As citizen demands change and cuts start to bite, NLGN’s research shows that, while the average cost of borrowing a book is around £3.50, in some areas it can be as high as £8.00, largely due to a 13m decline in the number of issues since 2005/6. While this figure does not capture the full value of all the services a library provides – such as free magazines, community space and internet use – it does highlight important changes in the ways people use these community facilities.

NLGN argues that the best way to democratise book access in future will be to make a radical shift to e-readers, online ordering and book vending machines in public places. This would make it much easier for the public to access books while freeing up library space for use by families and communities. Libraries would still hold the most popular titles and children’s books and act as a crucial community hub.

The new report, Transforming Universal Services, supported by May Gurney, also sets out the case for major reform of transport and environmental services beyond the next election. Proposals include:

• The increased use of congestion charging and adoption of road user pricing by central government
  
• City-wide cap and trade schemes for business waste using new variable charging technology, with any profit being used to reduce the business rate
  
• New green bonds allowing local people and businesses to invest in energy from waste plants and to receive a dividend from their operation

NLGN researcher Daria Kuznetsova said:

“We need a radical discussion about how public services need to change over the coming decade. Our proposals envisage a world in which citizens and businesses get far more choice about how they use and access key services. We envisage libraries that are accessible online and through vending machines in train stations. We call for businesses to refurbish old furniture and computers to avoid landfill taxes. And where citizens and businesses can help local authorities make savings, they should get a share back through council tax or business rate discounts.”

One scenario outlined in the ‘Future Councils’ report suggests that a lack of funding and new rights for citizens over planning and service delivery could by 2020 leave local authorities in the same kind of position as the Californian state government: struggling to provide services in the face of high demands, low income and increased direct democracy.

Drawing on an analysis of anticipated and emerging trends across the sector and in national politics, the report predicts that councils of the future will take on substantially less direct responsibility for service delivery. In particular the report suggests there will be an increasing emphasis on commissioning services and more devolution of power to neighbourhoods and individuals.

NLGN Director and report author Simon Parker, said:

“Local authorities are quietly preparing to transform the way they work in response to budget cuts. Some services will change radically as councils become commissioning hubs. Expect councils to redesign everything from social care to street cleaning, more delivery by the private and voluntary sectors, and an increased reliance on personal budgets.

“This is a time of risk and possibility for local government. Town halls could find themselves becoming less relevant as direct democracy and consumer-led services start to bypass local democracy. The key for councils who want to remain at the heart of their communities is not just good service delivery, but strong political leadership to drive economic and social growth for their residents.”

In a foreword to the report, Northumberland County Council Chief Executive Steve Stewart said:

“The scenario-based approach taken here is essential. It’s not just the preserve of think tanks and academics. It’s essential for practitioners, especially over the next few years if we are to sustain any kind of economic and social resilience in our places. None of these scenarios might actually materialise, but is likely that elements of all of them could.”

Based on a scenario planning exercise involving senior figures from local government and an analysis of existing council plans for change, ‘Future Councils’ highlights a number of ways town halls could be transformed over the next eight years to 2020 as the cuts bite. These include:

1. Councils in areas such as the north east clustering together into new regional federations to manage economic growth and share their services – with some having Boris Johnson-style ‘metro mayors’

2. Councils introducing ‘pay as you go’ public services for residents and selling their services to neighbouring boroughs, allowing them to cut council tax and perhaps even pay dividends to poorer residents

3. A handful of local authorities that try to commission most of their services might become ‘residual councils’ – a commissioning hub that directly delivers almost no public services.

The new report, Changing Behaviours, has identified a number of innovative case studies and pilot projects where councils have afforded citizens an increased role in re-inventing services, resulting in cost reductions for councils of between 15 and 20 percent.

However, the report also warns that government itself must radically change to initiate and maximise these approaches. Greater resources and emphasis need to be invested in effective communication with residents and in putting support measures in place to enable a more active role for individual citizens in designing their public services.

