Prospects: Powershare
From Future of Local Services to the Public
Contents |
Summary
The Prospect of a) thriving local democracies, with b) services that are accountable to their users, has been shown by Ipsos MORI and the LGA to have a wide appeal for the local government community. There are many shared perspectives on what is driving change to current arrangements, as well as the desired outcomes. But there is much greater uncertainty about the way change will come about. Would such a shift necessarily devalue existing political arrangements, and will the public really want to fill the void left by a potentially retreating state? Ipsos MORI and LGA consultation (as undertaken during the Future of Local Services work) reveals that local places want more freedom to experiment, but see the role and value of local government in that context as inherently stable and enduring.
Definition
This 'Prospect' encompasses a number of overlapping themes and debates raised in the course of the study undertaken by Ipsos MORI / the LGAwhich relate to political accountability, control, participation and power. These topics continually surfaced as a preoccupation, and therefore a priority, for our stakeholders across all strands of the project. Against a backdrop of falling voter turnout in local and national elections, participants in the study expressed a desire to see stronger connections between citizens and authorities of various kinds.
An expert workshop on the future of accountability contained much of the most detailed discussion on this theme. While participants in the group were not yet pointing to a crisis of legitimacy, and foresaw gradual, rather than rapid change in the immediate future, it was not hard for them to put forward a counter-scenario, based on the failure to provide basic services at a local level.
Related Issues
A number of dividing lines and debates became apparent in the various solutions that were put forward by participants. These included the following highly interrelated areas of controversy:
- Individual vs collective decision-making: i.e. how private and public funding are best combined to ensure the right mix of individual flexibility and general provision
- Personalisation vs uniformity of service provision: i.e. the desirability and extent of personalisation that is necessary in particular services – for example in adult social care and in education.
- Advancing vs retreating state: whether people envisage a more or less prominent and active role for the state – both central and local – in providing levels of service and therefore accountability at a local level. This was debated right up to and including the final Summit Workshop.
- Evolution vs Revolution in governance: there was a range of views about whether incremental changes to existing structures would be enough to effect meaningful change in democratic life or if something more radical is required
- The role of performance management in fostering success: there is a great deal of mixed feeling and disagreement about the extent to which managerialism and performance indicators have been, or will be part of the sickness or the cure
- Degree of tolerance for local variation: there is a lack of consensus about the merits or otherwise of a “postcode” lottery i.e. local variation in the provision of services
