Faced with the biggest reform to local government in 50 years, now is an exciting time to be in HR and OD. We have the opportunity to advise our organisations on the implications of devolution for our workforce, ensure we have the right skill and experience to lead change and share learning from councils that have recently gone through the process.
The stakes are high with devolution being promised to save the taxpayer three billion pounds over five years, deliver better public services across each new unitary area, and provide more joined up health and care services. HR has an invaluable contribution to make to discussions which means we need to be clear on the implications of devolution for our organisation's workforce, efficiency, and resilience to deliver public services.
From an efficiency perspective it's clear that smaller councils by themselves struggle to deliver economies of scale. Whether we are talking about buying power, ability to drive transformation or retain and attract talent, these challenges are harder for many smaller authorities.
A council's own resilience determines its ability to build resilience within its communities, whether that's economic inclusion or better skills, employment, and healthcare outcomes for residents
By contrast, merging enables councils to achieve greater efficiencies through shared services. While some councils have been sharing services for some time, it is possible that reform will make shared services more conducive. Through the devolution deal, West Yorkshire combined authority secured £13.5 million of funding which it used to help over 10,000 people in the region made redundant due to the pandemic to obtain new skills and access training or find work. Reflecting on this example, there's a strong case to be made that if the principal outcome of reform is greater efficiency, then is worthwhile doing for the end user.
This was the case in the West Midlands, where the scale of the newly created combined authority created greater capacity and competence for service to collaborate on cross-boundary projects such as the Violence Reduction Unit, Town Centres Programme and Tackling Health Inequalities programme.
Additionally, larger councils should be in a better position to offer a stronger employer value proposition, enabling them to compete more effectively for talent working in private and multinational companies who want to work at scale. Although size doesn't automatically guarantee a strong EVP. Unitary councils will need to leverage their size to create attractive career pathways. For example, attracting talented planners and architects with the opportunity to work within a wider geography or regional level. To have more involvement in a greater geographical area, and in doing so achieve greater coherence across urban and rural areas. Without a strong EVP that can compete with the private sector we will continue to struggle to compete with the private sector for professional talent.
Similarly, the size of unitary councils should create greater resilience to withstand systemic shocks, whether that's from the economy, funding, global pandemics, or cyber security. A council's own resilience determines its ability to build resilience within its communities, whether that's economic inclusion or better skills, employment, and healthcare outcomes for residents. For example, by establishing the Mayoral Development Corporation the Tees Valley is set to create 20,000 jobs and add £1 billion per year to the local economy over the next 25 years. At the other end of the country, devolution has enabled Cornwall to provide 11.000 businesses with access to support schemes.
Despite its potential to create positive outcomes, we need to stay alive to the dark side it may also bring. How do we align workforce efficiencies with the new employment rights bill. How do we deal with the unintended consequences for our people of doing the right thing for our citizens? How can we press ahead with reform without legislative requirements inadvertently bringing the process of change to a grinding halt?
The same principle applies to service delivery. A unified approach to service provision can be achieved but it will create a level of change to workforce and service design that must be effectively navigated.
None of these challenges are insurmountable but HR needs to start planning today to ensure it has the strategic OD and workforce capacity to deliver devolution in a way that drives improvement in council services.
Pam Parkes, PPMA President and Commissioner, Birmingham City Council