Report author and NLGN’s Head of Research, Nigel Keohane said:

“With local government facing the daunting challenges of dealing with massive budget reductions whilst renewing their relationship with citizens, councils need to take the lead in adopting behaviour change techniques to make the Government’s ‘Big Society’ agenda a reality.”

“Our research shows that identifying ‘Citizen Pioneers’ who are prepared to initiate and lead increased public engagement with service design can encourage wider participation among communities as these practices become part of the norm.” The report sets out practical tools available to councils to better understand citizens’ underlying motivations so that services can be personalised to their needs and values. This detailed social insight allows councils to gauge and test what support, advice and messages citizens would respond positively to.

In one of the most detailed studies so far on Total Place, the research finds that whilst billions of savings could be achieved at the local level by better joined-up services, a lack of coherence between Government departments and a historic reluctance to devolve threatens to derail the project. The report is timed to inform the debate around the future of Total Place before further announcements are made in the Budget.

NLGN’s report argues that major change is needed at the centre to break existing top-down models and cultures of accountability and service delivery, which lead to significant inefficiency and wastage in public services. For instance, one local pilot uncovered as many as 50 different benefits each with their own form, rules and administrative machinery; another has calculated that it costs as much as £135m to spend £176m on economic development projects. NLGN’s analysis shows that major benefits can be unlocked by a more collaborative approach to public sector assets and building services around the citizen at a local level.

The report advocates the setting up of a new Department for Devolved Government to subsume CLG and the Cabinet Office and the Scottish and Welsh offices to drive devolution across Whitehall and release greater freedoms and powers for locally elected politicians to coordinate activity and decide how and where services are delivered. As part of this, accountability for public health budgets and local policing should be devolved immediately to all local authorities.

It also argues that localities and national government should come to a new series of deals on devolving public money and delivery responsibilities across a wider range of services such as employment and skills. These Place Proposition Agreements would allow local areas to set out how they could provide improved services for less money as a response to the expected cuts in public sector budgets.

Further recommendations in the NLGN report include:

• Allowing councils full discretion over spend across regeneration, transport and housing in a single capital pot;
  
• Establishing a new Joint Parliamentary and Local Government ‘Total Place Progress Committee’ comprised of MPs and local council leaders to scrutinise cross-government activity;
  
• Strengthening existing Local Strategic Partnership arrangements and moving towards more statutory, incorporated and focused Public Service Boards;
  
• Undertaking total counts of public resources and asset mapping across all local areas as a catalyst for collaborative approaches;
  
• Setting up a Collaborative Leadership Academy to develop leadership across the public sector.

‘The concept of aligning all public resources in an area around the needs of its community is simple and commonsense. Putting it into practice, however, remains a major challenge not just for local areas but also for Whitehall. The changes needed go way beyond merely removing a few ring-fenced budgets or performance targets. Our cultures of governing and our current systems of funding and accountability cut through and undermine our focus on what the citizen needs.

‘With public sector budgets under pressure, it is more important now than ever that we seek to institute reforms that can ensure the most targeted and efficient responses to our local communities. This must include greater freedoms, responsibilities and resources at the local level.’

NLGN’s report was undertaken with support from Cap Gemini, Grant Thornton, Leadership Centre for Local Government and London Councils.

The research, published in association with Serco and Kent County Council, argues that there is a close correlation between general satisfaction with an area by its local residents and with the level of satisfaction specifically on street cleanliness issues. With the Comprehensive Area Assessment introducing new indicators for public satisfaction, the think tank is urging councils to look again at how it conducts its streetscene strategy.

In particular the research found that perceptions of streetscene are highly localised and can vary substantially by individual streets. Satisfaction levels can be higher when services are delivered on a street by street basis rather than pan-ward or pan-authority. NLGN argues:

“Often, the relationship between the quality of local environments and perceptions of places as being good to live in is intuitive. However, delivering on ‘people and places’ will require a more strategic understanding of what shapes perceptions and satisfaction. We recommend that all local authorities give careful consideration to new evidence in this report suggesting that a ‘geopsychology’ of resident perceptions has widespread consequences for other service level activities and underpins the community’s sense of place.”

