Title

Robin Hambleton and Andrew Holder suggest leaders should put an even stronger focus on innovation in local government. Ten years ago, we wrote an article in LocalGov's sister title, The MJ, stressing the importance of cultivating innovation in local government. This may seem a long time ago, but there are parallels with today. In ‘The price of change' (The MJ, 2 October 1998), we referred to the July White Paper – that year it was In touch with the people, this year it is Communities in control – and suggested that local authorities varied significantly in their capacity to take on the new challenges being set down by central government. We suggested that more attention needed to be given to the psychology of innovation. And we claimed that the emotional, as well as the intellectual implications of government policy for local government, were not being given sufficient attention. We introduced the notion of an ‘innovation curve' to emphasise this point. How relevant are these ideas today? In 1998, we identified, on the basis of our change management work with local authorities, three kinds of local authority... ‘Adventurous' councils were eager to exploit opportunities available to them. They set demanding aims for themselves, and welcomed the chance to compete for ‘Beacon status'. Most councils, we surmised at the time, could be described as ‘cautious'. They tended to adopt a ‘wait and see' approach, and moved to adopt new approaches only after taking account of the experience of the pioneering councils. We used the term ‘stuck', perhaps unkindly, to describe those councils which were furthest back on the innovation curve. These authorities were, for a variety of reasons, resistant to change. They tended to be backward-looking and seemed intent on either ignoring or attacking the modernisation agenda. In the article, we acknowledged that this framework was a simplification – for example, we noted that different parts of the same authority could be at different points on the innovation curve. However, the analysis did have the virtue of highlighting two points that are still relevant today. First, councils are not at the same starting line when it comes to their capacity to innovate. Councils at different points on the innovation curve need different kinds of support and encouragement. Second, more attention needs to be given to the emotions of councillors and officers. Winning the intellectual argument for change is not enough. In the period since 1998, the performance of local councils has improved markedly. An independent assessment of local government prepared for the IDeA by Clive Grace and Steve Martin earlier this year, Getting better all the time, provides information to support this claim. This noted that: ‘By 2006, more than three-quarters (78%) of authorities achieved three or four-star rating and, for the first time since Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) began in 2002, no authorities were placed in the lowest CPA category'. Various explanations are put forward to explain this improvement including: * effective joint managerial and political leadership * clear targets, coupled with outcome monitoring * more day-to-day performance management * market testing and/or outsourcing * increased user and staff engagement. Fast-forward to 2008, and ‘innovation' is starting to receive the attention it has long deserved. With the creation of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), innovation has now made it into the title of a government department, and the National School of Government held a conference on public innovation last year. These are good signs but, in a rapidly-changing world, these efforts fall well short of what is needed. Successful innovation is not a ‘top down' affair. As a recent SOLACE pamphlet, edited by Michael Burton, editor of The MJ, on Innovation through people (SFI, July 2008) shows, it is those on the frontline of service delivery – providers and users – who should be encouraged to imagine and apply new approaches. The tough message for ministers is that the top down, target-driven approach to public service improvement is past its ‘sell-by' date. Or, in the more tactful wording of the IDeA report, we need ‘to move beyond competence and learn to innovate more and better, both for service delivery and delivering outcomes'. This is not just because ‘Whitehall' – or for that matter, the Audit Commission – does not ‘know best'. The variety of community needs encountered on the ground has always ensured that centralised, national performance targets could only ever have a role in pursuing minimum standards. The more important reason why central targets are of decreasing importance is because they are unsuited to the nature of the most important challenges now facing government – from climate change to childhood obesity, from community safety to local economic development during a recession. Dealing adequately with these cross-cutting concerns requires ‘out of the box' behaviour at the local level. Local leaders – politicians and officers – need to be valued for coming up with bold innovations which impress local authorities across the world, not compliance with ‘tick a box' regimes invented in Whitehall. To shift the focus of local government activity from ‘conformance' to ‘performance', our 1998 innovation curve needs to be updated. Below, we suggest that local authorities today can still be divided, in a rough and ready way, into three categories – but they have changed. The innovation curve 1998-2008 The least innovative councils we can now describe as ‘cautious'. Given the improvements of the last decade, no council in the UK is now ‘stuck' in the sense we used in 1998. This is progress, but the ‘cautious' councils are followers – it is unlikely that they will startle their peers by breaking entirely new ground. The second group in our updated analysis can be described as ‘adventurous'. We may be accused of being too optimistic on this score as this is, we suggest, the dominant group in local government today. However, documents, such as the SOLACE pamphlet and the IDeA report, suggest that a good deal of innovation is taking place in local government, and our own experience confirms this view. These efforts may go unrecognised in the corridors of power, but this does not mean that they do not exist. But being adventurous is now not enough. The truly-innovative councils of today have raised their sights beyond national performance regimes and are striving to be world class. These councils recognise that innovative practice in local authorities across the world can inspire break through practice in their area. They have developed not just a strong international outlook, but have also introduced mechanisms to enable them to learn from pioneer councils in other countries. The IDeA and the LGA have given leadership to the innovation agenda and the idea of learning from abroad. For example, the recent International Insights series, published in The MJ, speaks to this agenda – more information is available on the IDeA website www.idea.gov.uk/international. The conclusion to our 1998 article stands up today. Councils should not wait for government legislation. Rather, they should consider where they, or more correctly, where different parts of their authority, are on the 2008 innovation curve and push to move their culture to one which values and rewards innovation. In a follow-up article, we will discuss how bolder innovation can be accomplished. Robin Hambleton is professor of city leadership in the Faculty of Environment and Technology at the University of the West of England, Bristol and director of Urban Answers. Andrew Holder is a local government management consultant and is director of AHA consultancy

Title

WHITEHALL

A decade of innovation in local government

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING