The origin of Localis's research into a modern agenda for public service integration lies in the time just before the publication of the Levelling Up White Paper in February 2022 – in that short era sandwiched between the end of pandemic measures and before Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

At the pre-publication briefing held in the state dining room of No10 Downing Street, a group of think-tank chiefs were told a tale of two data problems. First up, co-author of the White Paper and then head economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, lamented the quality of regional and sub-regional economic data upon which serious investment decisions could be made. Soft local intelligence from local authorities was no substitute for the hard, the reliable and the quantifiable.

Later, levelling up secretary Michael Gove expressed his regret at the dearth of performance data and insight on local public services and social outcomes. This, while it would be out of the question politically to resurrect anything on the scale and size of the Audit Commission to deliver the goods, something – the Office for Local Government (Oflog) – was deemed necessary to fill the perceived information and knowledge gap.

This raises a distinct and unique challenge to local government. Many among the dozen levelling up missions take on a cross-cutting approach. Approaches that could, potentially, instigate necessary activity across a range of actors from combinations of central government departments, local authorities, the NHS and the wider public sector, the private and voluntary sectors and community groups. For their success in the main, the place-based success of the levelling up missions will rely on not just the upkeep, but also the steady and measurable improvement of local public services, to the local public realm and local economies. So, in this context it wouldn't be unfair to say local government finds itself firmly on the hook for the success or failure of many players tasked with delivering this flagship domestic policy.

So after many years looking at anything but local public service reform and integration – devolution deals, industrial strategy – levelling up finally brings us back to our starting point, the strategic importance of basic neighbourhood services.

Our new report Level Measures – a modern agenda for public service integration is an overview of the key challenges in neighbourhood service delivery – that crucial, if unglamorous function of local government which is so essential to the success of such topical policy goals as levelling up and ‘pride in place'. The goal of the study has been to piece together the policy and the principles required to arrive at a modern and sustainable public service delivery framework.

In the course of our research, which involved seven regional roundtables with local authority chief executives and senior directors, we heard an open and palpable desire from our place leaders to continue to innovate to deliver responsive neighbourhood services as the foundation of prosperous places in all corners of the country.

These are the key findings drawn from canvassing the views of senior corporate leadership within local government, as well as those of independent experts and central government officials.

Our work revealed the wide variety of obstacles to effective public service delivery, and also picked out an equally broad number of solutions. Yet throughout the project, prevalent themes emerged, from which seven underlying principles for a modern public service integration agenda can be discerned.

•  Reliable, consistent and long-term funding. Local leaders, elected and bureaucratic, require certainty in order to unlock the efficiencies which planning service provision over the long-term can provide.
•  A holistic understanding of public services and their interconnected nature. Arbitrary divides between types of services and how they are funded do not allow for the kind of prevention-focused and outcome-oriented approach to neighbourhood public services which local authorities could provide in a less rigorously ring-fenced environment.
•  Trust between levels and tiers of government. Knowledge of what local government does, and how, remains too limited in Whitehall, but trust must also be fostered between councils who share delivery responsibilities across tiers.
•  Deep internal insight into and understanding of performance data, shared across boundaries and between tiers. While information on the outputs of public services is plentiful, there is neither a consensus nor a universal standard on the quality and purpose of data analysis – this prevents genuine insight and leads to potential innovations falling between the cracks of institutions with different capacities and divergent priorities.
• External audit that is based on outcomes, not outputs, considering the totality of local circumstances. Better audit is required for both the general public and central government to gain greater insight into the nature of council performance, but this must not come in the form of purely quantitative data which ranks local authorities. Audit must be purposive, focused on sharing best practice and identifying governance failures at the earliest possible juncture.
•  An integrated, systems-based approach to provision which focuses on upstream prevention and user outcomes. Building on principle two, service provision of any given line must take into account the total aggregated impact of local public services on an individual user, with priorities set and resources allocated in a way which maximises upstream prevention and distributes strain across the system in the most efficient way possible.
• Partnership frameworks based on long-term strategic goals which maximise local value. Working with the private and the third sectors should be done in a relational, strategic manner where the priorities for residents are clearly spelled out and delivered to by all partners.

The summary policy recommendations drawn from our Level Measures research are designed to move the English system of local public service delivery closer into line with the seven principles laid out above.

• Councils should have revenue support for their neighbourhood service provision combined with money currently allocated through capital pots into a single placemaking budget.

• Placemaking budgets should be multi-year, with a five-year budget being seen as the absolute minimum required to properly plan service delivery and levelling up.

• Councils should form placemaking boards with local partners and key stakeholders to provide input into strategy and delivery. These would ideally be formed at the county/unitary tier of governance and involve districts from across county areas as equal partners.

• The provision and delivery of these budgets should be piloted, with a long-term view towards establishing the kind of ‘whole place budgets' which have been repeatedly proposed over decades of central-local relations in English government.

• Devolution deals should include provisions to fund both the delivery of neighbourhood services and the capacity of councils to strategically coordinate provision across service lines to prioritise upstream prevention. To date, devolution deals have been too focused on regeneration through capital injections and too proscriptive of governance models. Better public service outcomes, and the upstream prevention benefits which accompany them, are crucial to improving quality of life and pride in place. To properly deliver on the promise of levelling up, deals must be more flexible and include provisions focused on neighbourhood services and the councils who deliver them.
• Subregional centres should be established for the collation and analysis of public service data, to be used as a shared resource for councils across a wider geographic area. Councils of all sizes across the country struggle to recruit and retain data professionals of the level required to provide intelligent insight into public service output data.
•  The intended role and purpose of Oflog should be clarified and broadened from a reductive focus on data. Central government must clearly articulate the goals of performance audit, particularly when policy goals such as value for money, delivering public value, or boosting economic development appear to be in conflict. The purpose and goals of Oflog should be clarified and designed to prevent an oversimplification of local governance, ensuring that its role aligns with the broader objectives of public service delivery and the levelling up missions.
• Civil service training for policy professionals should include a core element focusing on the form and function of local government. It is a widely shared sentiment that staff in central government departments do not fully understand the structure or the extent of local government functions, nor the capacity councils have to exercise these functions. This situation is exacerbated by the plethora of departmental initiatives with a local delivery element, which can and often do overlap with and contradict each other. A universal standard for understanding throughout Whitehall – not just the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities – is a prerequisite for improving place-based public services across the board.

Overall, through this prism, the untrammeled potential of what effective public service integration – including developments from the Integrated Care System landscape in health or the folding in of local enterprise partnership functions – can do to deliver better for communities offers a route to future continued and sustainable improvement. Allied to this is the pursuit of excellence in local government's more adroit use of data analysis and its longstanding mature approach to partnership working across the private and voluntary sectors.

Previous prime ministers have famously complained about bearing the scars of public service reform on their backs. If public service reform is best served through place-based approaches, an effective neighbourhood public service integration platform offers the promise of more gain for less pain.

Jonathan Werran is chief executive of Localis

Level Measures – a modern agenda for public service integration was launched this week at the LGA conference