Online brainstorm: Trend prioritisation exercise
From Future of Local Services to the Public
Contents |
The prioritisation process
As part of their project exploring the future of local public services for the LGA/HSC, Ipsos MORI initially conducted desk research on existing futures work as well as expert depth interviews and group discussions.
From these strands of the project, the Ipsos MORI team worked with the LGA/HSC to distil 20 consistent themes that were cited as having a potential impact on the future of local public services over the next decade or so.
These themes were written in the form of a clear trend or outcome and then incorporated into an online brainstorm exercise in which Local Authority Chief Executives and other senior local decision-makers were asked to rank each of them on each of the following two dimensions
1. Likelihood: Their likelihood of occurring (roughly) in the way described and
2. Impact: The scale of the effect they might have on local services
Rationale
It is important to note that whilst the exercise itself was geared towards eliciting predictions or "hunches" on impact/likelihood from the respondents, this was not because we are view group-based prediction as the basis for the actual probability of future events. The latter is largely unknowable.
This exercise was done primarily to understand the world-view and prioritisation-setting thought process that local decision-makers use to make sense of the world. By doing so we hoped to identify if there were any consistent biases or patterns in the way people make decisions and thereby make local horizon scanning more sensitive to blindspots by incorporating a wide range of data and sources.
In addition to rating these items, participants were asked to submit others that they considered important, and which were not included in the core 20. These can be found here communities.ipsos-mori.com/lgawiki/index.php/Online_brainstorm:_Chief_Execs%27_key_issues
The 20 trends in the rating exercise
- Digital Britain creates both dividends and divides for local residents
- Online social networks and Web 2.0 reinvigorate local democracy and transforms services
- Behavioural economics: a new understanding of social complexity, and how people make choices, changes the way we provide services
- The dependency squeeze means an ever greater focus on service provision for the elderly, and in health and social care
- Growing ethnic, social and economic disparities increase tensions in local areas
- Devolution and local empowerment through personal and community budgeting becomes a reality
- The Petabyte revolution: the power of instant data in an information rich world presents problems and opportunities for local services
- The costs of mobility mount up: fuel costs, congestion, poor infrastructure and environmental impact bring transport systems to breaking point
- Mayors on the march: mayors elected to lead local government
- Apathy attacks: the double devolution agenda stalls due to citizen apathy
- Housing shortfalls cause severe pressures on local authorities and services
- Workforce and recruitment problems in local government and other partners undermine the quality and effectiveness of services
- Funding Squeeze: with funds from central government dwindling, local areas pass more of the costs on to local residents
- Green energy pressures
- A major economic, terrorist or environmental disruption prompts a rethink of local contingency planning
- A new generation of "facilitative" leaders re-energises local services and places
- Partnership working becomes increasingly complex but real and successful
- Local Area Taxes: finance of local government revolutionised with the end of council tax
- The value of the ageing population is successfully harnessed through the third sector
- The culture of managerialism in central and local government inhibits creativity in shaping local services
The results
Participants completing the online exercise rated those issues in the top right-hand corner of the chart as those as the highest impact and likelihood. These issues include: funding and dependency issues, issues of mobility and of housing. In contrast, the possiblity of elected mayors in local government is considered a 'low impact, low likelihood' issue.
