Combined Authorities and Del Boy Devolution

25/02/201626/02/2016 / inlogov / Leave a comment

Chris Game

It was quicker than a full-term pregnancy. In late January, less than nine months after the General Election, the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act (CLGDA) received its Royal Proclamation – sorry, Assent. By which time eight bonny ‘devolution deals’ had already been hatched out into the local government world.

For the record and terminological clarity, these comprise the five established Combined Authorities (CAs) – Greater Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool City Regions, West Yorkshire, and North East – the announced West Midlands and Tees Valley CAs, plus unitary Cornwall’s non-CA deal. All but West Yorkshire and Cornwall are elected mayor-based. An eighth proposed CA, North Midlands – Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire – could be said to be experiencing Labour pains, since one reported cause of its delayed confirmation was local Conservative MPs’ concern that the two Labour-inclined counties could elect the wrong kind of mayor.

Had these devo deals been babies, suspicious relatives might have been making legitimacy checks by counting the weeks. Here, though, the concern is less legitimacy than motive. Was all this haste confirmation of the Government’s, and particularly Chancellor George Osborne’s, genuine commitment to overthrowing “the old, broken model of trying to run everything in our country from the centre of London”? Or/and something else?

The Commons Communities & Local Government Committee, while welcoming the principle of the Government’s ‘bespoke’ approach to devolution, wasn’t convinced of either its commitment or capacity to deliver. It judged the policy so far to have been rushed, politically driven, and lacking in direction, rigour, assessable outcomes, and democratic or public engagement. The Institute for Government (p.9) was similarly critical: a compressed and “opaque proposal and negotiation process …”, comprising “unspoken expectations … [and] unwritten rules”.

Neither review, though, noted more than in passing the question that’s increasingly preoccupied the local government world for the past several not months, but years: is the real agenda behind much of this devolution stuff reorganisation or unitarisation by stealth? About doing covertly what Sir Eric Pickles denied himself overtly as Communities Secretary with his 2008 promise to shoot with his pearl-handled revolver the first civil servant proposing local government reorqanisation? It was there in the original Bill but largely overlooked, then boosted by one of several late Government amendments. Now, it seems, any erstwhile stealth has been supplanted by something resembling Del Boy Devolution.

Various INLOGOV colleagues have commented in these columns on aspects of the Government’s devolution policy virtually since the CLGDA’s conception (and that really is the last outing for this metaphor). It’s an appropriate moment, therefore, for an update, focusing particularly on some of those late and under-reported changes during the Bill’s parliamentary progress.

First, though, a bullet-point summary of what is an essentially enabling Act, whose main legislative function is to amend and extend the 2009 Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act (LDEDCA) that introduced CAs. With little reference to the content to the ‘devolution deals’ that are its chief product, the CLGDA’s core provisions relating to CAs:

empower the Secretary of State (SoS) to create mayoral CAs with a directly elected Mayor who will chair the CA and may, with the SoS’s approval, raise a precept on constituent authorities’ council tax bills;

extend CAs’ limited remit of economic development, regeneration and transport to include any local government function, including health service functions;

remove CAs’ boundary restrictions prohibiting non-contiguous or doughnut- shaped areas;

empower the SoS to require the mayor to exercise specified functions individually, including those of the Police and Crime Commissioner;

empower the SoS to transfer to mayoral CAs the functions of other public authorities in the CA’s area, including government departments, but not county or district councils; also to confer on a CA the general power of competence;

require CAs to appoint audit and overview and scrutiny committees.

It’s hard to believe that, without the apparently irresistible rhyme, even George Osborne would have dared label as a ‘Devolution Revolution’ a package involving minimal fiscal devolution, no subsidiarity presumption, and no formula for lastingly rebalancing the relationship between central and local government. Certainly, the recurring ‘empower the SoS’ mantra in the bullet-point summary makes it manifest who in the first instance is the chief enablee here. This is a top-down, Osborne-controlled, ministerially managed devolution – or ‘Treasury Power Grab’, as Jim McMahon, Oldham’s new MP, former council leader and Northern Powerhouse architect, described it in his recent maiden speech (Jan 19, Col. 1369).

