Can local government be viewed as an inclusive political institution?

20/10/2023 / jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

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.

From Ladders to Squiggles: Transforming Public Service Careers

17/10/2023 / jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Dr Dave McKenna

Are you a public servant who has had a wiggly or a squiggly career? Do you wish you had? Μaybe you think it’s just not that important? Or perhaps it’s just too difficult to do?

The idea of a squiggly career, in other words, thinking less about career ladders and more about sideways, downwards and cross sector moves, is one that has gained some interest over the last few years.

And it has a particular resonance in the context of public services.

For one thing, as working across organisational boundaries becomes more and more critical for public servants, so does the need to be able to speak the different ‘languages’ of different organisations and sectors. Having experience of actually working in those other settings could be a real help when it comes working across organisational borders.

Squiggly careers might also promote innovation – sideways movers bringing a fresh perspective on challenges and a handle on what has worked elsewhere.

And downwards moves might be important as well. Frontline experience helps to bring empathy and understanding – both for the people receiving public services and for those colleagues providing them.

Of course, it might not work for everyone. Some public sector professions have set career paths and it’s not always that easy to jump organisation or sector when you are in competition with the natives.

Even if a clean jump is not possible there might always be the possibly of placements and secondments.

And shouldn’t managers be promoting these kinds of experiences and career moves? After all, isn’t it good for individuals and isn’t it good for public services in general if workers have a variety of experiences to draw on when facing the complex challenges of 21st century public service?

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on future public service careers, to inform our work updating the 21st Century Public Servant framework.

Dr Dave McKenna is an independent consultant and researcher who helps councils and other public bodies with training, research and improvement work. He is part of the research team currently updating our 21st Century Public Servant framework.

Zooming in on Public Service: Remote Working

11/10/2023 / jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Dr Dave McKenna

Maybe you love it, maybe you hate it, maybe you are somewhere in between. Either way you know that remote working is here to stay. Should we be happy with how it’s going though? Are public services adapting or struggling with this new normal?

A lasting legacy of the pandemic, the expansion of remote working is definitely seen a good thing by many public servants. Less travelling, a chance to keep an eye on things at home and a chance to stick the washing on. You can have your work space exactly how you want and, when so many public services are looking to save money on costly office accommodation, it helps with that as well.

Of course, it doesn’t work for everyone. Unwanted interruptions, not having a good space to work in and missing those ‘water cooler’ conversations are all negatives. Also, isolation, professional and social, can take its toll and affect mental health. It’s no fun taking a distressing call in your own home with no-one around to talk to about it afterwards.

Three years on from the first shock of the pandemic, a more complex picture of remote working is starting to emerge – something that we are picking up as part of refreshing the 21st Century Public Servant research 10 years on (link in the comments).

For example, is there something concerning about the way that remote working can divide teams? After all, when Joe is working at home the rest of us are left to answer the office phones or respond to the people turning up the front desk – and Jane is worried that Joe might not be really working at all. He certainly seems invisible.

There are also worries about people who joined their teams during lockdowns and formed their relationships with co-workers over Zoom. How might starting a job in ‘virtual limbo’ affect people when they finally start to meet their team in person?

We’ve also come across the idea that long term remote workers form stronger relationships with virtual co-workers and find it easier to distance themselves from work relationships they see as negative – perhaps withdrawing from their teams in a way that office-based staff might not.

And what about citizens? On the one hand public servants can be more accessible and might have more time due to less travel but is the quality of their interactions affected? When public servants are being asked to be more relational in their work can this be achieved in the same way through Teams or Zoom?

The challenge for public servants, it seems, is to adapt to remote working, or perhaps more accurately, to hybrid workplaces. To maintain the benefits of remote working while staying connected to co-workers and to the communities they serve.

