4-Day Weeks Improve Productivity: It’s time to roll them out

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Andrew Coulson

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/carrienelson/

Until recently South Cambridgeshire Council was mainly known for being the only council in the UK which completely encircles another council, the City of Cambridge.

Now it has a place in history for a more lasting reason.  In January this year it began a trial which put much of its workforce onto a 4-day week, asking them to do in four days what previously they had done in five, for the same pay and without employing extra staff or reducing opening hours for the public.

Michael Gove took exception, and in October his Department issued non-statutory guidance which made it clear that he does not want councils to implement four-day weeks[1]. His junior minister, Lee Rowley, wrote to the Council in June and again in September asking it to abandon its trial.[2]  But the terms and conditions of council employment are not the business of central government, and to that extent the Council has the right to continue. Then, on 3 November, a senior civil servant wrote to the Council ordering them either to stop the trial, or to supply him with regular detailed information about their performance.[3]  To do this he invoked the concept of “Best Value”, also used in the Guidance note, claiming that the pilot means that the Council is not giving value-for-money to its taxpayers.

A bit more about South Cambridgeshire Council. 35 of its 45 councillors are LibDem, including its Leader, Councillor Bridget Smith. It provides services in the small towns and villages around Cambridge, working closely with the city council on matters that affect them both, such as sensitive planning proposals. 162,000 people lived there in 2021. House prices and average incomes are high, and it is one of the best places in the country to live. The council was and still is one of the best-performing in England.

The pilot is being evaluated by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. After nearly a year, the indications are extremely encouraging.[4]  In 27 October Bridget Smith reported that “sickness rates have fallen by a third, staff turnover has reduced by 36%, and complaints about services involved are down. 9 of 16 areas studied showed “substantial improvements in performance over the previous year”. The council has been better able to recruit staff, and now has 14 fewer “interim managers” recruited through an agency on a short-term basis and paid much more than normal local government rates, but seldom living in the area and with little long-term commitment to it. This has saved the Council considerable sums of money.[5]

These positive outcomes should not surprise civil servants, other researchers or Mr Gove. It is backed up by other research, for example a recent Fabian report about what the UK can learn about shorter working weeks from Germany.[6] Or research carried out in 2022 by a large team of experts in England and America led by the consultancy Autonomy.[7]  This studied 61 UK businesses which have implemented shorter working weeks in a variety of changes (such as having lower staffing on Mondays and Fridays with half the employees working on either the Monday or the Friday in any week). In almost all these companies the shorter working week improved productivity, staff recruitment and morale.

“Best Value” was invented in the 1980s when it was realised that the best outcomes would often not be achieved by paying the lowest prices. We do not get our cars serviced at the cheapest garages, or our roofs repaired by the cheapest contractors. We prefer someone we know, or who comes with good recommendations who will want to work with us in future, and so will not take short cuts, use poor quality parts, or put sufficient cement in its concrete. To make an informed decision, you also need information about the quality of other work done by the possible contractors. If you do not have that information, then you need to contract for a short period, and learn from the results. Many councils, with all types of political control, were able to demonstrate that Best Value was obtained by keeping a service in-house, not using external contracts.[8]

In this context, the invocation of Best Value reeks of despair: Gove’s civil servants cannot think of any other way to stop the trial. He may fear that other councils who adopt the same policies may not get the same benefits. But if South Cambridgeshire ever gets tested in a court of law, there is a strong probability that the Government will lose.

This is not the only recent populist announcement: Ricki Sunak announced at the Conservative Party Conference that he is trying to make it impossible for councils to introduce 20 mph zones in residential areas, even though this is a popular policy (not least among many car drivers) which saves lives and reduces pollution.[9]  He is also attempting to limit the number of low-traffic neighbourhoods[10] and has directed councils not to introduce multiple recycling bins, even though it is cost-effective for homeowners and businesses to sort as much of their waste as possible in advance.[11] He does not appear to recognise that councils are local authorities whose legitimacy comes from elections, and which can experiment and try out new ideas. They have a great deal more practical experience to draw upon than he does, or his civil servants.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/four-day-working-week-arrangements-in-local-authorities

[2] https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/four-day-week-trial-2/

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/south-cambridgeshire-district-council-best-value-notice

[4] https://scambs.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s131267/Appendix%202a%20Bennett%20Institute%20Evaluation%20of%20the%20KPIs%20final.pdf