But that’s not the main point in this particular blog, which is more about the legislation’s footnotes. As summarised above, the Act’s key provisions read much as they did in the original Bill – though not necessarily the same as in interim versions. The required elected mayor was critics’ main target throughout, and, perhaps distractingly for those rushing to prepare devolution bids, from July onwards (within days of Cornwall’s non-mayoral deal being announced) the Bill contained a Lords amendment overruling the requirement that an elected mayor be a precondition for the transfer of functions to a CA.

In December, predictably enough, the requirement was restored by the Commons, and indeed strengthened. Notwithstanding the arguments of the LGA (p.17) and others that an elected mayor is not the only, or invariably the most effective, accountability model available, the amendment would, claimed ministers, risk jeopardising the Greater Manchester and Sheffield deals already negotiated. Besides which, it was in the Conservative manifesto, and thus merited strengthening. The SoS’s power to require an existing CA to adopt an elected mayor and remove a dissenting council now allows such an order to be made when more than just one council dissents, provided two constituent councils plus the CA do consent. As we’ll see again shortly, consent is not a big thing with this Government.

There’s a rambly bit in St Matthew’s gospel that struck me as relevant here. After warning about false prophets and wolves in sheep’s clothing, it switches to bad trees not bearing good fruit – and therefore “by their fruits ye shall know them”. Here, I’d suggest that “by their late amendments ye shall know them”.

There was an exceptional number – 87 Government amendments alone considered by the Lords on Jan 12 (Col. 139) – partly due presumably to the speed of the Bill’s drafting and partly to its being sent to the Lords first. Many were uncontentious drafting changes – but most of the substantive ones, like elected mayors, took the form of restoring the status quo ante, the Government’s Commons majority having now rejected an earlier Lords amendment.

There was the odd conciliatory concession, like agreeing to the SoS providing annual reports to Parliament detailing devolution progress in all areas of England – harmless enough, with the information presumably already in the public domain. But anything conceivably problematic – requiring all Government Bills to include a ‘devolution statement’ that they are consistent with the principle of devolving power to the most appropriate level, or removing the SoS’s discretion in assigning CAs the general power of competence, or reducing the voting age for local government elections from 18 to 16 – forget it.

Which brings us to reorganisation. There were two relevant clauses in the original Bill, neither initially attracting great attention. One streamlined the procedure for creating a CA or amending the structure of an existing one by empowering the SoS (once again) to make an order, rather than wait for the relevant authorities to produce a ‘scheme’.

A late Government amendment took this streamlining further – or, as ministers prefer, increased local flexibility – by removing councils’ vetoes over CA boundaries. A district council can now join a CA without requiring its county council’s consent; likewise, even collectively, districts can no longer veto their county council joining a CA. Late it may have been, but it has potentially big implications – for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, for example, both of whose northern districts would now be able to join Sheffield City Region without their county councils’ consent.

The other clause, in a different section altogether from CAs in the original Bill, was also directed at two-tier areas. Acknowledging some such areas’ dearth of enthusiasm for particularly mayoral CAs, it provided for the devolution of functions and powers to single local authorities acting alone. Orders could be made (by the SoS, of course) to introduce fast-track changes in respect of boundary reviews (as in Cornwall’s deal) and governance arrangements, which, it was explained, “may involve mergers of councils, moves to unitary structures, or changing the democratic representation of the area with different electoral cycles and fewer councillors”.

It seems a kind of Del Boy approach to devolution that presumably comes naturally to a business-driven government. The rack rate for devolved powers is an elected mayor, but get together with your mates or offer us up a few councillors and we should be able to do you a deal. Indeed, possibly a streamlined deal, as another late Government amendment enables the SoS to make changes in council boundaries with the consent, if necessary, of just one authority in the relevant area.

This is the reorganisation or unitarisation by stealth that exercises councillors and MPs alike, and it produced some of the most agitated contributions to the Bill’s Commons Report Stage – the only thing being, as the Minister pointed out, that it’s hardly by stealth, since the Government has had the power to impose structural change without the consent of local councils since the 2007 Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act.

Chris Game - pic

Chris Game is a Visiting Lecturer at INLOGOV interested in the politics of local government; local elections, electoral reform and other electoral behaviour; party politics; political leadership and management; member-officer relations; central-local relations; use of consumer and opinion research in local government; the modernisation agenda and the implementation of executive local government.

