The Future Role of the Local Authority Chief Executive

By Steve Bundred

Reproduced by permission of the Public Management and Policy Association.

It is something of a mystery to me why the current activity within local government around the introduction of new political management structures is leading to such a rash of resignations among chief executives.

Certainly there is good reason to believe that the coming of new forms of political executive, whether it be elected mayors or new-style leaders, will have a profound impact upon relations within councils, including those between members and officers. But changes in political management arrangement are not the only show in town. Local authorities are also facing many other changes – in the way they work and in the responsibilities and accountabilities they face – and they operate in an external environment in which change is the only constant. So, yes, chief executives who cannot cope with change are well advised to take the money and run. But those who may be departing for fear that the role will in future be less rewarding are, in my view, making a mistake.

A mistaken belief

At the core of this mistake lies the assumption that power in local government is a zero sum game. The belief that if local politicians become more powerful then local authority senior managers will become less so would perhaps be understandable if local government itself was already something of a sovereign power within our constitution. But the very opposite is the case. Local government has seldom been held in lower esteem – by the media, by the public, by senior figures within other sectors, and to an extent by central government itself. Indeed, the present Government and its two predecessors have at times given serious thought to abolishing local government altogether, at least in it present form and for its present range of responsibilities.

But something quite important has happened. Having asked the question, ‘if local government did not exist, would we have to re-invent it?’ Ministers have, to their surprise, concluded that the answer is yes.

The new role

Not to deliver services. That can be done by the private sector, although the best local authorities will also continue to be high-quality service providers. But, instead, to undertake new responsibilities and to implement key policy initiatives that go beyond the delivery of a range of services, and need to be co-ordinated by a body, that is representative and accountable at the local level. Strategies for neighbourhood renewal, for local health improvement, for crime reduction and for the alleviation of a range of social inequalities are more than just a collection of service delivery targets. They cannot be devised without knowledge and understanding of local circumstances, and they cannot be implemented by a single agency acting on its own. In promoting such strategies, the Government is therefore looking to local government to accept a new role that carries with it potentially far greater power and influence that councils have had in the past.

This represents something of a renaissance for local government, as the new statutory power to promote well being and the new duty of community leadership signify. And some chief executives, far from seeking to flee the field, are relishing the prospect of a new challenge.

Some elements of the future role of local authority chief executives will be very familiar to current postholders. The chief executive will, for example, continue to have a key role as a policy adviser to elected members, albeit on issues in which the policy options have never been more complex, nor the problems more opaque.

But there will be some new elements of the role to go alongside this, most obviously in the building and maintaining of relations with key partners. Scanning the horizon, keeping politicians and staff alike abreast of new developments in the outside world and alert to new opportunities is also part of this role.

Because if local political leaders are to become more influential in their communities, they will need more effective chief officer support. Without this, they cannot be expected to deliver on the key elements of the new agenda now being presented to them.

Political leadership does not exist in a vacuum – which is why, since the Second World War, in the most executive of all political posts in the UK, successive Prime Ministers have chosen to increase rather than reduce the numbers of professional advisers and full-time staff at the centre of government. And it is also why the role of these staff, including that of the Cabinet Secretary, has become a topic of increasing academic study and public debate.

Yet the logical conclusion of some of the current debate about political management structures in local government, if applied to central government, is that the Cabinet Secretary has not got a worthwhile job to do. Try telling that to Sir Richard Wilson!