[5] https://www.scambs.gov.uk/four-day-week-trial-extension-after-independent-analysis-shows-services-maintained-and-some-improved

[6] https://fabians.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/231106_Nein-to-Five_EN_final_online-6-nov.pdf.  Or https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/surprising-benefits-four-day-week/ . Or from the World Economic Forum https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/surprising-benefits-four-day-week/

[7] https://autonomy.work/portfolio/uk4dwpilotresults/

[8] See, for example, statutory guidance issued in 2011 when Eric Pickles was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7968ab40f0b63d72fc591f/1976926.pdf. Or articles in Andrew Coulson (ed.) Trust and Contracts: Relationships in Local Government, Health and Public Services, Policy Press, 1998.

[9] https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunak-to-block-councils-imposing-new-20mph-speed-limit-zones-12972106

[10] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/30/rishi-sunak-orders-review-of-low-traffic-neighbourhood-schemes

[11] https://resource.co/article/government-scraps-seven-bins-simpler-recycling

Andrew is a nationally-recognised expert on scrutiny in local government and is particularly interested in governance by committee. He is a columnist for the Birmingham Post and associate of INLOGOV. He writes in a personal capacity.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/four-day-working-week-arrangements-in-local-authorities

[2] https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/four-day-week-trial-2/

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/south-cambridgeshire-district-council-best-value-notice

[4] https://scambs.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s131267/Appendix%202a%20Bennett%20Institute%20Evaluation%20of%20the%20KPIs%20final.pdf

[5] https://www.scambs.gov.uk/four-day-week-trial-extension-after-independent-analysis-shows-services-maintained-and-some-improved

[6] https://fabians.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/231106_Nein-to-Five_EN_final_online-6-nov.pdf.  Or https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/surprising-benefits-four-day-week/ . Or from the World Economic Forum https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/surprising-benefits-four-day-week/

[7] https://autonomy.work/portfolio/uk4dwpilotresults/

[8] See, for example, statutory guidance issued in 2011 when Eric Pickles was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7968ab40f0b63d72fc591f/1976926.pdf. Or articles in Andrew Coulson (ed.) Trust and Contracts: Relationships in Local Government, Health and Public Services, Policy Press, 1998.

[9] https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunak-to-block-councils-imposing-new-20mph-speed-limit-zones-12972106

[10] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/30/rishi-sunak-orders-review-of-low-traffic-neighbourhood-schemes

[11] https://resource.co/article/government-scraps-seven-bins-simpler-recycling

Voter ID – Part 2: How poisoned, how curative?

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Chris Game

In the Electoral Reform Society’s recent review of the King’s Speech the first “conspicuous omission” identified, ahead of democratically reconstituting the Lords and electoral reform, was the repeal of Voter ID – “an unnecessary step backwards for our democracy and should be scrapped before it causes any more damage”.  Though I’m an ERS member, that’s not my personal view – as I’ve previously indicated, here and elsewhere – which is partly why I embarked on what has become a two-part blog, of which this is the second and – I promise! – final instalment.

Rationalising post hoc, the first part summarised the key data – published mainly by the Electoral Commission in its June Interim Analysis of the Voter Identification returns from Returning Officers, its September Demographic Analysis Research, plus its specifically Voter ID-related policy-and-practice recommendations. This second instalment covers, or at least references, some of the varying and more eye-catching reactions to all these data.

The first of which – partly for its comprehensiveness, but also because it provided the blog’s chosen title – is the early September review published on behalf of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) of senior MPs and Peers on Democracy and the Constitution and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. Undertaken by a cross-party panel chaired by Jon Nicolson (SNP), its four main conclusions were that:

