Sustaining the reputation of local government in difficult times

The LGA have voted unanimously to make ‘reputation’ a priority for the year ahead. This chimes with Sir Merrick Cockell’s manifesto pledge and recognises the need to repair public trust at a time when changes in services mean that individuals, families and communities may feel that they are getting less from their local authority.

David Pugh, Leader of the Isle of Wight Council moved the motion. He told the conference that it was time for “the LGA to step up a gear and support its member authorities, up and down the country, in taking pro-active action to restore and enhance their standing within their individual communities.”

Cllr Pugh was careful to say that this should not involve “propaganda or promotional campaigns at the expense of the taxpayer”. Instead he focused on “supporting and enabling local authorities – at all levels – from councillors to officers – to effectively explain and articulate what they are doing, why they are doing it, and what services are available to residents.”

This is the right approach to such a campaign. The LGA’s Strategic Advisor, Joe Simpson, has long argued that communication should be about enabling conversations with communities – which means listening and delivering a tangible response to public views, rather than the traditional “broadcast model” of press release plus council magazine. 

There is plenty of good material from which any council can review their communications to sustain and improve communications and trust with the public, and community leaders. The LGA’s reputation project, material from professional groups such as LGInsight on public attitudes and LGcommunications and the CIPR Public Services Group on media and marketing all offer the foundations stones for the strategy and plans for delivery.

But if Cllr Pugh’s wish that we should use communication to “explain and articulate” what councils are doing and “why they are doing it” is to work it requires leading councillors and the senior management of every authority to do three things.

First, they need a strong and coherent core story to tell to explain why we do things. This is not the rubbish corporate strategies of yesteryear. This should be a short and pithy statement of priorities that would pass a “pub test” in terms of a councillor or officer being able to explain in a social setting what the council is trying to do. Nottingham City Council’s “Pride” narrative is one example.

Second, stupidity must stop. Our collective credibility is undermined by the unthinking, mismanaged actions of councils that implement policies that waste money and put local government in the box labelled “bureaucrats” rather than being seen on the side of people. Chief Executives should sense check every policy and cabinet members should enquire and test proposed delivery. Both should put “common sense” top of the guiding principles for staff in delivering the services. How else can we stop a farce like the recent action of York Council contractors in building a metal fence through a football goal making the pitch unusable? 

Third, we must learn to consult and feedback rather than just ask and then forget the audience. Too many central and local consultations have no formal or informal feedback to those who contributed and the wider community to show what changed as a result of the consultation exercise. Sutton Council consulted on the tricky issue of waste collection last year, initiated a debate, were criticised locally but listened and changed policies as a result and told people what they were doing. Their satisfaction scores are increasing, because people see that they listen.

Cllr Pugh said in his speech that the Isle of Wight has “a strong sense of community identity, and proudly so. Our residents care about the communities in which they live, and take a keen interest in local matters, such as frontline services.” I know that this is particularly true of the Island, but it is a fair description of many communities. We must utilise this innate goodwill in every town and village if we are to sustain the reputation of local government in difficult times.  

A new strategy for handling councils?

Local government was described as "brilliant" and "efficient" and praised for taking "really difficult decisions" by the Prime Minister in Birmingham this afternoon.

LGA delegates were appreciative but may have been a little sceptical after the perceived avalanche of criticism that has been heaped on councils these last twelve months.

Still the PM continued talking up local government heralding the new era of "council power" which he saw as the conclusion of the government's radical agenda which was ending bureaucracy, abolishing quangos, "phasing out ring fencing" and "rooting out red tape".

He highlighted the new authority that the General Power of Competence would grant local authorities to "run new services". He challenged councils to use Health and Wellbeing Boards to shape health policy and he praised Labour Islington public services for pooling £6million of funding to target resources at the most hard to reach families.

He also accepted that this new relationship would require robust debate. He said that he would be "happy for you to tell us if we had got the wrong priorities", though he pointed out this worked both ways and singled out Chief Executive pay as an area where he thought the sector should show more restraint.

