Links to the local

March 10, 2009

Nick Hope, Researcher, NLGN
Whitehall & Westminster World

In an increasingly complex policy environment, with diverging needs, rising public expectations and challenging economic times ahead, Government must have its finger on the pulse as never before. The New Local Government Network’s recent report ‘Challenging Perspectives’ takes a hard look at the state of our public sector infrastructure, exploring how the Civil Service could develop a more attuned sense of policy conditions within regions and localities and a better understanding of contemporary realities in the field.

It is difficult for Whitehall to accommodate the complexities of spatial variation and the service granularity needed for successful public policy. Accompanying the Government’s frustrations with the need for stronger ‘delivery’ has been a gradual dawning that the centre has its limitations. Significant investment in departmental budgets coupled with legislative reform has yet to realise the true productivity potential of services at the frontline.

There is growing recognition that a more citizen-centred and place-focused approach to public policy is needed. This has profound implications for all tiers and every corner of government. But, it is particularly challenging for central government departments, which have traditionally delivered public services in a ‘top-down’ and largely ‘siloed’ fashion.

In recent years Whitehall departments have become more outward facing and “spatially aware”, but further and rapid progress is needed. NLGN identified three key dimensions of spatial awareness: spatial awareness of variation between and within localities; spatial awareness of other departments across Whitehall; and spatial awareness of the local and regional delivery apparatus. Based on these three core elements, we assessed and scored a recent Command Paper from a selection key delivery departments.

Our findings suggest that spatial awareness in Whitehall is, at best, mixed. Different departments appear to have a differing appreciation of delivery in the field, attitude towards operational implementation and commitment to working interdepartmentally. The Department for Transport and Department for Work and Pensions, for example, scored worse than departments such the Department for Children Schools and Families and Department of Health.

To dig a little deeper into one example, for the Home Office we assessed the Green Paper ‘From the neighbourhood to the national: policing our communities together’. Given the title, one could be forgiven for assuming that this document would demonstrate a high degree of spatial awareness, but instead it scored poorly compared to almost all the other Command Papers we looked at.

Our analysis of this Green Paper found a rather superficial, standardised approach to ‘localism’ that took little account of sub-national variation, and that was rather glib about ‘local people’ and ‘neighbourhood policing’, as though these were homogenous, uniform groups. We also found that, although there were fairly generic references about working with other departments, joining-up across Whitehall was inadequate given the cross-departmental nature of tackling crime and its causes.

The utilisation of the existing sub-national apparatus (such as Regional Development Agencies, Multi-Area Agreements and Local Authorities) was particularly poor across many of the policy documents we looked at. This is of concern because it may inhibit these sub-national structures from aligning and co-ordinating policy and could lead to unnecessary costs as work is duplicated and poorly integrated.

Given these findings we believe that new mechanisms should be put in place to better ensure that all policy is spatially aware. An “area-based” policy-making approach needs to infuse Government thinking to a far greater degree than it currently does. Therefore, we believe a new ‘duty to devolve’ should be created. This could become a ‘devolutionary test’ in the parliamentary and legislative process, with central government departments having to regularly assess whether their functions have been devolved to the most appropriate spatial level.

The duty might work along similar lines as the ‘duty to involve’ on local government, which from April this year will require councils to involve the public when planning for and delivering services. Taken together, the ‘duty to involve’ and ‘duty to devolve’ would form a ‘double duty’ to ensure the Government’s rhetoric of ‘double devolution’ – devolving power from central government to local government and from local government to local people – is translated into action.

Accountability in Whitehall must also be strengthened. The Capability Review process has improved the “self-awareness” of departments, but reforms are needed to better test their “spatial awareness”. NLGN was glad to see the recent article on the front page of Whitehall and Westminster World, which reported that Sir Gus O’Donnell, Cabinet Secretary, hopes to implement our recommendations to embed a strong cross-departmental element of assessment to the Capability Reviews and ensure greater feedback from local bodies on departmental operational performance.

We also hope that our proposal to merge the Audit Commission and National Audit Office into a new ‘Audit UK’ body, which would help support better end-to-end understanding of services and systems, is given consideration.

The voice of regions and localities in Whitehall needs to be strengthened. We believe Regional Ministers should become a more central element of the governance of the English regions, accountable to Parliament, and with Government Offices becoming equivalent to the departments supporting policy-based ministries. Therefore, we propose that Government Offices are converted explicitly into ‘Offices of the Regional Ministers’ and that the Prime Minister appoints full time Regional Ministers with dedicated portfolios.

Radical reforms are needed if Whitehall is to improve its spatial awareness. It must grow more conscious of its own limitations, encourage a more cross-cutting approach to policy and increase its understanding of the variation between and within regions and localities. An insular, departmentalist view of the world is insufficient to deliver the outcomes Ministers demand.

The last vestiges of cloistered centralism deserve to be challenged firmly. Whitehall must ensure that decision-making is properly integrated throughout sub-national structures and takes place at the most appropriate spatial level. The centre must let go and allow risks to be taken in the learning process, removing some of the cotton wool which cossets local and regional bodies from their true responsibilities.


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