  1. The voter-ID system, as it stands, is a “poisoned cure”, disenfranchising more electors than it protects. It quotes the well publicised statistic of there having been just eight convictions/cautions for personation in person since 2013, plus that detailed in the earlier blog of more than 14,000 possibly entitled voters having been turned away by ‘greeters’ in May before even entering the polling station – sufficient, arguably, to have swung the result of up to 16 constituencies in the 2019 General Election.
  2. The regime’s inherent ambiguity creates a real risk of injustice and potential discrimination.  Most obvious – “shamelessly obvious” to quote the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee in her coverage of the topic – was the selection of documents acceptable as ID, discriminating particularly, but not only, against young persons: Oyster 60+ passes [requiring proof of name and address] acceptable, but not student IDs, library cards, bank statements, etc.  The panel also noted that “independent observers” had recorded evidence of racial and disability discrimination at polling stations, with “non-white people being turned away even when they had qualifying ID, while some white people were permitted to vote without showing ID at all.”
  3. The regime lacks the flexibility necessary to avoid injustices – being over-reliant on decisions made by polling clerks and presiding officers, against which there is no formal right of appeal.
  4. The problems identified are systemic, but not fundamental – meaning that, with targeted reforms, the voter-ID regime can, as in many other states, be an asset to UK democracy. That was my emphasis, and, for what it’s worth, with all Europe and almost all developed countries requiring in-person voters to use photo ID, the panel give less emphasis to this point than I would have. A corollary of that point, however, is that these countries have polling station staff familiar with the demands of voter ID, and there is growing evidence of the need to address with some urgency the recruitment, training and retention of electoral staff.   

Overall, the panel’s conclusion is that the regime should remain in place, subject to three main structural reforms:

  1. Permit electors to ‘cure’ a failed ID check by utilising an existing mechanism in UK law and signing a declaration attesting to their identity and right to vote (as in Canada).
  2. Broaden the range of accepted identification documents and in doing so set clear criteria for deciding which forms of ID are accepted.
  3. Provide better training for polling station officers.

It’s a lengthy production (well over 100 pages, incl. research appendices) and a recommendable one for anyone new to the topic, not least in reminding us how the VID debate was actually kicked off – by a 2010 BBC Panorama investigation, leading eventually to a 2015 High Court case in which Tower Hamlets’ then Labour (and today Aspire Party) Mayor, Lutfur Rahman, was found guilty of involvement in a string of “corrupt and illegal electoral practices”, one of which was ‘personation’.  

Whereupon the Cameron Government instructed its ‘Anti-Corruption Champion’, Sir Eric Pickles, to prepare a report examining electoral fraud – one of whose 50 recommendations was that it should consider options for electors having to produce personal ID before voting at polling stations. Which led in turn to the 2018/9 trials, which reported a degree of increased public confidence in elections where VID was required – but not, as the All-Party review notes (p.9), that “electoral fraud ranked consistently last in public perception of problems around elections” [and administrators’ perception – see table below], or that they are “far more concerned about political funding and the redrawing of constituency boundaries than about personation”.

If the legislation did eliminate personation, the APPG’s view was that this came at the cost of “disenfranchising” electors: preventing or discouraging certain electors from voting – considerably more than the recorded 14,000 or so without ID who failed to return after being turned away by polling station staff. Excluding those turned away by party political ‘meeters and greeters’, this number was considered for several reasons to be “a significant underestimate”.

The democratic cost, in the name of preventing in person personation – occurring, on average 0.88 times p.a. – was to deny at least 14,000 people the opportunity to cast their ballot, which is “unacceptable and unjustifiable”.

Politically, however, the Panel reckoned that even these probably undercounted numbers of non-returnees could potentially impact on a General Election result – two West Midlands examples being Sandwell and Walsall, where 1,135 and 797 electors (respectively) were turned away.

There is, obviously, a great deal more, but almost simultaneously other contributions were appearing on the scene, perhaps most noteworthy being the Local Government Information Unit’s The Impact of Voter ID: The Views of Administrators. Based mainly on a survey of 171 electoral administrators who helped deliver the May 2023 elections, some of these ‘behind the scenes’ views are almost inevitably predictable: that VID is just the latest of the pressures added to the burden of electoral administrators already contending with resource constraints, complex legislation, tight timetables, temporary staff recruitment, etc.; and that a General Election offers an “opportunity for serious disruptions” (p.5).  

Perhaps most striking, though, appearing on the Introduction page (6), but without a word of direct reference, is the following bar chart. The words follow in the remainder of the report: yes, administratively elections in England have serious weaknesses: staffing pressures caused by “short timetables, convoluted legislation, inefficient processes and inadequate resourcing.” (p.11).  Administrators’ question for this research is how voter ID has impacted on these issues, as well as, of course, on “personation in the polling station”.