This show of respect, listing of new powers and offer of a serious discussion about future direction paved the way for tough words on public sector pensions. Here he stressed the need for a settlement which was "fair" to taxpayers and workers.

Judging by the conference 'clap-o-meter' Mr Cameron's words worked. But after the LGA event local leaders will look for proof of this appreciation of town hall efforts. Still, he also praised the new LGA Chairman, Sir Merrick Cockell, to whom it will fall to lead the task of making this relationship work.

It is true that the localism agenda, expressed in the current Bill, but pioneered by the last Labour government and championed by Liberal Democrats is radical. But it is also true that there are still plenty of people in government who are reluctant to let go and are circumscribing the new powers. And the PM's challenge to us to "take people power to the next level" by devolving services to the community, has to be set against the reality of public indifference and declining budgets. It would also be interesting to see how the call to "tell us" if central government is wrong sits with the CLG's new Code of Conduct on publicity, perhaps, tell us if we are wrong, but only politely.

Overall the Prime Minister probably made friends and influenced people in Birmingham. He is the first serving PM to address the conference and saying that councils are "doing a brilliant job in challenging circumstances" is a positive endorsement. So, if this is the start of a beautiful new relationship, that is a reason to be cheerful during a difficult week for public service.

A new era for police accountability

London Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse was in robust form at a Westminster Council 'Ideas Exchange' event this week. He made a strong case that local authorities must be much more pro-active in scrutinising the performance of their police forces while reforms and financial necessity can deliver more effective partnerships. 

Malthouse argued that communities don’t particularly want to be involved in setting priorities; they want action and for particular streets to be free of crime – which is often the top priority when asked what they want their local council to do. He said that:  “People are thirsting for someone to take responsibility for crime” and said that when the post of deputy mayor with responsibility for policing was created the GLA’s postbag became overwhelmed with spontaneous correspondence from the public – illustrating how long people have been looking for someone to take on this role.  Not to be involved in the detail of the decisions, but to ensure that someone is listening to their views and can be held responsible for delivery.  

He went on to say that the police, and other public bodies, have a habit of creating a language about what they do that disempowers people.  The analogy used was taking your car to a garage. You trust the mechanic to mend the car, but you have no idea really what they have done or whether it was genuinely needed, plus you will probably get a larger bill at the end without understanding why.  Just as the mechanic can’t be questioned, it is difficult to question the police.  This means that decisions on priorities cannot be properly scrutinised and even local councils can feel excluded from the process.

He mounted a strong defence of proposals for Police Commissioners, pointing out that only 8% of the population knows about Police Authorities so they won’t be missed. Malthouse argued that this will help ensure a “democratic alignment of priorities” and “give local authorities the chance to assert themselves”.  In particular anyone who is elected needs friends to support them in their work, so they will need to work with local authorities and other partners.

Budgets are as for everyone else an issue. Senior officers have grown up in a time of plenty and will have to deal with change.  In London this has meant, a shift in how police cars respond to calls.  Previously any car near any incident would turn up, so you might get a dozen cars responding to a small incident.  Now a central system allocates proportional to the incident.  This sort of streamlining will be required across the service to allow resources to be focused on the frontline.

If Malthouse’s analysis is right this creates opportunities for local authorities in terms of co-location of services, greater partnership working and asserting themselves in the alignment of priorities. The police will not have the resource to go it alone anymore, or the hiding place to avoid scrutiny.  It also creates opportunities for residents in ensuring that they can clearly understand who is responsible for policing priorities, can participate if they want, and be assured that their most important issues are being dealt with. The police themselves have to respond by being more transparent and by accepting new ways of working, on the basis that the front line must be protected and be able to respond effectively to genuine local priorities.

