Online brainstorm: Opportunities for innovation

From Future of Local Services to the Public

As part of the Ipsos MORI online brainstorm (conducted for LGA/HSC), Chief Execs and other senior local decision makers were asked to suggest what kinds of new activity, pilot schemes and innovations they would like to see happen. These opportunity areas are a useful menu from which to take issues into more specific policy innovation programmes. For an example of how this could be done, see the Innovation concepts from the project's Summit workshop. (INSERT LINK)

Based on your priorities, what innovations, changes or experiments would you like to see attempted to improve local services to the public over the next 10-15 years?

• Doing less better rather than more worse
• Fewer Councillors who are better trained and supported with possibly a mandatory qualification. Being a councillor needs to be a career not a part time job.
• We need some scenario planning, and we also need to understand/recognise that local solutions work best - will that flexibility be allowed by government? How will performance mgt and targets be applied to community based solutions?
• Co-ordinated trials of policies across local government so the burden falls more evenly.
• Simplification of systems by move to unitary councils
• More freedom to shift resources to meet local priorities More creative use of ways to cut across partner structures, and avoiding legal pitfalls
• Closer cross partnership working. Transforming the customer experience
• An increase in local accountability, matched by a withdrawal by central government from prescriptive control. In other words, to move towards a model based on local accountability for decision making and funding, and away from regulation and control from the centre.
• Make happiness an explicit mission of government. Remove fear of crime from the police/Home office realm and transfer it to the NHS (mental health). Make policing and health into departments within each local authority. Find a way to give people on benefits subsidised food but only from farmers' markets. Create unitary authorities that are very small (no more than 100,000 people) to see if they work better.
• Some agreement on core delivery for local government to reduce expectations - may be minimum entitlements but end post code lottery of entitlement to education and social care that we have currently.
• Pathfinder programme is effectively an experiment in multi-tier areas Area programming of grant to affordable housing development (not micro management of individual sites by Housing Corporation) New planning classification for second homes in order to limit the proportion of second homes National waste disposal network and infrastructure to provide the best technology available to all Abolish RSS and LDF planning framework and replace with simpler quicker process
• more integration at political and managerial level across the whole of 'the public sector'
• Introduce systems thinking measures into all council services instead of arbitrary targets
• Local government reorganisation, including London Bringing PCTs and the Police under greater local authority influence Better understanding of value for money levers and incentives for changing behaviours of residents, e.g. smoking, alcohol, teenage pregnancy, crime and ASB - focussing on prevention, and changing generational attitudes towards e.g. school attainment and work
• green experimentation more community based experimentation looking at GB as part of world - better cross connections - many new communities are much more aware of other experiences/ cultures than us - having lived in a variety of countries
• Move to county unitary authorities, supported by strengthened towns and parishes.
• More voluntary sector and community led services
• We have already started an 'experiment' by developing a model for creating the conditions for innovation which places participation of our communities at the centre. It is a process of community involvement and helps identify the complex issues that, with our partners, we must take action on. The involvement of the key decision-takers, decision-shapers, budget-holders, service-users and national and international experts is essential to delivery of our priority objectives. We already work closely with our Local Strategic Partnership but we welcome the contribution that the Third Sector can make in the delivery of these innovative solutions.
• Fewer reductive comparisons made between local authorities. New democratic models that look at different ratios of councillors to electorate.
• Id like to see work on worklessness and social housing
• In two tier areas, a revisiting of the split of functions between the tiers.
• Embedding community planning as an integral part of the whole planning process 2. developing a vehicle for community ownership of affordable housing 3.experiment with alternative approaches to living with flood risk based on alternative practices from around the world
• Local co-production around the green agenda
• Less central prescription - more the national vision and let us get on with it - only that way will innovation and change really emerge
• Public debate to get acceptance of local variation and beyond post code lottery argument new forms of collective choice a TV programme or you tube presence that gets people excited about local government and services use of randomly selected people to run things
• Based on personal budgeting, a personal service plan where we look at what a typical resident will need over time, how they tailor services to meet those needs, and how the resident maps their budget to ensure that they can 'procure' those services when and where they need them in future .
• Create mayors for small towns and turn parish councils into important actors
• A greater devolution of powers to local authorities.
• local tax raising 2) merging PCT / LA / Police in an area 3) proportional representation
• A start has been made on cutting red tape which needs to be adopted more rigorously. Re-energising the democratic processes so people can see their participation is important and we get a more representative voter turnout and candidates standing for election. Rationalising and further extending the personalisation agenda.
• Use of social marketing to support behaviour change use of social networking sites etc to support engagement with young people greater cohesion between and local determination over public services
• Complete roll out of broadband across the county to enable connectivity for local communities. Out reach facilities in isolated rural communities to enable access to advice
• Nationally supported pilots involving leading practitioners, academics and other key stakeholders to address the problems and opportunities identified in these and other responses to this questionnaire.
• The shared services agenda fully implemented. There must be economies of scale but equally important improvements in service as a result.
• More freedom and less government interference
• Fewer central controls
• In no particular order: 1. Effective collaborative working across public services. 2. Governance arrangements that reflect the changing face of public services 3. Community leadership role enhanced for local members. 4. Longer term financial planning arrangements from Central government /WAG 5. Less focus on outputs (in a performance monitoring sense) and more focus on outcomes ( in a 'what difference have we made? sense)
• I still believe that there may be something about trying more directly elected posts as they do in USA - the current way in which cabinet members are appointed doesn't always mean that you get the best people in the jobs Also consider that CEXs policy teams move with them