The report also recommends:

• Local Authorities should inform residents of the cost of fly-tipping – social, environmental, financial – and use imaginative social marketing techniques alongside tough enforcement measures to influence behaviour.
• Councils should annually reconsider how its local public funding might be better allocated to neighbourhood and community groups for ‘clean, green, safe’ issues through participatory budgeting or community kitties.
• The Audit Commission should reward authorities in the new CAA process who demonstrate a deep commitment to establishing new approaches aimed at widening citizen engagement in improving the streetscene. The reward could consist of a prize fund for those councils that used innovative technology and could show that within a set number of years they had
increased satisfaction levels and increased the rapidity of responding to local environment problems.
• Local authorities should consider auditing their entire workforce to understand the potential range of staff and contracted employees who might be able to contribute to a new streetscene oriented working approach.

The paper calls on the UK Government to lobby the European Commission to place a greater emphasis on local discretion and the needs of particular communities rather than enforcing rigid practices that stymie creativity across the £50 billion of spent by local government.

This research argues that across the country there is an increasing shift to promote local economic resilience, wider community goals, environmentalism personalised services and innovative design through procurement. This requires new approaches to considered risk taking and to driving wider community outcomes beyond simply the bottom line price.

However, despite unearthing some excellent practice across the sector, NLGN’s survey found that there is scope for greater innovation in how local government procures.

Underlying this cultural risk-aversion is a prescriptive European legal framework that rewards compliance. The report argues that the legal framework leaves councils who are seeking to pursue local economic sustainability and innovative service design battling against a set of rules that prohibit innovation, reward the status quo and narrow the scope for service improvement.

Radical reforms to the European Union’s Competitive Dialogue procedure are also proposed to allow more innovative ideas to flourish, to ensure greater efficiency and for more proactive dialogue between authorities, bidders and providers.

The research argues that councils should go further to replicate some of the best practice including:

• Tracking their procurement spend in their communities to ensure economic sustainability
  
• Opening up opportunities to smaller businesses
  
• Specifying their contracts in terms of the goals they wish to achieve rather than stating particular methods of working

Author of the report and Senior Researcher Nigel Keohane said:

‘Procurement covers some £50 billion and about half of the money spent by our local authorities. How it is done, therefore, is critically important not only in terms of efficiency but also in terms of ensuring that we build schools that last and design services that meet the specific needs of our community.

‘However, European legislation is undermining the scope for innovation and discretion at the local level and its influence spreads far beyond the simple letter of the law.

‘Especially now, as local communities seek to ensure their local economies are resilient, that we try to factor in our response to climate change and provide quality services, it is time for the Government to push for change to free up a more community-focused approach.’

The report will be launched in association with 4Ps and CABE on Tuesday 30 June at the LGA conference.

In this report NLGN argues that the traditional centralised provision of services often disregards the specific needs of individuals, leads to massive wastage and fails to meet the rising expectations of citizens. Instead, the next stage of public service reform should see citizens making their own choices – with greater individual control of resources – and communities empowered to generate their own revenue and invest in services that meet the needs of their local neighbourhoods.

But, it concludes, current efforts to drive this agenda from the centre looks set to fail. Centralised investment, decision-making and performance management has made few inroads. ‘Personalising’ a service requires in-depth knowledge of consumer demand, of how markets can best provide for this demand, and how to involve citizens in designing and even running these services. It is only elected local government that is best placed to intervene and tailor responses to individuals who are out of work, homeless or in receipt of care.

The research identifies 26 practical ways in which individuals and communities can be given greater control and influence over the services they receive. It calls for new freedoms to allow funding to follow individuals and wrap around their needs and for Whitehall to step back and let citizens evaluate how services should be improved.