In a previous role, as Deputy Leader of Westminster Council Mr Malthouse looked at the case for a Westminster Police Force, to match the City of London force. While this was never likely to happen it is an interesting argument - large cities with their own dedicated local forces with larger city region units focusing on crime that crosses boundaries.

There is plenty of scepticism and indeed outright opposition outside of London to the idea of elected commissioners. The potential for conflict between council leaders and commissioners is clear. But no one can argue against greater openness and accountability of the police. Perhaps there is an argument just give greater police powers to local leaders - to use the present democratic mandate and work out a system?

This is a healthy debate that needs to happen and local government needs to ensure its voice is heard – policing is hugely important area to influence.   

How to improve the Localism Bill

As the Localism Bill starts its scrutiny in the House of Lords and the government promises a ‘Big Society’ Bill, councils are in the frontline of the coalition’s fight to deliver more effective public services.

In return for scaling back budgets there needs to be the potential for a much stronger and independent position for councils in the future.

The Localism Bill is a welcome piece of legislation but there are, however, a number of areas that we and our colleagues at Hammersmith and Fulham, Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea would like to see amended or changed.

In particular:

A new community right to challenge and buy should be granted to councils. Local authorities should be empowered to challenge quangos or other public agencies over the right to run services in their area.

On referendums, the threshold whereby residents having signed a petition can trigger a referendum should be 10%. Similarly, a minimum turnout of 25% of an area for the outcome of the referendum to be valid should be put in place.

Councils should be given greater freedoms around the setting of fines for breaches of planning enforcement while the requirement to list all planning applications in newspapers should be removed. Councils could make sizable savings if they were allowed to advertise online.

On housing, councils should be empowered to prevent homelessness in the first place while there should also be greater freedoms around rent setting and a more consistent approach to the issuing of social housing tenancies.

Finally Westminster Council is seeking separate clarification on the use of the general power of competence – in particular whether local authorities will be permitted to issue derivatives under this new power.

There is much to welcome in the localism bill and local government will need to take on the new freedoms with imagination and competence.

Along with our neighbouring councils, and for the benefit of the whole of local government we hope that ministers will take on board and act on our concerns.

We believe our amends our necessary if government is serious about handing over power to councils who are best placed to act in the interests of their local communities.

It will be interesting to see how the debate goes over the next few weeks.

Whitehall needs to get grips with community based budgets

Needless red tape costs Westminster Council almost £1million a year - enough to cover the salaries of 26 teachers, 28 social workers or 44 street cleaners.

We also have to provide Whitehall with more than 2,500 separate pieces of data covering everything from noise, planning and pollution to food safety, rubbish collection and parking.

We now have an administration in place that says it knows that big centralised government is not necessarily good government and is committed to devolving power.

However, the coalition needs to go further and faster and really get to grips with the trail of audits, inspections and bureaucratic assessments that are stifling genuine innovation in local government and in particular stalling work around community budgets.

To take my own council as an example, Westminster is one of the government’s 16 pilots that are trialling the new community budgets finance scheme.

Our groundbreaking family recovery programme, which is designed to tackle issues around family breakdown, is at the heart of this new model. The service helps families with complex problems by pooling resources with organisations like the NHS and the Police.

We know that this programme works - it has resulted in reduced offending and incidents of anti-social behaviour, reduced numbers with rent arrears and improved health.

It also delivers savings to the public purse. The cost of taking 63 families through the programme in 2011/12 will be approximately £1 million. Based on an evaluation of the first 50 families who entered the programme, the total cost avoided that would otherwise spent, is £2.6 million.

However, the financial investment we make and the reward we get back from government for doing so are misaligned. We end up investing and while Whitehall benefits it does not contribute to the running costs of the programme.

The key issue, therefore, is the coalition’s apparent lack of willingness to pool budgets which means that Whitehall commissions in silos and leaves the local authority and its partners to make the joins.

Because of these factors we are restricted in the number of families we can assist. For Westminster, this means a reduction in the number of families with complex needs assisted in 2011/12.