Designing in Collaboration: Challenges for the new Combined Authorities

02/02/2016 / inlogov / Leave a comment

Max Lempriere and Vivien Lowndes

At a workshop hosted in December 2015 by City-REDI, INLOGOV, The Public Services Academy at the University of Birmingham practitioners and academics from the world of local government came together to share experiences on the current Combined Authorities and city-region devolution agenda. In the fifth of a series of posts Max Lempriere and Vivien Lowndes reflect on the day’s major talking points.

The raison d’être of Combined Authorities is to foster collaboration amongst neighbouring local authorities in a time of limited resources, fiscal restraint and ‘wicked issues’. The goal is to stimulate economic growth through better integrating transport, business support and skills development at the sub-regional level. Alongside the growth agenda, combined authorities are considering their potential role in public service transformation, especially in relation to health and social care. Combined authorities are also an opportunity to express local identities and challenge London-centric policymaking through, for example, the development of the Northern Powerhouse or Midlands Engine.

By pooling resources, local authorities can avoid duplication and, share staff, expertise and ideas – and risks. This kind of ‘public-public’ partnership can lay the groundwork for the Combined Authority, but collaboration needs to goes far wider to include a range of organisations from the public, private and civil society sectors. Indeed, the three Local Enterprise Partnerships in the West Midlands will be full members of the new combined authority. So it isn’t just the case that constituent local authorities need to collaborate. Indeed, the more diverse the range of organisations involved, the greater the potential in terms of gaining insight. And engaging with civil society groups holds the promise not just of leveraging expertise and capacity, but also of enhancing citizen involvement in local decision making. Since the Greater Manchester Combined Authority was given budgetary control over local NHS spending (February 2015), this has necessitated collaboration between local council leaders, health and social care providers, clinical commissioning groups, and a range of patient and community bodies.

There is considerable scope for local Universities to play an important collaborative role in the devolution agenda. Supporting the new combined authorities will require bringing together those who create and apply knowledge within different sectors. Universities can make available an evidence base to support economic development activities, but also to inform new collaborative governance arrangements themselves. Universities themselves have a strong incentive to engage proactively in knowledge transfer, given the Treasury’s insistence that research must be able to show demonstrable ‘impact’. Universities can also play an ‘honest broker’ role in convening opportunities among relevant parties, as is happening in the current move to establish a Midlands Engine to rival (or complement) the Northern Powerhouse.

Despite these opportunities, collaboration is deeply challenging. It requires the fostering of an environment in which the needs of the Combined Authority as a whole are put before those of individual local authorities. This is a difficult task, especially when organisations have been used to having executive sway over their own actions. Rather than seeking ‘competitive advantage’, organisations need to focus on the potential gains from ‘collaborative advantage’. In a nutshell, this offers individual organisations the chance to achieve outcomes that they wouldn’t have been able to accomplish on their own. In fact, they may not even have thought of them! The aim is not just to improve the delivery of existing services, but to re-imagine what local government might offer a locality through collaborative working. Entirely new visions, and ways of working, could arise out of the process of collaboration.

New forms of leadership are important in fostering collaboration. Different skills and personal qualities are required, in comparison with leading a single organization. Research shows that, whatever structures and procedures are put in place, it is often ‘special people’ who make the difference. Such individuals may not be in the most senior positions, but they demonstrate the ability to bring different groups together, build trust and foster creativity, identify and harness the added value from collaboration, and maximize learning. Typical personal skills are sociability, pragmatism, personal resilience and a sense of humour! Collaboration is more than a list of email addresses or skype contacts. Face-to-face contact and practical step-by-step objectives are crucial. We all know these sorts of natural collaborators when we meet them. Talent-spotting for these skills is an urgent task for councils considering secondments to the new combined authorities, or new collaborative roles at council level. Nurturing new collaborative champions is a responsibility for all partners, as is ensuring that we all learn from those to whom collaboration comes more naturally. We can’t create these ‘special people’, but we can foster environments in which they flourish – and are rewarded. How many performance management agreements, or appraisal systems, take account of collaborative as well as organizational achievements?

While new directly elected mayors will head up the major combined authorities, and act as important points of accountability, they won’t provide a substitute for a network of committed ‘boundary spanners’ on the ground. What they can do is provide the overall vision for their locality, providing a clear answer to the question: What is devolution for? Mayors can also champion particular forms of collaborative behaviour that put the interests of the locality before that of any individual organization, and also prioritises engagement with residents, communities and local businesses.

