of INLOGOV. His research focuses on public service reform and the use of “evidence” by public agencies.  Previously he worked with West Midlands Combined Authority, led Birmingham City Council’s corporate strategy function, worked for the Audit Commission as national value for money lead, for HSBC in credit and risk management, and for the Metropolitan Police as an internal management consultant. He tweets as @jasonlowther

Picture credit: BBC

Making friends with a highlighter pen

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Anon

In this final blog of our series, one of our former apprentices reflects on how they grew in confidence through the process and offers some advice for anyone considering studying for a senior leader apprenticeship.

Picture: Photosteve101 https://www.flickr.com/photos/42931449@N07/

In 2019, my manager informed me our organisation had partnered with INLOGOV at the University of Birmingham, meaning an opportunity to enrol on their Senior Leader Apprenticeship programme. It seemed almost too good to be true to think that this opportunity would be fully funded. Never one to shy away from a challenge I decided to apply. Brave.  I was further surprised to be accepted onto the course and began my journey somewhat naively without quite appreciating what lay ahead.

It is fair to say that I had underestimated the time I would need to complete the learning, reading, assignments and portfolio preparation. It was a steep learning curve but I soon developed strategies to manage my time. I preferred to read in the evening.  Many an evening was spent sitting in the car reading journal articles while my daughters were at various clubs. The time I was investing was becoming more and more worthwhile as I learned to apply new skills and ways of thinking to my work, as well as receive pleasing grades for my assignment.  I started to think perhaps I could do this after all.

The onset of Covid-19 meant that additional challenges of remote learning and home-schooling my daughters had to be managed alongside other pressures, but I carried on, and with amazing support from my family, work colleagues (and some very understanding tutors) I managed to continue working through the assignments and the intense phase of my project.

I won’t pretend this was easy, but the more I became engrossed in my project the more determined I became that I would complete the course.  Completion meant both personal pride and a final project which would be beneficial to my work and team.  Compiling my portfolio gave me a great opportunity to reflect on some of my work achievements, and to identify areas where I needed to improve and demonstrate my skills. This culminated in a project showcase and professional discussion that allowed me to show how my learning had improved working practices.

If you are interested in a course like this my top five tips/reflections are:

  • It sounds corny, but if you want to achieve something, and have the right support to do so, then you can achieve it.
  • Commit to the process.
  • It will probably be more work than you imagine, but the personal and professional rewards are worth it.
  • Buddy up with someone else on the course so you can support one another – this was invaluable to me.
  • Onenote and highlighters will become your best friends!

INLOGOV’s Senior Leader Apprenticeship 101

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Picture credit: https://www.pexels.com/@startup-stock-photos/

Stephen Jeffares

All this week we are celebrating INLOGOV’s Senior Leader Apprenticeship. In this short blog we are offering an overview of the programme, it builds on yesterday’s post about why we launched an apprenticeship for public service leaders.

In a nutshell – public servants enrol on a two-year programme where they study online and on campus, and develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours expected of a senior leader. That’s it really.

The ideal student is someone who has around 5 or more years’ experience as a manager and ambition to become a senior leader in public service.

The programme is made up of six modules. For each of the two years there’s one module in the Autumn, one in Spring and one in early summer.  Modules are blended, which means 6 weeks of online learning and then coming together for two days on campus.

The online learning is structured so you can choose when in the week you want to work on it. There’re usually 2 or 3 papers to read, a set of pages with course content to work through and a discussion board. This board is where you connect with others on the programme – responding to a question, posting to the board and commenting on the posts of others. This is where you find out what happens in other organisations, something our apprentices really value.

The modules are designed and led by research active academics and lecturers with first-hand public service experience: public management and governance, leadership, digital era public policy, evidence and policy, performance strategy and challenge, and commercialisation. The modules are assessed with two written assignments. These are submitted online and feedback is received after 15 days.

In the weeks between modules there is time to spend undertaking activities to develop and evidence competency as a senior leader. This activity is documented in a portfolio.  Once a term you meet with your practice tutor who helps review progress and identify priorities, opportunities, and next steps.

Once the taught modules are complete you undertake a special workplace project to develop a Strategic Business Proposal. This is a 12-week project and designed to demonstrate your acquired knowledge, skills and behaviours expected of a senior leader in public service.

The final piece of the puzzle is to undertake a 2-hour oral assessment, one to one with an independent assessor. For the first half you will present and respondent questions about your business proposal. The second half is a professional discussion led by the contents of your portfolio.

All being well the process is completed in two years and two months. The qualification is a Senior Leader Apprenticeship, but in addition the CMI grant chartered manager status and the University awards you with a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Management and Leadership. After completion you are invited to upgrade your PG diploma to a full MSc by completing a dissertation without further costs.  This invitation is offered to all apprentices who successfully complete the programme.

If you’d like to speak one to one please email me and we can set up a call [email protected]

Dr Stephen Jeffares is Associate Professor in Public Policy and Digital Government at the Institute for Local government studies. He is also Director of INLOGOV’s Public Management and Leadership apprenticeship programme and author of three books: Hybrid Governance, Hashtag Politics and the Virtual Public Servant.