We think it’s an intriguing topic of research and we are looking to learn more…

More Collaboration, Less Disruption? Shaping Tomorrow’s (Digital) Cities

20/09/202318/09/2023 / jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Dr Timea Nochta

Promising Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, most recently the likes of ChatGPT, have created an atmosphere of imminent disruptive change. News outlets bombard us with novel tools and applications that are poised to become the ‘new game in town’, revolutionising various sectors, jobs and ultimately the entire global economy. However, such sensationalist predictions often overlook the complexity of moving from where we are today to working effectively with novel, AI-powered tools in specific, concrete contexts and situations.

AI in the built environment: Digital twins

One such example of a recent hype are digital twins (DTs). Digital twins (virtual replicas) of physical objects or systems have been used for over two decades, most prominently in product engineering and manufacturing. Applications of the technology in the built environment are more recent, and in the UK in particular, the development of digital twins for built environment assets, systems and processes has been triggered by the National Infrastructure Commission’s Data for the Public Good (2017) report. Despite this relatively short history, technology promoters (often suppliers themselves) nowadays pitch the ‘digital twin’ as a ready-made, off-the-shelf data product to city authorities. Further contributing to the hype are various cities who market themselves on the global stage as leaders in digital innovation, and their digital twin projects, including the likes of Helsinki, Singapore, Barcelona, Xiong’an or Herrenberg. In the UK, cities such as Cambridge, Birmingham, Bristol and London have been experimenting with digital twins.

Are urban digital twins better characterised as ‘technology’ or ‘socio-technical innovation’ and why does it matter?

The urban digital twin (UDT) as a technology is often defined as a three-dimensional virtual replica of a city that makes use of a combination of technological innovation in sensors, big data and data science; building and city information modelling (BIM and CIM); and artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and automation. At a more fundamental level, it is underpinned by a motivation to create an all-encompassing, single-source-of-truth digital simulation of the city’s built environment which is linked to the physical city via automated bi-dimensional data flows. Whilst the objective may be seen as admirable, there remain a myriad of unanswered questions when trying to unpack the UDT concept from a more practical view, including but not limited to:

Is the large-scale investment into the digital infrastructure (sensing, data storage and processing, analytics and modelling) justifiable given the expected benefits?
Is there enough good-quality evidence to suggest that the expected benefits can in fact be delivered in a particular context?
If so, what conditions might be necessary to enable benefit realisation?
How does the UDT project affect and/or incorporate urban citizens, communities and other stakeholders?
How does the proposed UDT fit into the existing landscape of data and digital tools in use?

To local authority practitioners these questions may sound common-sense or even routine. However, taking such issues into consideration essentially represents a move away from the purely technological towards a ‘socio-technical’ understanding of UDTs. From this perspective, UDTs are not off-the-shelf data products as they do not exist independently of the contexts in which they are applied. Ultimately, any digital twin will only ever be a partial representation of a city and its built environment, and therefore there are key decisions involved in designing UDTs for different cities (or regions). Such decisions can identify diverse technology design and/or implementation requirements based on specific, pertinent local policy questions or problems, existing data availability and digital twins (e.g., of energy systems) internally or accessed from other stakeholders, citizen and community preferences or needs, currently existing digital expertise, and so on. This process of developing requirements and solutions for digital twins has been termed ‘digital twinning’ in the literature, with scholars arguing that it represents an ‘act of governance’.

This is not to say that each and every UDT will, or need to be, bespoke. However, neither do UDTs need to be uniform, holistic and all-encompassing from the start – even if this were at all possible. Instead, federated systems of digital twins representing different aspects of cities can organically develop and evolve over time and as needs arise and change.

An alternative conceptualisation of UDTs: Transcending silos

Whilst it may not be possible or desirable to develop all-encompassing, ‘single-source-of-truth digital twins, UDTs nevertheless offer the possibility of linking certain currently siloed policy and governance processes which may benefit from some degree of integration to respond to contemporary challenges. One such example could be the intersection of energy, environment, transport and land-use in support of policy goals relating to net zero transition, affordable housing, mobility and employment – a use case we explored in the context of Cambridge.