We believe the way to solve this impasse is for Whitehall to have a single ‘owner’ to tackle issues such as family breakdown. If implemented we would then become the lead commissioner and responsible for all funding that is currently spent on family breakdown in the borough

Equally, while government can specify the outcome, it should be up to us to commission the right services to tackle ‘problem’ families in our area. This in turn would enable us to assist all families with complex needs rather than just a proportion which is what we are restricted to doing at present.

We are working with central government to lift bureaucratic restrictions that delay or build in cost but they now need to play their part and move forward speedily with their community based budget scheme so we can better meet the needs of our local communities.

Currently progress is slow, and Greg Clark’s promised report on the progress of localism across government  looks like being a depressing read unless together we can start delivering real pooled budgets.

No longer a world for "no comment"

I am still bothered by the BBC 10 o'clock news last Thursday night. A lengthy item on Birmingham Council's plans to outsource IT jobs to India, and the council refused to comment which the reporter made a point of saying on air. Obviously critics and unions were quoted extensively.

The council has now issued a statement, which appears to have happened after millions had watched the BBC piece. The council explained that up to 60 vacant and temporary jobs might be outsourced to India. This differs substantially from the “up to 100” quoted by the BBC.

Birmingham is a good council facing major challenges and its actions are hugely important for the local government community. We have to understand that in a 24/7 news, communicated, wired, tweeted world people expect communication and more than that they demand a conversation with the people who make decisions. 

No comment was always a last resort that had to be used sparingly as a response to enquiries from journalists where the answer would reveal legal facts, compromise safeguarding responsibilities or divulge other sensitive personal information. It will usually lead the viewer or reader of such a comment from a public authority to conclude that the organisation has something to hide and thereby damage trust in the organisation.

Surely Birmingham could have provided some sort of speedy answer from “we are considering every way to protect jobs and secure value for money” to “we are engaged in a difficult programme of service cuts which require us to consider radical options to secure the best services for the people of Birmingham”.

The truth is probably that the press office wanted to comment and provide a spokesman but the approval process of the council, ground too slowly for the BBC news. And so another opportunity to explain to the public about the challenges we all face was lost. 

Waking up to evaluation

At this year’s LGcomms Academy it was decided for the first time in the event’s history to introduce a day focused on the work of new think tank LGinsight - launched as a sister organisation to LGcommunications – which included a series of partnership master classes on internal communications and evaluation.

Chaired by Neil Wholey, Head of Research and Consultation at Westminster City Council, the audience was told that ‘their heads would hurt with new ideas’ but was quickly brought up-to-speed on the full ‘wonders’ of research.

It was during these sessions that LGcomms National Chair, David Holdstock, stressed to delegates from across the UK that “if it doesn't make a difference, don't do it”. That key message was echoed throughout the day. Delegates learned the value of ‘proving their worth’ and heard that research also gives us early warnings, helps us manage customer expectations and prioritise service delivery needs.  

In an illuminating presentation from Keith Butterick, Director of the Centre for Communication Research at the University of Huddersfield, we learnt half of public sector communication teams have no formal evaluation methods and of those who do most simply collect press clippings and record how many press releases they send out. He rightly questioned how communicators we were proving the value of their work to the taxpayer when so many seem not to have woken up to importance of evaluation.

Over the last decade the golden rule for communicators has been that the more informed people are the more satisfied they will be. The LGinsight Academy marked the day when this was challenged. Discussions were held about causality – is it that more satisfied people seek out information and are better informed rather than vice versa?   

Emphasising this point, Ian Mills from SMSR (Social and Market Strategic Research) said: “I can be satisfied with a cup of tea on a train but it doesn’t mean it’s any good”. He said while it’s not easy, communicators would be better trying to understand public expectations.

The day generated a wide range of debate, with some clearly aware of the need to do more and others still finding it difficult to accept they needed to develop their skills, but overall it was a good introduction to research and positive step towards fully embedding it in the way public sector communications operates.