Local councils are changing; Birmingham’s Council is changing faster than most; and councillors – as local leaders have a key part to play. Once, the all-purpose provider of public services in the city, the Council is a smaller organisation. It will be more strategic. In the past the Council was described as delivering ‘one-size-fits-all’ services to ‘service users’ or ‘customers’; in future the Council will work with others to help citizens meet their needs. Citizens and communities will be treated as active players: part of the solution, not the problem. Councillors are frontline enablers of this.
Working smarter with civil society to prevent the need for interventions – rather than fixing problems later down the line – is a key part of this approach. It depends on understanding civil society – the communities that make up the city – better, both in terms of need and in terms of the assets they represent and their capabilities for self-help. Instead of a few big providers, the Council must, in future, be able to work with diverse networks of organisations delivering public services and be able to invest in their capacity rather than its own. Councillors link the Council to these networks.
Council assets will be used more often to enhance others’ capacity to deliver. As it makes these changes, the Council is losing staff; increasingly sharing services; and making better use of digital technology. All of these changes must be done well, accountably and in such ways as fit with the grain of the communities the Council serves. This depends on councillors and on their ability and confidence in moving from a reactive role to becoming proactive: less managers of services and processes; more often local leaders of innovation and improvement.
Effective local leadership matters because there are both opportunities to be realised by getting it right and real threats from doing it badly or neglecting it. Those wards and neighbourhoods in which it is done well, will thrive; where local leadership falls down, the city will face problems. This guide aims to give elected members practical ways of understanding and leading the re-birth of a Citizens’ Council.
Where Next?
read more about Birmingham’s Future Council programme
move on to the next section of this website which looks at Practical Action to improve local leadership