Collaboration needs to be the DNA of the new combined authorities. A commitment to collaboration needs to inform the design of all the new roles, structures and processes. Collaboration needs to be designed-in from the start. The goal should be the integration rather than the simple aggregation, of governance capacities within the locality.

This series of workshops is being supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, Local Government Association and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) and is led by Catherine Staite, Director of INLOGOV and SOLACE’s Research Facilitator for Local Government.

Max Lempriere is a final year PhD researcher at the Institute for Local Government Studies at the University of Birmingham. His research interests include institutional design, local government policy making, devolution, urban planning and sustainable development.

Vivien Lowndes photo

Professor Vivien Lowndes is involved in research, teaching and knowledge transfer on local governance and public services. She is particular interested in partnerships, citizen participation, and gender issues. Currently Vivien is working on the development of Combined Authorities in the context of devolution, local government responses to austerity, Police and Crime Commissioners’ gender policies, and the use of evidence in migration policy. With colleagues at INLOGOV, she is also engaged in comparative research analysing innovative governance institutions in the UK and Brazil.

INLOGOV-facilitated Hull Commission receives media, business and community endorsement for its final report

21/01/2016 / inlogov / Leave a comment

Daniel Goodwin, Senior Associate Fellow

The Hull Commission’s final report was published on 13th January 2016 and was widely reported in regional media. The independent Commission, which was facilitated by INLOGOV, said that a fresh joint approach to economic development and local government organisation is needed in Hull and the East Riding. It found that Hull and the East Riding are interconnected and should seek a fresh way forward together and that the two areas often pull in different directions when they should be managed as one system. A new outward looking approach is needed if the area as a whole is to make the most of the opportunities available from devolution and the Northern Powerhouse.

The Commission was asked to review the effects of the existing boundary on the city and sub-region. The existing boundary has the effect of making Hull look like a small city of 256,000, with up to 240,000 people and 2,700 businesses left out of the picture. Given the real size of its travel to work area and economy ‘Greater Hull’ should be considered as being a city of around 500,000. The boundary significantly skews not only statistics and the way the area is perceived but works against the ability of the city and sub-region to function effectively as a single economic unit.

One possible way forward would be to move the boundary further into the East Riding. However, the Commission took the view that this would be highly unpopular, could well make the remainder of the East Riding unviable and, in any case, is probably impossible under current Boundary Commission rules.

The Commission therefore concluded that the only logical solution to the boundary issue would be to merge the two local authorities. This would make it far easier to join up economic development and infrastructure strategies and develop more effective arrangements for health and social care commissioning. Furthermore, complete removal of the boundary would achieve a political balance and overcome some of the reasons behind public opposition to redrawing it. The Commission also noted the political realities that make this logical solution a probable non-starter in the immediate future, and the need to take account of the rapidly developing Government agenda on devolution and the Northern Powerhouse.

The Commission was required to consider ways in which local government in Hull and the East Riding might better meet the goals of being effective, efficient and accountable. The devolution agenda has moved very swiftly, yet Hull and the East Riding are still not part of devolved arrangements such as those in Greater Manchester and the Sheffield City Region, pooling expertise on growth and infrastructure, with greater powers to make positive change happen. The Commission considered that this must be urgently addressed.

Furthermore, with the Northern Powerhouse and Enterprise Zone developments in mind, the Commission believes that there is a powerful case for a Combined Authority based on the Humber, providing focus for the development of the economy, distribution networks, infrastructure and environmental matters centred on it. It found that political animosities have stood in the way of progress on this option in the recent past. If at all possible they should be addressed and the possibility of a Humber Combined Authority brought back onto the table. The Commission considered that that appropriate consultation with business and a full public debate would make it possible and reflected this in its recommendations.