Siloed working within and between local and regional authorities led to generic policy goals and targets being translated into conflicting sectoral implementation strategies across development planning (for housing, industry and services), electric charging infrastructure and incentives, and upgrades to the electric grid. Developing solution options to this issue necessitates understanding why different people travel, how and where they travel and therefore when and where they might charge their (future) electric cars.

Addressing it did not require extensive sensor deployment for data collection, or the development of ‘single-source-of-truth’ digital twin technology – instead, we could draw on existing available data (e.g., census and employment data) and models (e.g., land-use and transport models). The research team developed a small ‘module’ which served to integrate previously unconnected models and data sources. The exercise concluded that a potentially impactful policy option would be to offer incentives for charging at home and/or disincentives for charging (and/or parking) at workplace for electric car drivers, given travel patterns, the locations of housing, services and employment centres, and electric infrastructure upgrade needs and costs.

Conclusion: Working effectively with digital twins?

So what does such a socio-technical perspective imply in terms of working with UDTs in (local) government? Working effectively with digital twins may, in fact, require more collaborative working both across and between local and regional authorities, as well as with technology and data product designers – as opposed to joining the digital (twin) hype. Collaboration can also contribute to learning and skills development, beyond technology design. Re-establishing some specialist technical competencies through extensive collaboration (which may have been lost in local government in the last few decades) can in turn help developing confidence and competence in commissioning digital (and/or AI-powered) tools, and understanding the impact and implications of their adoption.

If you have any comments or would like to discuss any of the above, please feel free to get in touch via email ([email protected]). If you would like to read more on using a socio-technical perspective to design and implement digital twins for cities, or explore other use cases, you may wish to consult our recent book on Digital Twins for Smart Cities: Conceptualisation, Challenges and Practices.

Timea Nochta is a Lecturer at the Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV) in the Department of Public Administration and Policy, at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on networks and governance in urban policy and implementation in the context of technological change, especially decarbonisation and digitalisation.

Is this fair? – a PhD on fairness in local government

13/09/202308/09/2023 / jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Clive Stevens

A year’s gone and I’ve been given the OK to start year two of my PhD, but what have I achieved? Three passes in the taught modules on social science research and piles, nay heaps of reading.

And have I learned anything? That fairness is a complex subject. It is one of a number of moral behaviours that humans (and some other animals) have evolved over deep time to improve cooperation within groups. It’s innate, like language ability, and like language ability conceptions of fairness can differ depending on upbringing and life experiences. You can change your notions of it too although the chances of that recede as you grow older.

Does any of this relate to local government? I plan to look at councillors’ views on fairness; to see how they vary within and across persons in reaction to different case examples, ones they might typically come across in their daily interactions; all treated with confidentiality of course.

Opinions on fairness are usually made very quickly, within a second, and in any group of councillors (past and present) you can be sure that some will react one way and some another.

There are many realms on planet fairness: equality, merit, equity, opportunity, process, power and rights to name a few. Each has different sensitivities and opportunities for disagreement. My working model is that people will respond differently to the same situation due to their diverse backgrounds or assumptions; some will immediately fly off to one realm whereas others will jump to another. Some will be talking merit and just deserts whereas others will be thinking equality. This can lead to profound divergence over perceptions of fairness of a proposed policy or decision.

In local government much emphasis is placed on fairness of process. Areas of responsibility like social care, licensing and planning for example will have policy, and a decision based on policy is deemed fair if due-process has been followed; meaning no bias and a right to hear about and state one’s case. Public acceptance relies on a ‘fairness heuristic’, a natural mental shortcut, where one assumes fair treatment as long as the process followed is fair. Most research studies, but not all, show this heuristic. But is this fair? Firstly, local government policy can be set many years earlier, in different economic or political times, long before it is used to guide decisions. And secondly, was the policy making itself fair or was it dominated by large organisations or outdated assumptions.

The academic study of fairness has extra complexities…the term ‘equity’ is understood differently by those working in psychology (and business) to those in education and health. To the former it means merit; with rewards and punishments proportional to effort and input. To the latter it means giving a helping hand to those that need it. As humans we engage with both meanings.