The report concludes by setting out new reforms to bring personalisation about:

• councils should provide leisure and recreation vouchers and allow young people to choose how to spend these on sports services (such as leisure centres or renting football pitches) or recreation (such as hiring a recording studio);

• there are increasing moves to provide convenient access to information and ticket sales across the national rail network, but this concept should be developed to bring about a National Oyster Card that would allow easy access for commuters and travellers across localities, regions and the country;

• current contractual arrangements in dental health mean that millions are going without treatment with the most significant reason remains lack of NHS dentist capacity. As a driver for wider choice, access must be opened up and the Government should, as part of its ongoing review, consider obliging those dentists who receive NHS training to conduct a minimum proportion of their work under NHS terms;

• lessons should be learned from market leaders such as the Tesco Clubcard and Amazon, with councils providing residents with local swipe cards to access services that can be credited with rewards and topped-up, and in turn provide evidence for shaping services based on customer usage and preferences;

• under a system of electronic patient records, the days should be over when commuters are forced to take a day off work to visit their GP

• individuals should be allowed access any GP, whether near their workplace, friends or family – to provide convenience and prevent wasted time;

• revenue from parking charges, environmental fines and infrastructure charges from utility companies should be devolved to the street level, where this money could be invested to make roads safer, hire a community hall or enhance the local environment.

• Unease that national indicators are too ill-defined and top-down
  
• Call for Whitehall to step back and give councils greater control
  
• But survey finds local partnerships working well

In an evaluation of the latest wave of Local Area Agreements, NLGN highlights significant achievements through the process, including a more joined-up policy framework, but warns that significant logjams are preventing the system working more effectively. Publishing the research today, NLGN argues that:

• National indicators remain too ill-defined and top-down to support Local Area Agreements that are truly locally relevant and evidence-based;
  
• Some Government departments have not offered sufficient flexibility to their local arms to allow them to play a significant role in Local Area Agreement delivery;
  
• The current consultation on CAAs leaves too many questions unanswered;
  
• Without significant and transparent incentives or penalties accountability for LAA success is obscure;

• Whitehall departments should commit to the primacy of the LAA. Where central mandates and regulations interfere with LAA delivery, the Local Area Agreement should take priority;
  
• Statutory Local Area Agreement partners should be expected to increase the amount of funding they pool by 0.5% each year, with a ‘bonus’ to those areas showing the greatest commitment to, and use of, pooled funding;
  
• Councillors should play a new championing role for Local Area Agreements, either on a ward by ward, or individual indicator basis;
  
• Resource and reward systems should be reformed to support the LAA with LAA outcomes linked to individual performance reward grants increased use of cross-agency secondments, and LSP involvement in senior appointments;
  
• Where local areas are successful in delivering their priority outcomes, they should be rewarded with greater flexibility over local funding, including further reductions in ring-fencing and access to other appropriate revenue streams.

There was similar optimism about the direction of Local Area Agreements, with the majority of councils favourable when asked how ‘fully formed’ their Local Area Agreement framework is.

Local Government Minister, John Healey MP has welcomed the report and writes in its foreword:

“[The process of] Agreeing LAAs has been a good start. But the real prize is translating LAA priorities into effective delivery of improvements for citizens over the next three years. In Government we need to build on the progress made during negotiations and ensure sensitivity to local priorities remains central to our policy decisions. This report rightly talks of the need to ensure local agencies and arms of Government unite behind the common LAA vision. I will be looking at this closely with colleagues across Government”.

Chris Leslie, Director, NLGN said:

“There is a great deal of goodwill across local authorities who are keen to make the LAA process work. The real challenge will be moving from deciding the priorities and how to measure progress, to actually managing delivery. This autumn’s “refresh” of the LAA process will be a critical test, especially when the economic context is changing so rapidly. Whitehall in particular will need to double its resolve to stick to its end of the bargain and not shelve these agreements because of financial pressures.”

