Underpinning myriad election promises this summer is tacit acknowledgement of the need for profound public service reform. It's buried in the small print of manifestos, in side-briefings, and in the logical implications of tax and spend commitments.
Furthermore, a collective understanding of what change should look like is emerging: We must increase the pace and scale of growth in a way that focuses on those who need growth the most, and funnel fiscal benefits for the wider public good; and we must redesign local public services, using data and insight and relational practice, to address the root causes of why people need help rather than episodically ‘treat' each need. To make this happen, we must re-establish trust and power between people, and between people and public institutions; and we must use new and emerging technology, AI and machine learning to deliver a radical shift in productivity.
Less clear is how to deliver this change, but there is much to learn from innovators in local government. Understanding the conditions required to remake and reform is the subject of my publication Only We Can Save the State, written as part of the Demos Future Public Service Task Force. A rich seam of local experience – as evidenced in my own, peer-reviewed, work as well as that of pioneers across the country from Wiltshire to Wigan, Fife to Liverpool – is simply waiting to be tapped.
Let us be clear however: The task is ongoing and for local leaders the challenges are huge and immediate. No-one appears to be coming to the rescue. Few believe fiscal restraint will be loosened in the coming decades to the extent that rising demand can be met through our current institutions and ways of working. But our current systems have developed a remarkable immunity to change.
Institutions that were designed by our great-grandparents' generation to address early 20th century problems retain significant public and professional appeal, but are no longer cutting it as we tackle the profoundly different circumstances of today.
The relentless ‘needs led' logic that was captured in the design of post war public services has been baked into our professions, the accountability framework of ministerial portfolios, the wider architecture of Whitehall governance and the prevailing mindset of regulators and inspectors. Who wouldn't want more of something that people need?
Delivering reform is hard too and rarely gets easier with time. Not only is it technically challenging, but the extent of the change required, as realisation dawns, can affect behaviours. While many will respond in good faith, others will not. There will be misrepresentation of intentions or an exaggeration of risks. Sometimes people won't be truthful. Others won't be good enough, despite all our hopes for the very best talent to top our organisations. All of these factors create potent inhibitors of change.
It is understandable, then, that leaders approach change with caution. They often also feel they have just one shot to make a difference. They also face a paradox. Delivering the momentum and confidence to break through to a new way of working requires grip, co-ordination and a form of singular determination. But breaking through also requires letting go – allowing for co-production, innovation, and resilient mutuality. Lateral leadership, not command and control.
It requires a new ecology, a move from what LSE professor of political economy, Abby Innes, describes as ‘machine production' to a form of organisation and relationships that is more often found in the natural world.
Central government has a vital role in enabling this transition – they have to make it easier for leaders to deliver reform. To this end, my paper proposes the creation of a national New Start Programme that would integrate key functions from local government, the Department of Work and Pensions, primary care and mental health services into new, locally led organisations.
Imagine a neighbourhood-based preventative state, underpinned by data, insight, predictive analytics and relational practice, designed as a platform for community support, mutualism and community power. It would support the 30-40% of working age people who feel constantly on the edge of crisis and face multiple challenges, any one of which could tip them over, and also place significant burden on the state.
The mission would be to help folk stay afloat, build their confidence and provide the foundations for everyone to live better, more fulfilling, lives.
At a time of complexity and pessimism, it's a positive and intuitively simple vision. Local government and pioneers in other sectors have proved it can work. It could improve millions of lives, reconnect us all, and in time save billions. It could be a flagship, first-term deliverable for government and pre-cursor for more. And it could clearly demonstrate that reform is an action, not a conversation piece.
Chris Naylor is a director of Inner Circle Consulting and a former local authority chief executive and finance director
@publicnaylor
Chris Naylor's publication Only We Can Save the State is available to download from the Demos website www.demos.co.uk together with a recording of the event launching it
