To sustain local government, we must all step up
Putting council finances on a stable footing will require more than economies of scale, says executive director Roger Birkinshaw. Partners like us need to work harder too.
The Secretary of State has confirmed that two unitary councils will emerge from the reorganisation in Surrey. The county and its 11 boroughs will now complete an east-west split in as little as two years. ‘Financial sustainability’ was the reason given for rejecting a three-council model, suggesting a presumption that larger unitaries are better at keeping finances on an even keel. As a long-standing partner to local government, we agree that economies of scale can release savings. But they cannot transform services on their own.
This is a generational opportunity
It’s not for the want of trying that councils struggle to meet residents’ expectations. I’ve been around long enough to see countless reforms delivered with care and effort, all making things that little bit better. But it’s our work with the recent unitaries, like 4-into-1 Buckinghamshire, 7-into-1 North Yorkshire and 5-into-1 Somerset that revealed the true power of a rethink. It’s a chance to look again at ways of working that feel so natural but are ageing fast.
Nigel Blair wrote recently about his work with merging unitaries. One of his tips to making these changes genuinely transformative was to engage technology partners like us as early as possible. Not least because new AI, analytics and mobile tools are emerging all the time, ready to keep teams focused on what actually matters to communities. But where he says ‘engage’, I say ‘challenge’. Now is the time for new approaches, and maybe new commercial models too.
Challenge us to think differently
When our customers tell us what they want to be able to do in a particular solution but can’t, big things or small things, we go and find a way to do it. It’s an approach we’re now taking for local government reform as a whole, regardless of what software is used by which teams. We’re bringing all our experts together regularly, talking about how those ever-present silos might be smoothed or removed to good effect. Our starting point is that technology might enable the fix, but it can’t generate it.
So, challenge us to work differently, because we’re ready. Tell us what you wish you could do. Make us prove we understand it. And above all, check that what we’re all aiming for matches what your customers really need.
Build services around users, not boundaries
User-centred design was built for this moment. NEC Digital Studio can point to endless examples of how good service design saves real money. Make a process easy and accessible and it stops the queries coming in. It prevents issues from arising or tackles them early to prevent costly escalations. It creates services that that you know can be sustained for the long term. Councils would do well to start this work now, using in-house expertise where they have it. Southwark’s income team, for example, redesigned how they worked to meet user needs and are not only delivering a better service but also collecting more revenue.
The Surrey announcement will be joined by many others in the coming weeks. It will be interesting to see how the jigsaw comes together. But let’s all take this opportunity to work for something better. Our customers, and their customers, deserve nothing less.
Roger Birkinshaw is Executive Director for Government and Housing. You can read about Buckinghamshire’s experience merging four revenues and benefits departments here.
