Released just 11 days after Andy Burnham took office, the Cabinet Office's Rewiring the State statement set out a vision of unprecedented ambition: to shift power and resources away from Whitehall, drive good growth and create public services that better respond to people's lives. A White Paper expected later this year will set out how that ambition will be delivered, and last week's Budget has added substance already, with a roadmap for fiscal devolution, new approaches to place-based investment and a commitment to put prevention at the heart of future spending decisions.
These are exciting times for those who, like New Local, have argued for just this shift over many decades and our local government members have responded in this spirit. Chief executives from across our network have welcomed the opportunity presented by a government that understands the value of place and local leadership and which seems willing to take bold decisions and give up control.
However, there remain some unknowns. While the core focus of Rewiring the State is, so far, on mayors and regions, what will devolution mean for local government and places? How will power reach communities? What will reforms in challenging areas, such as social care, mean for the role of local government? And will fiscal devolution help ease the unsustainable financial pressures felt by councils?
is essential that local government leaders play a significant role in the policy making process this autumn, alongside their colleagues in strategic authorities. The process should model the very open and collaborative ways of working across different parts of government that successful devolution requires. This means inviting in the views of local authority leaders from right across the country and ensuring it is they – not civil servants from national government, however well meaning – that define the role of local government in a rewired state.
This is important because policy needs to reflect local government's experience of what needs to change and where the opportunities lie in their places. This is not to say that mayors and regional collaboration do not have a big role to play in achieving the goals of good growth and more collaborative, integrated services. More mature systems are already showing the potential of Mayoral Strategic Authorities that work collaboratively with local government leaders: crafting policy and programmes that bring the best of everyone to the table.
This is not a zero-sum debate about which powers sit at which level, but a question of how we build collaborative, enabling systems of government and public services that ensure everyone plays the role they are best placed for, equipped with the right powers, resources and relationships. Local government is an essential partner in this agenda. A rewired state needs strong and effective councils, otherwise it risks moving decisions and services further away from where people live.
Local government has pioneered much of the innovation in and rethinking of the relationship between citizen and state which devolution policy now seeks to build on, yet its role and value was largely missing from the Rewiring the State document. So let's be clear on local government's unique role in a rewired state.
As the part of government that is both closest to where people live and democratically accountable at the local level, local government understands communities and place better than anyone else. Councils and councillors are deeply rooted in their places – their history, culture and rich social fabric – and are responsible for shaping futures for places alongside communities and partners that build on that local identity and opportunity.
As such, councils are uniquely placed to work closely with communities and embrace community power, helping to build the stronger and more participatory communities that are essential for good lives and outcomes in their place. They can work through their relationships, partnerships, assets, investments and services to strengthen the social fabric of communities and shape services and support around neighbourhoods in ways that reflect their unique context and conditions. As the councils across New Local's network have shown, local government understands the importance of community power and can help bring this about in multiple ways, putting communities at the heart of how they work and the decisions they make.
Councils are also important place convenors, bringing partners together to agree shared goals across sector divides and collaborate to bring the best of all local partners together. Rewiring the State rightly aims to strengthen horizontal connections across services and organisations, and this needs to happen at local as well as regional level, where local insight and relationships really matter. Wigan's borough-wide Progress with Unity missions and Sheffield's City Goals are good examples of place leadership and convening that knit together local partners around shared aims, among many others.
As place convenors, councils are also able to work alongside partners to test, learn and grow new, more integrated and relational approaches to public services. They can see the reality of people's lives in a holistic way: for example the connections between a person or family's housing needs and their health, debt, education and employment. At any other level these opportunities are abstract challenges. At the local level they are real people's lives, seen in context within a place and community. If we are really going to work upstream – to wrap the right support around people from across different service areas and sectors and support people's independence and social connections – local government needs to be at the heart of this work.
I am aware that writing this in The MJ means I am, to some extent, preaching to the converted. This is local government's work, the day-to-day focus of enormous effort in pioneering places across the country. We have heard this opportunity expressed repeatedly by progressive local leaders thinking about the future council through the lens of local government reorganisation (LGR) in conversations we have convened over the past 12 months. But at this moment, in the translation of a significant statement of intent by a new government into the policy that will make change happen, it bears strongly restating.
In conversations we have convened with council leaders about devolution recently, we have heard a repeated theme: devolution needs to change the conditions in which we are innovating; but we need to be prepared to innovate nonetheless. Local government needs to look outwards, collaborate with partners, empower communities, break down silos, reform services, build relationships and embrace new ways of working. Good devolution policy can help, but it doesn't take away the work of reforming organisations so they are fit for the challenges and opportunities of today.
Local government needs to be out there making this case to ensure the green shoots of this work are nurtured, not stifled, by devolution. All the powers, flexibilities and resources that are given to mayors and regions need to be put to the task of unlocking reform, innovation, collaboration and place leadership at the local level too.
This means that, as well as making the case for the role local government can play in a rewired state, local government also needs to ask for some enabling powers of its own.
New powers and freedoms at the regional level will change what's possible for the councils that make up strategic authorities: it is important we recognise this interconnection. However, they alone might not be sufficient at place level where there are multiple opportunities to go further, faster: Total Place-style flexibilities could bring resources together, enable different forms of investment and realise benefits to place budgets across organisational lines; new freedoms to share data would facilitate upstream prevention; new powers to convene across the public sector at place level could enable systems designed for prevention across local government, the NHS, education and beyond; investment in new capabilities at the place level – collaborative leadership, test, learn and grow, service design and digital – would build the skills for community engagement and cross sector collaboration; a new framework for care could bring the best of local government and community to the table and help to address financial pressures; and the removal of multiple funding streams with different reporting requirements would bring freedom from micro-management.
Devolution of real powers and resources cannot stop with mayors and combined authorities, it must be reflected in place too and local government should also be confident about making the case for its place, role and work.
That said, local government also needs to be brave about looking in the mirror and asking what it needs to change. In conversations we have convened with council leaders about devolution recently, we have heard a repeated theme: devolution needs to change the conditions in which we are innovating; but we need to be prepared to innovate nonetheless. Local government needs to look outwards, collaborate with partners, empower communities, break down silos, reform services, build relationships and embrace new ways of working. Good devolution policy can help, but it doesn't take away the work of reforming organisations so they are fit for the challenges and opportunities of today.
Local government needs to both make a powerful case for policy that facilitates the development of its role in place and to challenge itself about what it takes to grow into that role.
This is what we see leaders and chief executives doing every day in local government. Recent months have shown yet again the incredible resilience, creativity and boldness throughout the sector. Every opportunity is embraced as such, and every knockback and uncertainty (such as the LGR pause) almost immediately reframed as another chance to shape a better future and deliver for local communities.
If national government wants to rewire the state to change people's lives, it is this energy, commitment and willingness that it needs – councils leading the work in places across the country in ways that reflect the unique nature of every city, town, neighbourhood and community. This is not a moment to be shy about local government's essential role in a rewired state: it's a moment to grasp and shape this once in a lifetime opportunity.
Anna Randle is chief executive of New Local
