The notes accompanying the recent Queen’s Speech state that one of the main benefits of the ensuing Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill will be ‘boosting growth and increasing productivity and efficiency in local government’.

Immediately post-election and prior to the 2010 Spending Review I was invited to lead a workshop for the benefit of the Department for Communities and Local Government and HM Treasury entitled A total framework to realise localism, enhanced outcomes and necessary efficiencies. We discussed in detail ‘a whole-systems approach to addressing the existing architecture – making things work better for local people, under the overarching economic development objective’.

My work on the ‘growth coalitions’ project addressed the universal role for local authorities in promoting growth through the services that they offer and the role that they could play in developing local, sub-regional and regional economies in association with the private sector. Citizen-centred, local, integrated and strengths-based services were seen as the outcomes, making the system work better for local people.