And my carefully considered conclusion, following this attempted overview of the welter of reports and evaluations that appeared several weeks ago now?  I should have done what I’ve habitually done for years in comparable situations: relied on the House of Commons Library, whose estimable staff – here Neil Johnston and Elise Uberoi – produced a characteristically thorough (and, unlike mine, unopinionated) 59-page Research Briefing covering pretty well everything I’ve attempted to. And, to quote Forrest Gump, that’s all I have to say about that!

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.

Citizen Assets Transfer in Barcelona: the role of the commons in democratising public administration and public service delivery

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Dr Marina Pera from Autonomous University of Barcelona is presenting a critical analysis of the asset transfer policies in Barcelona at our next INLOGOV seminar, which starts at noon on Thursday 30th November at our Edgbaston campus.

Marina will examine opportunities and risks raised by citizen management of municipal assets, taking a community empowerment perspective.

Barcelona is a city with a long tradition of neighbourhood associations, community and cultural centres run by citizens. Since the 1970s, in response to citizens’ demands, a number of municipal assets have been transferred to local non-profit organisations with economic support from the City Council.

The transfer of these assets was decentralised to the administrative districts, which in some cases led to practices of co-option and clientelism. In 2015, the Bases de gestió cívica (civic management legal basis) was collaboratively designed and approved: a local regulation that standardises the allotment of assets, increasing transparency on asset transfers. However, the Bases of gestió cívica did not solve some of the challenges that had emerged from the collaboration between the local state and community actors. One of the main challenges was the insufficient adaptation of regulations and administrative procedures to the idiosyncrasies of grassroots organisations with low levels of professionalisation. These place a huge burden on these community groups, who had to invest time and resources in bureaucratic procedures, hindering their original mission and accelerating their de-politicisation. 

In 2016, with the rise of a progressive government in the city of Barcelona, an ambitious policy was approved, the Citizen Assets Programme (CAP). This policy aimed to recognise, support, and consolidate urban commons: spaces and facilities rooted in the community that were apt to be transferred to non-profit organisations in order to be managed democratically. The CAP thus aimed to empower the community and promote citizen participation. This policy entailed greater transparency and legitimacy surrounding the process of asset transfer and the accountability of grassroots and non-profit groups. However, the Citizen Assets Programme has been facing a number of challenges in terms of legal issues, resistance by public officials and scepticism by non-profit organisations.

Despite the difficulties involved in the implementation of the Citizen Assets Programme, it has presented an opportunity for collaboration between the City Council and the commons. The efforts to create an environment of trust and mutual learning among public officials and community groups has allowed the development of innovative administrative instruments that recognise the transformative work of the commons, through innovative public-commons partnerships. This seminar therefore aims to analyse alternative forms of asset management beyond public direct and outsourcing management, engaging in current debates on collaborative culture in public administration, the dismantling of the welfare state and community empowerment.

Seminar details

The re-arranged seminar will run 4-5pm on Thursday 7th December at the University of Birmingham Edgbaston campus in Muirhead room G15. 

Further information, link to attend and registration can be found at the eventbrite. 

Register on Eventbrite

Voter ID – A “Poisoned Cure” and Other Verdicts

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Chris Game

It’s easy to claim, but there are times when I miss not having classes of students to endeavour to entertain – partly because, at least from a distance, it can seem rather easier now than back when I had that responsibility.

One gift I’d certainly have used during this year’s exam revision period was the YouTube rap video made by T-Dawg – aka Broadland and South Norfolk Councils’ Managing Director, Trevor Holden – ‘reminding’ intending voters in the May local elections to take photo ID with them to the polling station. Like the whole topic, the video received a mixed reception, but it certainly got my vote (sorry about that!) as an introduction to this split-blog’s attempted overview of the profusion of recently released Voter ID material. I’ve at least flick-read most of it, so you won’t have to worry about not doing so.

First, though, an additional declaration of personal interest, referring back to that  opening paragraph. My students weren’t, of course, learning directly about ‘political literacy’, but high on my short list of ‘research stats I’ve managed to remember for more than a few weeks’ was the depressing finding in the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Political Literacy’s 2021 report that, of a 3,300 sample of secondary school teachers in England, only 1% [felt] “fully prepared” to teach courses aimed at developing young people’s political literacy.