The Commission heard that there is a possibility that Hull will become a partner, without the East Riding, in the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. It considered this to be a poor outcome because it neglects the economic significance of the Humber, leaves Hull as a small, junior partner and cements the boundary problem further. It also heard that the East Riding is in active discussions with North Yorkshire and York about a North Yorkshire Combined Authority. This would present a similarly poor outcome because it would take the “Greater Hull” business rates with it into a different pool, splitting the economic development and infrastructure planning further away from Hull. Given all the above, the Commission concluded that Hull and the East Riding must be managed as one system, not two. This would provide the area with a much more powerful voice in any Combined Authority arrangements. This view was endorsed by 30 leaders from business, public and community sectors who met to discuss the report. The group was very supportive of the Commission’s concern to support the economic opportunities of the Humber and to ensure that Hull and the East Riding stay together in any future devolved arrangements.

There was also concern not only that the area should in future look outward to the national and international stage but also that local community identity should be respected, whilst ensuring that the Humber develops positively for all who live work and study here.

There was real concern that Yorkshire as a whole is missing out by not coming to an agreement with government about future devolution arrangements. The group wanted local politicians to exhibit a greater sense of urgency and to work together to resolve a positive way forward.

Further information and links to sources may be found through the Commission’s pages on INLOGOV’s website at: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/government-society/departments/local-government-studies/research/hull-commission.aspx

Know your local Councillor Photographs - St Albans - May 2008

Daniel has worked in local government for over 30 years in a range of councils and was previously Executive Director of Finance and Policy at the Local Government Association and Chief Executive of St Albans City & District Council. He is an INLOGOV Senior Associate Fellow, contributing to thinking, learning and action in local leadership and services, the wider public sector and beyond. Daniel has a Masters in Public Administration from Warwick Business School and is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Learning by Doing in Combined Authorities

07/12/2015 / inlogov / Leave a comment

Maximilian Lempriere

At a workshop hosted in early November by INLOGOV, City-REDI and The Public Services Academy at the University of Birmingham practitioners and academics from the world of local government came together to share experiences on the current Combined Authorities and city-region devolution agenda. In the third of a series of posts Max Lempriere, a doctoral researcher studying the formation of combined authorities, reflects on the days major talking points.

Policy makers may dislike ambiguity and flexibility, but devolution to Combined Authorities brings with it a fair degree of both. There are so many questions that will only be answered as the result of experience and so many variations in configuration, governance and circumstances between Combined Authorities that no progress could be made without it. The ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘when’ is up for negotiation on a localised basis, bringing both benefits and pitfalls. The question is, then, how can we ensure that we maximise the benefits but avoid the pitfalls?

The precise answer to that question is unknown – a pitfall in itself – but leaders in all Combined Authorities need to be willing to look, listen and learn from their own experience and that of others if they are to strike the right balance. Combined Authority leaders need to be willing and able to share and learn from best practice, whether internal or external.

When looking to other Combined Authorities they must remain sensitive to local contexts. Compare those in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester, for example. The latter has historic, clearly defined and coterminous economic and political geographies that lend themselves well to the Combined Authority model, whereas the former has a less clearly defined economic geography and lacks congruence when it comes to political geography. Learning to co-ordinate, collaborate and muddle-through across Combined Authorities is no easy task when there are such differences between them, especially if the implications of actions aren’t immediately clear. Their innovative nature and the variety of contexts in which they are found means that any initial institutional design will only ever be ‘good-enough’.

As a result there will have to be a fair degree of ‘learning by doing’, where the formal and informal rules of the game emerge as decision makers tackle different challenges and obstacles.

However, precise institutional arrangements, devolved powers and funding responsibilities differ from one Combined Authority to another, reflecting as they do local economic and political geographies. The Mayor in Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, for example, will have more powers over housing that their counterpart in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester, in another example, is currently the only Combined Authority to have autonomy over its £6bn share of NHS spending. Understanding common ground for mutual learning will therefore be difficult because it doesn’t just require political and managerial leaders to think in terms of what works but – perhaps more importantly – what doesn’t work when translated into different contexts. The danger, as increasingly seems to be the case, is that Combined Authorities look at what the Greater Manchester Combined Authority is doing well and try emulate that.

This kind of learning doesn’t just need to occur within or between Combined Authorities themselves. Central government must be willing and able to learn from experience on the ground, whilst remaining sensitive to local contexts. Learning from past Combined Authority successes and failures should feed not just into designs for future authorities but should form the basis of continuous, on-going institutional reform – a similar process of ‘muddling through’ and respecting ‘good-enough’ design – to fine-tune existing devolution arrangements to ensure maximum public and added value. Central Government has certainly showed a willingness to look, listen and learn itself in the case of the GMCA – shown in ongoing rounds of devolution deals, the latest of which was announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Spending Review in November 2015. The challenge is to make sure it does so with other Combined Authorities in a way that respects their successes and failures on their own merits and avoids using the GMCA as a ‘yard-stick’ against which to judge.

