As well as strengthening the idea that councils act in the best interests of citizens, the Local Government Act 2000 changed the way local councils work. Councils had to replace the old committee-based system of decision-making with an executive model, either:
- a leader appointed by the council (in effect by the ruling group) who, in turn, appoints a cabinet
- a directly-elected mayor, who may appoint local commissioners to run services.
The Localism Act 2011 allows councils to go back to the committee based system. Few have done so.
The leader and cabinet model which most councils (including Birmingham) use, however, means only a small number of councillors are regularly involved in making executive decisions: most are mainly involved in overview and scrutiny instead. The change from the committee to an executive system has forced re-thinking of councillors’ roles. It has, in particular, highlighted the potential for councillors who are not included in the Executive to act as local leaders at neighbourhood and ward level – not ‘backbench’, but ‘frontline’ councillors.
The idea of local leadership as a key role for councils and councillors has been a theme in successive reviews and laws on local government, for example:
- Lyons Review of Local Government 2005-07
- Local Government White Paper Strong and Prosperous Communities, 2006
- Localism Act 2011.
In the last decade this local leadership role was often called ‘placeshaping’.
In his report, the ex-Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council, Sir Michael Lyons, identified placeshaping as the most important role of, local councils. Sir Michael said councils had to move ‘beyond the management of services to the leadership of localities’; convening across services and bringing together people and organisations from different sectors for the long-term benefit of places; depending on ‘the creative use of powers and influence’ by councillors. Lyons suggested that stepping up to this challenge would require new styles, skills and behaviours to overcome the ‘dependency culture’ (of local government on central government grants and initiative) that had grown up.
Lyons’ concern with the central importance of placeshaping and local leadership was closely reflected in government policy. The 2006 White Paper on Local Government highlighted links between local leadership and:
- community cohesion – the importance of local knowledge in being able to understand the impacts of changes in relationships between communities
- economic development, making the most of economic opportunities and enabling more local economic resilience depends on understanding the strengths and vulnerabilities of local communities
- cost-effective delivery of public services in partnership with others through increased resident and user participation in decisions; enhancing the capacity of community groups to deliver services; and citizen involvement in designing, delivering and evaluating services
- effective community safety and services for children and young people which the White Paper suggested in particular depend on well-informed local leadership.
The White Paper re-iterated key elements in successful local leadership:
- Partnership – ‘part of local government’s place-shaping role is about leading local partners in securing joined-up services’
- Engagement – the importance of engaging with the innovative potential of voluntary and community groups was recognised: ‘Their expertise and enterprise needs to be harnessed and developed to enable local authorities to fulfil their place-shaping role’.
Now, you might want to
look at what Sir Michael Lyons’ Report said about local leadership
go back to see where the idea of a Citizens’ Council comes from
OR – follow the menu on the right to have a look at other parts of the guide.