The ”fully”, omitted in some reports, was in the question and doubtless partly explains the dispiriting response. But anyway the finding was highlighted by the APPG, led directly to the creation of the social enterprise Shout Out UK (SOUK), and these two bodies’ influence is clearly evident in some of the Electoral Commission’s recommendations for more focused information and awareness raising.

There had, of course, been earlier assessments of May’s elections – principally the Electoral Commission’s Interim Analysis in mid-June, reporting the anonymised returns from the Voter Identification Evaluation Forms (VIDEF) that Returning Officers were required to complete (see table below), plus results of three YouGov pre- and post-election public awareness surveys of between 1,700 and 3,700 adults each.

This first, stat-heavy part of the blog will present, in highly summarised form, some of the key data, with the second covering some of the more recent interpretative contributions – including that of the All-Party Parliamentary Group, from which I’ve appropriated the blog’s slightly giveaway title.

First, some scene-setting stats, taken from the final report. The total electorate was 27.3 million, ballot box turnout 32%. For the record, Labour took 33% of the vote and control of 70 councils; Conservatives 28.6% and 33; Lib Dems 37% and 20.  5.2 million postal ballots were initially issued to 19% of the electorate, 3.5 million (67%) of which were returned, of which 89,000 were rejected, mainly for missing or mismatched signatures or dates of birth. OK, it’s only 2.6%, but, after making the effort, it was higher than I might have guessed.

 Key findings from the analysis included that:

  • Immediately post-election, in areas with elections, 92% of people in England were aware they now needed to show photo ID to vote at a polling station. They weren’t asked, however, if that awareness extended to knowing that they couldn’t obtain ID – e.g. the Voter Authority Certificate (VAC) – on polling day itself.
  • Awareness was significantly lower (74%) among those who didn’t already have an accepted form of ID – and, unsurprisingly, among youngest age groups (82% for 18-24 year olds), Black and minority communities (82%), etc.   
  • Approximately 89,500 people applied for a VAC before the 25 April deadline, some 28,000 certificates being subsequently used – i.e. under one-third of the 250,000 to 350,000 estimated likely not to have any other acceptable ID.
  • At least 0.25% of people (c.14,000) who had tried to vote at a polling station were not issued with a ballot paper because of the ID requirement, but this excludes those who reacted to the ID reminder before they could be recorded in the data – thereby inevitably underestimating, as do the post-election analyses generally, the actual impact of the voter ID requirement.

This was essentially the ‘headline’ picture we had to content ourselves with over the summer, until quite suddenly, come September, there was a whole lot more – and it seems logical, if not strictly chronological, to start with the Electoral Commission’s full-scale Voter ID Demographic Analysis Research. The analysis aimed to identify patterns in areas where relatively higher or lower proportions of intending voters were turned away from polling stations due to the new ID requirement.

18 authorities with apparently relatively socioeconomically diverse wards were selected, including the West Midlands’ Coventry and Sandwell – the latter being the sampled borough with the nationally highest “initially turned away” percentage of 3%.  The Census-based ‘proxy’ variables measured were unemployment, ethnicity, household deprivation, and social renters.

Hyper-summarising, the analysis suggested there was “a potential linear relationship” between each selected socio-economic variable and the proportion of voters initially turned away and those who didn’t return to vote. These results are obviously tabulated, but also graphed, as illustrated in what is described as the “moderate relationship” between ethnicity and the proportions initially turned away.

Overall, 13 of the 18 authorities showed at least a moderate relationship between the independent variables and the proportion of voters initially turned away, and 6 exhibited “strong relationships between one or more independent variables”. Strongest correlations were with areas having a high proportion of non-white British individuals, higher deprivation, and higher unemployment.   

Following this specifically Voter ID-focussed report, the Electoral Commission had published in June its overall Report on the May 2023 Local Elections in England, which it updated in early September. It made nine main recommendations, including increasing awareness of the support available for disabled voters, and improving data collection at polling stations.  

Four, however, related specifically to voter ID: review the list of accepted ID; improve access to the Voter Authority Certificate (see above); improve options for voters who don’t have or can’t access any accepted form of accepted ID – e.g. allowing ‘attestation’ by a named and verified elector; and polling station staff to continue to collect voter ID impact data at future elections.

Which brings us to about mid-September, already some way over this blog’s preferred length, and quite the wrong time, therefore, to address the “poisoned cure” and other reactions to these primarily statistical analyses – which will follow, with luck, fairly shortly.

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.