An effective way to encourage these kind of local and multi-level learning processes is to incorporate them into the institutional design in the first instance. Formal arrangements to encourage inter and intra-institutional feedback – whether through scrutiny arrangements, joint workshops or regular meetings of officials – can play a crucial role in facilitating feedback and fostering a culture that encourages learning, experimentation and innovation.

But how to overcome the challenges of learning across differing contexts and geographies? Part of the work that INLOGOV, City-REDI and others have been doing is directed towards understanding both the successes and the difficulties experienced by Combined Authorities with a sensitivity to local contexts. Academic insight and the application of theory to practice have potentially crucial roles in cross-border learning of this kind. Situating information-providers and independent assessors within the institutional arrangement will allow decision makers to see more clearly points of mutual comparison.

Practitioners should be willing to learn, be sensitive to what is and isn’t possible in different contexts and embrace ambiguity. Combined Authorities are flexible and incomplete. How we work towards completeness depends on our willingness to learn from mistakes, appreciate best practice and recognise that it may not always be the best idea to copy Manchester.

lempriere

Skills? What Skills!

23/11/201523/11/2015 / inlogov / 1 Comment

Maximilian Lempriere

At a workshop hosted in early November by City-REDI, INLOGOV,The Public Services Academy at the University of Birmingham practitioners and academics from the world of local government came together to share experiences on the current Combined Authorities and city-region devolution agenda. In the second of a series of posts Max Lempriere, a doctoral researcher studying the formation of combined authorities, reflects on the days major talking points. This blog is also posted on www.lgnk.org.

One recurring theme that stood out in our discussions on potential problems with establishing effective systems of leadership and governance for Combined Authorities and mayors was the integral role that the mayor needs to play to develop and maintain collective and collaborative models of leadership. Previously in this series of posts we saw that the mayor needs to tread carefully to neuter clashes of identity, but their skill-set needs to extend far wider.

First, they need diplomatic skills. They will need to tread a careful path between council Leaders and Chief Executives. Leaders in particular are used to having the last say over key policy and political decisions affecting their areas. It isn’t overly cynical therefore to expect that the arrival of a new (directly elected) kid on the block is bound to cause additional tensions. Many of the mayors will be ‘independents’ free of the constraints and pressures resulting from the need to balance conflicting views within the group and the council. Even if mayor and combined authority leaders represent the same political party this isn’t enough to guarantee congruence of visions and policies. If the mayor has a different vision to the existing Leaders members it is unclear how this tension will be reconciled. Importantly, he or she will need to rely on the support of constituent council Leaders for approval of the budget, meaning that unless internal unity can be achieved the mayor may prove to be somewhat of a lame duck.

Second, they need a thick skin. Osborne’s idea is that mayors act as a single point of accountability for both local citizens and central government officials. The logic behind this is commendable, but it may leave the mayor between a rock and a hard place. Central government (and in particular the Treasury) has made it clear in the various devo-agreements that central oversight is built into the governance arrangements, so there may well be pressures for arms-length control of combined authorities through the mayor. Yet their allegiances lie with the combined authority; can they please both at once? Unlikely. Will this leave them open to criticism from either side? Probably.

Third, they need to be electable. Ultimately it is down to voters to decide whether or not to keep the mayor in a job, so they need to work hard to keep the public on board. Will this be possible? One danger is an expectations gap amongst voters, who misunderstand what falls inside and outside the mayor’s legislative remit. What’s more, the mayor as an institution doesn’t yet garner widespread public support, meaning that any attempted power-grabs are likely to be fiercely resisted. Similarly, it is likely that whenever the combined authority is seen to falter the mayor will be in the firing line, regardless of whether it was central government, Combined Authority members or the mayor themselves that are strictly to blame. The mayor is designed to be the accountable figurehead of the authority, but they should be careful not to oversell themselves or raise voter expectations. Without public support they lack legitimacy, without legitimacy the mayor cannot lead the combined authority and without effective leadership the combined authority is weakened.

