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The focus may be on short-term cuts in order to meet the 2011/12 budgets. But council leaders and chief executives will soon need to evaluate what changed skills their management teams require for the future, says Derek Allen As we move into an era of significant austerity, and with council budgets being cut following the tough revenue support grant (RSG) settlement from the DCLG, we will see many jobs going, including senior and middle management positions. It is clear that, notwithstanding the reduction, reshaping, resizing and sharing of senior management posts, we are likely to see in the future, across the public sector, the need for managerial leadership of the highest quality will be more important than ever. However, the question I pose to colleagues is, what are going to be the key, essential skills that senior managers and those who aspire to rise to these positions will need to acquire and demonstrate, if we are to have successful councils and public sector organisations in the future? Perhaps to kick-start this, here are my starters for 10: they will need to have excellent communication skills, both internally and externally they must be politically in touch and astute, to help support a politically-led organisation they must be able to manage the organisation's finances in a difficult economic climate, and under both the macro and micro-economic realities and uncertainties l they must demonstrate transformational leadership, and help deliver transformed organisations with resilience and tenacity they must be able to lead and manage change programmes, and operate effectively in a dynamically-changing and challenging world they must be innovative, creative, entrepreneurial and less risk-averse, and inspire, empower and support their teams to deliver exceptional service they must drive partnership working and collaborate with partners, and exploit opportunities to maximise influence and leverage in these partnership arrangements they will need unequivocal commitment to driving customer excellence and organisational improvement, and relentlessly seek opportunities for personal development to continue to grow and widen their experience they must do the right things at the right time in the right place they must be lucky – and, as one famous golfer said: ‘The more I practice, the luckier I get!' I know these suggestions may seem like something one might expect to see on a job description for senior managers, but in my view, the real challenge will be to demonstrate how managerial leaders have met or can meet these attributes. As we are likely to see a lot of experienced managers leave the sector, a further challenge will be how the sector can grow and develop management talent, so they can ‘hit the ground running'. The Local Government Group will be supporting a leadership programme for modern local government, starting in March, delivered by KBA Solutions (www.kbasolutions.co.uk) for colleagues working in and managing frontline services, including environmental health, trading standards, housing, town planning and building control. Derek Allen is executive director at Local Government Regulation

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WHITEHALL

Time to plan for the future

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