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Robin Hambleton and Joanna Howard argue that international experience with place-based leadership can enlighten practice in the UK. How can scholars contribute to current debates about place-shaping and public service innovation? Are there ways in which the resources of UK universities can be more effectively engaged with the challenges now facing local government? Can local authorities gain inspiration from imaginative civic leadership in other countries? A new report, published by the Local Authority Research Council Initiative (LARCI), explores this terrain. LARCI is a national effort to bridge the worlds of academia and local government practice. Earlier this year, we were delighted to receive an invitation from LARCI to prepare a report on international insights on civic leadership and public service innovation. The report, which has been written with the active participation of a steering group of experienced local government practitioners and national policy-makers concerned with government and third sector innovation, maps the field and offers a number of pointers for UK practice. Much of the present debate about leadership and innovation in UK local governance seems to be neglecting the potential of learning from abroad. This study examines whether international exchange could play a more prominent role in policy-making, and it explores how those concerned with public service reform in the UK could become more effective in drawing practical lessons from experience in other countries. The study identifies three overlapping ‘realms of leadership' in any given locality. These realms are political, managerial and community. The analysis suggests that the areas of overlap between these realms provide ‘innovation zones', in which new ideas and approaches can be tried out. In this framework, people with different perspectives are brought together, opening up new possibilities for dialogue. Empowering approaches which stimulate dialogue between autonomous third sector organisations, officers and elected local leaders can often build synergies that, in turn, produce new thinking. We, therefore, stress the importance of cultivating leadership that can work across boundaries. The study shows that it is possible to respond more effectively to current challenges and pressures, if people operating in the different realms of ‘place-based' leadership can be brought together in active collaboration. Illuminated by cameos describing practical examples of civic leadership and public service innovation in five different countries – the US, Sweden, The Netherlands, Brazil and Colombia – the report suggests that adopting an international perspective can provide the UK debate with a welcome injection of fresh ideas. The cameos illustrate innovation in five different policy settings: regional civic innovation in the capital district, New York, US the civic leadership response to climate change in Malmo, Sweden urban leadership and community involvement in Enschede, The Netherlands participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil the planning and participatory budgeting programme in Medellin, Colombia. These cameos were chosen to illustrate the inventive approaches taken by localities in other countries to issues that we believe to be of real interest to localities in the UK. In these case studies, it was noticeable that successful public service innovation depended on building new relationships between different stakeholders. This is, in itself, an important insight – the third sector organisation, the government department, the local authority that thinks it can promote successful innovation by embarking on internal culture change might well be able to do useful work. Our analysis suggests, however, that working with others who are outside your organisation and outside your realm of experience, is crucial to the delivery of bold and successful innovations. This ‘place-based' approach to civic leadership and innovation has much to offer to the Total Place approach to policy development, advanced in the chancellor's Budget in April. Sceptics will say that UK local governance has nothing to learn from abroad. They will claim that countries differ so much that fruitful cross-national exchange is doomed. This is out-of-date thinking. We recognise that there are risks associated with ‘policy tourism', but these can, in our view, be circumvented by developing more sophisticated ‘lesson drawing practice'. The international learning task is not to search for a mythical ‘best' approach. Rather the aim should be to discover ‘relevant' practice – that is, insights and approaches which can help agencies respond to the concerns and challenges that face them in their ‘place'. Acceptance of this argument suggests international exchange should give focused attention to the processes that brought about change in the foreign locality being examined. Naturally, the outcomes will excite interest – who benefited in what way will be of great interest to policy-makers. But, if international insights are to drive successful innovation in the UK, it is more helpful to understand the drivers and processes linked to specific innovations in other countries. Robin Hambleton is professor of city leadership, and Joanna Howard is research fellow in the Cities Research Centre at the University of the West of England, Bristol

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WHITEHALL

Learning from overseas

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