NLGN is also today launching a new LAA Peer Matching Tool on its website to an area to see which of its peers have chosen an indicator set that most closely mirrors their own. The analysis will then allow authorities to see which indicators they have in common with other areas. It can be downloaded at www.nlgn.org.uk/public/laas/local-area-agreements.

Leslie argues there are four core pillars of modern public service management that are not yet fully appreciated across the public sector:

“First, the factors that drive improvement differ from service to service, and new methods must now go beyond the ‘choice’ and ‘contestability’ models. Other factors can be equally important, such as citizen and political power, professional influence and the public service ethos, and the power of new substitute technologies and products replacing existing activities. Government must analyse each line of public service activity and recognise that sometimes greater consumer choice will be needed, but in other cases tapping into professional goodwill might be a better means of achieving improvement.

“Second, we are entering a new era of networked governance and decision-making by partnerships, yet the skills to build productive alliances are not recognised or rewarded adequately.

“Third, a fresh approach to risk management is needed to encourage creativity – and stronger messages about understanding risk and boldness need to be sent from the top.

“Fourth, greater advantage needs to be taken from new commissioning approaches, whether analysing public need more acutely, prioritising resources more effectively or contracting more cleverly on behalf of the taxpayer.

“The civil service has rested on withered laurels for too long. Defending closed procedures for those employed in senior positions and artificially insisting on outdated lines of vertical accountability are practices that have had their day. What is required is a different model that drives performance and delivery with the same power that bureaucracy drove delivery in the industrial era.”

The pamphlet, with a foreword by the LSE’s Tony Travers and supported by Mouchel Business Services, recommends a revived role for localism and local governance, constitutional reform to support new ways of working, and a Whitehall based on project working rather than departmental silos.

Local government employees make up 12.6% of the country’s workforce and nearly half (47%) of the public sector workforce. Local Government is the largest employment sector in England, employing 2,204,000 members of staff, equating to 1,563,000 full time equivalents.

The report, supported by the Leadership Centre for Local Government, the Learning and Skills Council and Veredus, found that a combination of the “baby-boom” generation retiring and few graduates wanting a career in local government has led to the crisis. The focus groups of graduates questioned as part of this research highlighted the stark prejudices held by many against careers in local government, for instance, describing average council staff as “definitely middle-aged, probably wearing glasses, slightly overweight … white, middle-class man” and “spending their whole lives carrying out the kind of minutiae focusing on these things like parking fines and what type of seat is going to be at the bus stop”.

The problem is particularly acute in local government as two thirds of employees are over 40, whilst the proportion of those under 25 is half that of the wider economy. Furthermore, figures in the research identify 100% of county councils, 94.7% of London Boroughs, 87.5% of English unitary authorities, 87.5% of metropolitan districts as having had difficulties recruiting at the managerial and professional level.

Leading Lights: Recruiting the next generation in local government criticises many council management structures as “not currently fit-for-purpose” and calls on councils to be more outward looking when recruiting for posts. It also recommends the introduction of a “transfer-fee” style system where councils are rewarded if they offer staff training by receiving a fee if they move on to another authority. It also calls for greater support for middle managers as well as fixed term contracts for management staff.

NLGN also found that whilst many graduates want to work in the public sector, very few are excited by the prospect of working in local government. The think tank argues that the Government should set up a “National Governing Britain Fast Track” graduate recruitment scheme for the entire public service and scrap the current system of having separate schemes for local and central Government. This would allow graduates to gain experience of working in both Whitehall and local government.

Author of the report, Nigel Keohane argues:

“Our focus group research reveals a depressingly negative impression of working in local government. However, analysis shows that approaches to attracting talent too often reinforce negative perceptions. Jobs in local government are not marketed to an audience of the most talented but to a pre-defined catchment; mechanisms for recruitment exacerbate this trend. Jobs are not ‘sold’ for what they actually do, for their contribution to society or for the career development opportunities they offer. Yet, these are the incentives most attractive to potential recruits. A wide range of excellent benefits and an enviable pension are hardly ever marketed, even for senior posts”.