Splitting up the Second City is a third-rate idea

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Andrew Coulson            

Relations between first and second cities are often strained, especially when those who live in the Second City elect leaders from a political party that is not running the national government – as has been the case with Birmingham for much of its life.

After the Second World War, Birmingham was prosperous. It had avoided most of the bombing that destroyed the centre of Coventry, and its factories had produced aircraft, lorries, and other vehicles and equipment for the military and were now available to meet the post-war demand for cars and lorries. Wages for semi-skilled labour were some of the highest in the country.  There were shortages of labour, and to meet them employers welcomed bus drivers, conductors and nurses. These were followed in the 1970s and 1980s by workers mainly from Pakistan and Kashmir.

From the perspective of the London government, Birmingham did not need more employment, so companies who wished to invest in the motor industry were directed to Liverpool and elsewhere. But academic commentators, and the more thoughtful employers, could see that all was not well.  Britain was becoming increasingly dependent on service industries, which were far from strong in the Midlands.  In that context, in the mid-1970s, Birmingham Council proposed to build a National Exhibition Centre, on land near the airport. It would be owned by a company which was a partnership with Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.  The government wanted it in London; the council carried on regardless, and eventually the London government allowed it to do so.

Its structure was innovative – the company had just two shares, one owned by the city council, the other by the chamber. Each could nominate four directors. The chair would always be one of the chamber nominees – for a long time the leading industrialist Sir Adrian Cadbury.  But if voting on the board was tied, the chair did not have a casting vote, and what was proposed would not go ahead. The company, underwritten by the council, borrowed money and built the NEC.

A few years later, in 1987, the NEC company started building the International Convention Centre and Symphony Hall, on land off Broad Street. This was to make Birmingham a centre for conferences and business meetings. The decline in manufacturing and rising unemployment was by then so evident that Birmingham was granted Assisted Area Status by the European Union, so a fraction of the cost was met from Europe. The London government was not involved.

The ICC became a preferred location for large gatherings of professional bodies, such as the British Small Animal Veterinary Association, which grew till it hosted more than 8,000 delegates. It met in Birmingham every year for more than 25 years.  A boom in the construction of hotels met the demand for accommodation for this kind of event. Also of offices, many taken by national or international companies. No longer is Birmingham lagging in its provision of services. On the contrary it is a leader – almost entirely because of these initiatives.  Symphony Hall was built to meet the specification of Simon Rattle, then a very young but highly promising conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. It was part of a city-council strategy to support the arts, of which another strand was the attraction of what became the Birmingham Royal Ballet to the Hippodrome theatre – with its charismatic directors, Peter Wright, David Bintley and now the Cuban star Carlos Acosta. Another initiative required investors in large buildings to put a small extra amount aside for public art.

The arrival of a national Conservative government in 2010 meant that the council started losing the extra grant it had long enjoyed to meet its high levels of deprivation, and put it under huge financial pressure. Whole levels of staffing in departments of the council were removed. Many senior officers did not stay long. Some posts were not filled. Others are filled by ‘interim’ staff, who are supplied by agencies, do not expect to stay in the city and are very unlikely to live in it.  

The refuse collection service was traditionally headed by an assistant director who had worked in the service for many years. For a period before the 2017 strike, this post was not filled, and the service was for a time run by the director of leisure. The strike was about reducing the number of operatives on each vehicle when wheelie bins were introduced. It was resolved by giving the workers improved pay.

It appears that it was only later that the implications of this for ‘single status’ were recognised, meaning that other categories of workers – in particular in social care – could claim equal pay for work assessed as equivalent. To meet the huge resulting costs, the city sold the NEC company for £300m. It was resold for £800 million three years later – a warning to the current commissioners not to sell this kind of asset on the cheap. Since then, the bin workers have managed to complete their shifts in less time than expected – partly assisted by some residents not putting their bins out every week – and been permitted to sign off early when their round was completed. Again, it has only recently been realised that this opens the city to another round of ‘single status’ claims.  Hence the near bankruptcy, Section 114 Notice, and appointment, by Michael Gove in London, of commissioners.

To resolve challenges such as this, when Birmingham is facing extreme pressures on all its services, will not be easy for the commissioners.

The worst thing they could do would be to split Birmingham into perhaps three smaller councils. This would increase the overhead costs – three directors of each service instead of one, three separate offices – and lose major economies of scale. It would also threaten the leadership and finance which is part of being the Second City – in the arts, in the representative institutions of local government, and in creating and implementing an economic strategy which responds to the local opportunities and needs which are most clear to people living in the city.

Andrew Coulson is a retired lecturer from INLOGOV and a former Birmingham City Councillor.  A longer version of this article was published in The Birmingham Post.  Andrew writes in a personal capacity.

Can local government be viewed as an inclusive political institution?

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Dr. Mohammad Tarikul Islam

Local government as an inclusive political organization is dependent on freedom, dignity, competitiveness, recognition, planning and management, collaborative leadership, and multi-actor coordination.

The purpose of local governments is to provide order in ways that benefit the broader populace democratically. To run a successful local government, the people elect the leaders with the most faith. Local governments are accountable to and serve the people who live nearby. Its main responsibilities are local government’s executive, judicial, and legislative branches. Because it provides meaningful public engagement and mobilises local resources to enhance local people’s lives, local government is crucial in democratic societies.

I am working to develop a model that will allow for global rural development via the lenses of politics, governance, and human development. My paradigm of local government, “local government as an inclusive political institution”, comprises two basic normative assertions. The first assumption is that inclusive politics for well-being is of vital moral importance. Second, the community must claim inclusive political local government while maintaining dignity and independence to achieve well-being.

I outline seven local government categories as an inclusive political institution: freedom, dignity, competitiveness, recognition, planning and management, collective leadership, and multi-actors’ coordination. Local government serves as a platform for broadening and fostering inclusive politics and rural development. The “improvement of community choice, ownership, and trust enables people to change their fate through dignity and a competitive process.” As a result, “local government necessitates the elimination of major sources of discrimination and inefficiency.”

The term “freedom” refers to the participation of community members in politics and development issues without interference or imposition from political parties or players. Community members can make decisions for the greater good without being swayed by ties to family or patron-client connections.

Dignity is the idea of being respected by others in society by creating mutual respect and trust. Building trust by properly treating community members regardless of caste, creed, religion, education, colour, or income might protect people’s dignity.

Competitiveness refers to the healthy environment prevalent in local politics, enabling people to focus on participative decision-making through vision, action, and voice. It also strengthens the local government’s advantage in identifying credible, skilled, and motivated individuals to support local development through the electoral process.

Recognition refers to acknowledging everyone’s inputs or contributions in various ways and honouring their loyalty to the society in which they live. Recognition appears to pay off differently in this case, as it encourages people from all walks of life to participate in local politics and local development.

Planning and management refer to a well-structured and well-motivated visionary local government that strives to provide the most outstanding public service possible in response to community demand. It can help local governments enhance their decision-making abilities. It enables them to concentrate on a single goal and devise several strategies to help their team reach that goal. It can also assist them in making educated judgements about the activities their team can participate in.

Collective leadership refers to a group of individuals who work together to achieve common goals through sharing decision-making and collaborating at the grassroots level. So that the entire team, such as local government, works together to achieve the same objective with excitement and energy based on a vision and mission. Collective leadership will enable individuals and teams in local government to feel like they are part of something bigger. Sharing decision-making power with those directly affected by the process also promotes collective accountability, where everyone cooperates to ensure the desired outcome is realised.

Multi-actor coordination refers to a coordinated action achieved by mutual adjustment processes that might take the form of organising, planning, and improvisation under the direction of a strong local government. A plan can be viewed as a social construct, a reasonably permanent socially shared unit of knowledge sustained by its daily application for the community’s welfare. To comprehend multi-actor coordination, the political landscape of society must be thoroughly understood, as local politics eventually participate in a coordinated approach to inclusive development.

By applying this approach to local government, competent authorities, including policymakers, can direct change for inclusive development.   Advantages include reflecting on communal assumptions and biases, comparing and contrasting different views, and improving researchers’ and practitioners’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills.  Relevant actors can increase their knowledge and awareness of independence, dignity, competitiveness, recognition, planning and management, collective leadership, and multi-actor coordination and contribute to making local government competent to provide with the highest sincerity.

Dr. Mohammad Tarikul Islam is a Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. Professor Islam has been a visiting scholar at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and SOAS. He can be reached at [email protected]. The author bears full responsibility for the facts cited and opinions expressed in this paper.