It has been 14 years since the first strategic authority was established to deliver the landmark devolution deal in Greater Manchester. We are now in the midst of the largest number of new strategic authorities ever to be created at once, with many more planned.
Mayors and strategic authorities are front and centre of government plans to deliver growth, housing, skills, transport, etc, with the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill set to establish a foundation upon which the further expansion of remits and powers will be built.
And yet the achievements of these organisations have been inconsistent. Much has been accomplished, but much remains to be done. Some strategic authorities have lost their way and ended up in special measures, while the National Audit Office has expressed general concerns about governance.
Now should be the time to reflect, learn and proceed with insight and refreshed practices. Yet, in a messy mismatch of Maslow's hierarchy of needs*, the lofty self-actualising goals of place leadership and public service reform are, in many areas, obscured by the struggle for identity and survival triggered by local government reorganisation.
The emotions and rivalry that often characterise these debates make it even harder for new strategic authorities to get off to a solid start.
Recognising this, the Leadership Centre hosted a packed fringe event at the recent Local Government Association conference in Liverpool with a ‘looking back, looking forward' theme.
The aim was to capture reflections from those with long experience in this area for the benefit of those more recently under way or just starting out.
Several clear themes and practical recommendations emerged, alongside the need for deeper thinking to create insights that can inform both best and next practice, as I describe on these pages.
Reflections
At the workshop, senior officers in established strategic authorities recognised the significance of the history of collaboration and consensus in their area. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority had 25 years of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities to build on, but many areas either do not or have had a troubled past.
A new authority presents a chance to start afresh, but the relational field – the people, the perceptions they carry and the impressions left by former institutions – may haunt the new organisation if not acknowledged and reframed.
Relationship dynamics dominated the discussion, particularly the multiplicity that strategic authorities must own: government-to-mayor, mayor-to-authority, mayor and authority to constituent, associate and non-constituent members, and the wider system including public, third and private sector partners, whose active participation is needed to deliver on devolution outcomes.
Ideally, these interfaces should create flow, not friction, but this is not always the case. More recently, the early zeal of governments to deliver focused missions has, in some places, led to a clash of ‘deliverologies'.
Another vital element is the mayor – not just the individual and their leadership style – but also the role of the office itself. Even with recent moves to strengthen them, mayors often operate in environments of conflicting political mandates. Political shifts are always under way, requiring sophisticated leadership to, as the Leadership Centre chief executive Mark Rogers puts it: ‘Continually make and remake the consensus'.
All this creates challenges for how strategic authorities are structured, organised and governed. There are no rules, but there is an imperative to build a culture and way of working that can navigate tensions and dilemmas and seize opportunities.
Participants highlighted the 2022 external audit report into the West of England Combined Authority as ‘essential reading' – a cautionary tale of what can happen if these issues are not addressed.
Key questions
Unsurprisingly, but enthusiastically, we look at all of this in terms of the challenge this situation poses for leadership.
In our work with strategic authorities there are a number of questions at the intersection of people, place, organisations and relationships which have proved useful in getting purchase on the way in which a strategic authority is or will be organised and run.
In some of the recommended ways forward we see both the ingenuity of current leaders and their actions point to new ways of thinking about strategic authorities.
Leadership
Workshop participants emphasised the need for leaders to focus on areas of agreement and the long term, doing new things together.
One said: ‘We spent time preparing for a joint presence at UKREiiF, which helped articulate a shared identity and sense of purpose. The urgency was helpful – we knew we had to do it well and quickly – and it created a belief that past differences could fade as we looked to the future together.'
The role of leadership is to create a shared narrative in which everyone can find a role. Leaders must understand not only their own, but also others' criteria for success.
This approach is supported by global evidence: it is not single cities, but polycentric regions such as Minneapolis/St Paul and Bilbao/Bizkaia, where diverse strengths converge into an inclusive story that is progressing the fastest.
Strategy
Devolution deals and their assurance and gateway frameworks emphasise that strategic authorities must deliver outcomes in many areas. Yet participants stressed that, in inclusive growth or affordable housing, successful delivery is rarely, if ever, the pull of a single lever. It is a collaborative effort, requiring a sustained and authentic commitment to an inclusive partnership.
A combined authority's strategy is, therefore, more about orchestration than delivery, convening players, combining capacity and aligning resources. Strategic authority delivery is an additive: securing powers and investment that unlock the system's potential, building confidence in the area as an investable, clearly defined place, sustainable after devolution funding ends.
Culture
Strategic authorities vary greatly in size and the powers they have. There is no set design or blueprint. One workshop participant said: ‘It is culture that underpins success.' And culture is established and modelled by the conscious activity of leaders.
Design
All this activity requires investment in an organisation with the capacity and capability to do these things well. As one participant remarked with a feeling borne of hard experience: ‘It is folly to "underpower" the corporate core.'
More than this, some participants saw it as important to distinguish the design features of a strategic authority from that of a council. They said: ‘Some roles required in strategic authorities do not exist in traditional local authority structures.
‘The orchestration of an entire eco-system of players is very different from the delivery of services.'
One route into this is to reflect that for many years the dominant organisational form has been the ‘value chain' organisation so beloved of Harvard Business School's professor and economist Michael Porter – working in silos, segmenting markets, competing, amassing scale and assets, delivering products and services – with complex governance structures to hold them all together. Public sector organisations have mimicked many of these traits.
Recent years have seen these large, often lumbering vertical corporations supplanted by multi-sided platforms, entirely enabled by the internet era.
In contrast, these digitally enabled organisations are relatively small-scale, acting as convenors of an eco-system of players who create value together using the matching, referencing, collaboration and data tools provided on the platform.
All participants bring something that others need and need something that someone else brings and the platform grows as people use them and contribute to them.
There has been a revolution going on but, to date, we have largely ignored it.
The Learning Centre is committed to exploring new models that support the leadership challenge. There are, of course, issues of translation, but these capabilities certainly fit well with the challenges set out here.
The conversation about the form and function of strategic authorities is hugely exciting if we can raise ourselves enough to have it.
Strategic authorities are different from local authorities and now is the time to think afresh about the activities of leadership, culture, strategy and organisation design. If this area is of interest to you, please get in touch.
Max Wide is associate director of the Leadership Centre
*Maslow theory: a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.