Fairness is a field rich with research opportunity – too much for me to test them all. So in the coming year, once I have finished the readings, I need to discuss which areas might be of interest to councillors and create some examples for discussion in interviews and focus groups.

This is all with an aim to do what? That’s dictated by the results. For example, if it is discovered that there are some fairness situations which are more likely to trigger discord then, perhaps, adding more context and creating opportunity for discussion and reflection before councillors take a view might lead to better, fairer and more efficient decision making; especially when discussing mitigation of harm to affected residents or businesses.

Clive was a Bristol City Councillor and author of the book of his experiences, After The Revolution. He is entering Year 2 of a PhD at the University of Bristol. He blogs at https://sageandonion.substack.com/ and can be contacted at [email protected]

Birmingham’s contribution to local government numerology

06/09/202308/09/2023 / jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Chris Game

Right – we, meaning I, must start with a dilemma declaration. How to deal with a major national news item – “Birmingham City Council declares itself bankrupt” – the consequences of which, as a long-term Birmingham resident and ratepayer, will affect you personally and about which in the distant past you might well have been invited to opine seriously and professionally. Yes, carry on being retired and/or pretend you’re still on your hols.

Obviously, I’ve chosen an alternative route, emphasising background and context and stuff that might just provide some clarification, or at least updating. And, if it seems frivolous, tasteless or just indulgent, I apologise. Blame me, not the editor.

I’ll start, as it’s in the intendedly eye-catching title, with numerology – the study of the hidden, divine or mystical meaning of numbers. Even if you’re not into it, you’ll quite likely have come across ‘angel numbers’, aka ‘lucky primes’ – sequences of digits that supposedly bode well and make you feel good. Or, as the ologists put it, messages from the spiritual universe offering insight, wisdom, and directionality – three-digit ‘lucky primes’ usually including 127, 151, 163, 193, etc.

And which bunch of local government personnel, more than most, could benefit from having such character traits built into their job descriptions? Section 151 Officers, of course; aka Chief Finance Officers (CFOs) – those required by Section 151 of the 1972 Local Government Act to arrange and take responsibility for the proper administration of their local authorities’ financial affairs.

Just check out the numerologists. “The energies of number 1 combined with the vibrations of number 5 … a sign from the divine realm that you need to be strong, act as a leader, and be in control of your future life …” etc. etc.

The only problem being that, with a bit of searching, you can get similar hokum for almost any three- or four-digit number. So, somewhat to my disappointment I admit, no fiddling whatever would have been required of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel – the people who actually draft our laws – to ensure that these matters would be dealt with by Section 151 of the 1972 Act. Excepting possibly the Satanic 666, which would make the Act impossibly long anyway, almost any three-digit number would have served.

I knew this back in 2017, but I’ve habitually kept a vague look-out for any published follow-up from my INLOGOV blogs and admit that I was quite chuffed when a few years ago one was picked up and passed on by Room 151 – the “online news, opinion and resource service for local authority Section 151 and other senior officers covering treasury, pensions, strategic finance, funding, resources and risk …”.

Chuffed too to that, albeit over a lengthier time period than I was envisaging, the broad thrust of my argument of more being on the way has proved to be accurate – a somewhat nerdy argument, admittedly, that can certainly be made even nerdier, but that, for current blogging purposes, can also be tolerably summarised in a few sentences.

So here goes! If a council’s Chief Finance/Section 151 Officer (forever male, of course, in the 1988 LG Finance Act, although Birmingham’s current Interim Director of Finance happens to be Fiona Greenway) reckons his council’s expenditure is likely to exceed available resources, he issues a Section 114 Notice prohibiting any new spending apart from that funding statutory services and existing contractual obligations. OK, geeks, they’re technically ‘Reports’, not ‘Notices’, but that really, really isn’t the serious issue.