The list goes on, but the point is simple: the mayor will have to foster internal political coherence, legitimize both themselves and the authority and be accountable both downwards and upwards. Quite how difficult these tasks will be to achieve depends on the particular power arrangements in place across different Combined Authorities and how much power has been given to elected-mayors. Nevertheless, if done right they can act as a strong figurehead for the new authorities, bringing together constituent members and powers to create something bigger than the sum of its parts and that is both resilient and durable over time. If done badly we could have a combined authority lacking in legitimacy, a vilified public figure that further disengages people away from politics and a prolonged exercise in blame shifting.

Because of the novelty of the metro-mayor and combined authority arrangements no one really knows what to expect. This could be perceived as a risk. Indeed in some areas, notably Yorkshire, disagreements at the outset over power sharing between the Combined Authority and Mayor have derailed plans.

However, it should also be seen as an opportunity. We should hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

lempriere

Max Lempriere is a final year PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham. His research interests include flexible institutional design, local government policy making, the politics of sustainable planning and construction and ecological modernisation.

Is commercialism the answer? If so, what is the question?

19/11/2015 / inlogov / Leave a comment

Catherine Staite, Director of INLOGOV

I often hear local government compared unfavourably with business, often by members who have had careers in business or industry. However, when I ask where they worked – they almost invariably name companies that are now defunct. That makes me wonder if local government deserves this unfavourable comparison. That’s before I ponder the notable probity of the banks, the honesty of VW and the reliability of Cross Country Trains.

Commercialism is a loose term, covering everything from trading activities to the skills to commission, procure, manage markets and deliver services through complex contracts. There also seem to be a number of implicit underlying meanings, including ‘entrepreneurial’ as in ‘risk taking’ and ‘tough’ as in ‘winner takes all’. Those perceived meanings strike me as both very masculine and very old-fashioned.

Commercialism, however it is understood, is not a guarantee of success. In fact, the wholesale importation of now discredited low cost/low effectiveness models of service from the private sector have actually generated failure demand.

So why do so many commenters think that increased commercialisation of local government’s functions or the acquisition of stronger hard and soft commercial skills is so necessary? There are usually two key reasons; the need for agility in a time of rapid change and to maximize resources in a time of austerity.

Every book on local government that I have ever read, regardless of when it was published, starts with a statement about the turbulence and unprecedented change being experienced by local government at that time. That does demonstrate that everything is relative. Was there ever a time when local authorities were like stately galleons, built for stability not speed, breasting the waves, largely unmoved by external pressures or internal dissent, with the cry of ‘steady as she goes’ echoing through the corridors?

If that was ever the case it certainly isn’t true now. Now many local authorities seem more like racing yachts – ploughing through stormy seas, with small crews and all hands on deck. Many are agile, resilient and efficient with some truly excellent skippers who are tacking in response to current pressures while maintaining a clear view of where they are headed. INLOGOV’s study for Grant Thornton in 2014 highlighted the significant differences between local authorities in terms of their likely financial futures, even after taking account of the inequities of local government finance. The difference between the most and least agile isn’t a reflection of varying degrees of commercialism. It’s much more fundamental than that. The best are distinguished by mature relationships between political and managerial leadership, with shared understanding of risks and opportunities that enable difficult choices to be made without blowing the authority off course.

The importance of trust and a new set of skills and attributes, in order to maximize resources, is becoming ever clearer, as demonstrated by INLOGOV’s study ‘The 21^st Century Public Servant’ which highlighted the importance of ‘municipal entrepreneurs’. Their role is about a lot more than commercialism. It is more about creativity working with agility while never losing sight of fundamental purpose of public services and retaining all the ethical underpinnings of stewardship. Our study for DCN on ‘New Ways of Working’ demonstrates that toughness and the short-term pursuit of financial gain don’t bring success, selflessness does.

Mature relationships and 21^st century skills are now forming the foundations of Combined Authorities and underpinning ‘devo deals’. The potential gains are likely to be of an entirely different order of magnitude than those achievable through mere commercialism.

Catherine Staite

Catherine Staite is the Director of INLOGOV. She provides consultancy and facilitation to local authorities and their partners, on a wide range of issues including on improving outcomes, efficiency, partnership working, strategic planning and organisational development, including integration of services and functions.

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The Institute of Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham

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