It’s a situation in which things are pretty obviously and publicly getting out of hand – current spending way over budget, reserves virtually exhausted, no imminent solution. The alternative, however, is worse: Section 24 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, or washing your dirty linen in public – the council’s EXTERNAL auditors appending a Section 24 ‘Recommendation’ to their Annual Audit letter, “copied to the Secretary of State”.

Which may sound chummy, but, I suggested, was “the bullet-shaped chumminess of a Mafia ‘message job’”: very nasty, and rarer even than 114 Notices – historically. Yet – and this is what prompted that 2017 blog – in the space of two months two Section 24s had been issued, to councils at the very extreme ends of the council scale spectrum: the Scilly Isles and Birmingham, the latter’s then Labour Leader, Cllr Sir Albert Bore, describing it as “the most concerning audit letter” he’d seen in his 36 years as a councillor. For the record, though, and without further explanation, that’s the last you’ll read of them in this particular blog.

The distinctions between the 114/24 courses of action were interesting and debatable, but you didn’t have to be a terribly nerdy follower of local government finances to see the probable beginnings of a trend, so it was pleasing to have been reckoned insightful by the serious pros in Room 151. Especially when the trend didn’t gather pace as quickly and widely as I speculated it might.

However, given the way local government finance ‘works’ in this country, particularly under Conservative administrations, it was only going to be a matter of time, and gradually the signals became unmissable – accelerating in quite a big way with (then Lab) Croydon LBC in late 2020, who issued not one but two s114 Notices in successive months, having again failed to balance its budget in the permitted 21 days of grace. Understandably, it prompted a Commons Inquiry by Clive Betts’ ever-watchful Local Government (sorry – Levelling-up, Housing & Communities) Committee.

Slough BC (Lab then, C/LD now) was next in July 2021, despite having been one of eight councils granted “exceptional support” the previous year, as Ministers became increasingly concerned at the adverse publicity generated by threats of councils ‘going broke’.

Come December and Cumbria’s Copeland BC (Lab then, since abolished and incorporated into Cumberland) was reported to be “in Section 114 territory”, but was soon overshadowed by (Lab) Nottingham City Council’s unlawfully diverting cash from what should have been a ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account to ‘General Funds’ – an ‘accounting error’ which personally I found extraordinary, since it’s one of the few bits of tekkie lg finance that even I know. And it dragged on.

2022 saw serious acceleration. In May Northumberland Council (Con)issued a s114 for unlawful expenditure, including allowances paid to the council’s Chief Executive. It was possibly the case generating least sympathy for the beleaguered council, whose elected members and officers went public with their mutual distrust – not the only such example, but probably the bitterest.

Towards the end of 2022 it became clear how desperate the situation – or at least the search for commissioners available to ’intervene’ – was becoming, as returning Local Government Secretary Michael Gove sought to launch anticipatory “turnaround programmes” short of sending in commissioners – ‘risk-mitigation directions’, in Govester jargon.

Not in time, however, to prevent Croydon LBC (NOC) issuing its third s114 in three years, and Thurrock Council (Con) having the courage/desperation to report that it would require “exceptional support” from Gove’s Department “over a number of years … to stabilise our financial position and give us time to have balanced budgets.”

At which point – after an obviously uplifting Christmas and New Year – “Whitehall officials”, in the person of Jeremy Pocklington, Permanent Secretary of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), had the confidence/nerve/effrontery to announce to a Select Committee that even at the time sounded, well, brave.

As reported in The MJ (Jan 10^th), “Whitehall officials are not expecting councils to issue further Section 114 notices in the coming weeks … our assessment, looking at the sector as a whole, is that the financial position is sustainable … strengthened by the additional resources made available in the Autumn Statement.”

Apart, that is, from the nine councils within the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (Sigoma) who warned last week that they could issue a Section 114 notice by 2025; Stoke-on-Trent City Council (Lab) that announced this week that it is on the verge of bankruptcy … oh yes, and Birmingham.

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.

INLOGOV Blog

The Institute of Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham