From Future of Local Services to the Public

Contents 1 Draft2 OUTLINE OF REPORT STRUCTURE AND CONTENT 24th September 2008 1.1 1. Executive Summary 1.2 2. Goals and methods 1.3 3. Challenges for C.21st local services 1.3.1 About the Challenges 1.3.2 The Challenges 1.3.3 NB these wordings are still provisional - we welcome your ideas about how to refine them 1.3.3.1 1) How can we achieve vibrant local democracies through new dynamics between citizens and the state? 1.3.3.2 1.1. Defining the challenge 1.3.3.3 1.2. Addressing the challenge 1.3.3.4 1.3. Strategies and Innovations 1.3.3.5 2) How can local places do more with less? 1.3.3.6 2.1. Defining the challenge 1.3.3.7 2.2. Addressing the challenge 1.3.3.8 2.3. Strategies and Innovations 1.3.3.9 3) How can local leaders maximise their potential to deliver improvement? 1.3.3.10 3.1. Defining the challenge 1.3.3.11 3.2. Addressing the challenge 1.3.3.12 3.3. Strategies and Innovations 1.3.3.13 4) How can local places perform in a way that is greater than the sum of their parts? 1.3.3.14 4.1. Defining the challenge 1.3.3.15 4.2. Addressing the challenge 1.3.3.16 4.3. Strategies and Innovations 1.3.3.17 5) How can we create the right formula for happy communities? 1.3.3.18 5.1. Defining the challenge 1.3.3.19 5.2. Addressing the challenge  1.3.3.20 5.3. Strategies and Innovations 1.3.3.21 1.3.3.22 6) How can local areas become more active in shaping their own future? 1.3.3.23 6.1. Defining the challenge 1.3.3.24 6.2. Addressing the challenge 1.3.3.25 6.3. Strategies and Innovations 1.3.3.26 7) How can local areas create growing, but green, economies? 1.3.3.27 7.1. Defining the challenge 1.3.3.28 7.2. Addressing the challenge 1.3.3.29 7.3. Strategies and Innovations 1.3.3.30 1.4 4. Over the horizon? 1.5 5. Conclusions

Draft2 OUTLINE OF REPORT STRUCTURE AND CONTENT 24th September 2008

Jill, Tim and Brian

Outlined below is a skeleton structure that the Ipsos MORI team suggest for the final report. We have put this on the wiki as it's a good place for you as key stakeholders (plus any of the steering group?) to review, preferably by posting your comments in the discussion tab for this page, and appending your initials so we know who said what.

Once we've agreed the general structure we'll write it up fully in Word, and when it's signed off, convert it to a PDF so we can create a dynamic report with lots of active hyperlinks into the wiki. 

We've discussed various ways to do this, given all the data we have and the ambitions for the project.

We had a set of priorities in mind when we considered how best to do it

• It has to be suitably challenging and future-focussed for the sector as a whole, to grab people's attention, but also clear about what practical steps can be taken next, and full of things which people will find useful now
• It's got to be quite short and easily digestible if anyone's going to actually read it
• Our audience is a diverse one, including futurists, academics, decision-makers, practitioners and policymakers of various kinds, as well as private and voluntary sectors. If it speaks to narrowly to one audience we'll reduce the impact of the project. There has to be something for everyone.
• We want to show how futures work connects directly into place-shaping strategy  (goal-setting) and policy (innovation and differentiation)
• We want the report to be just a first step in the creation of the community around the wiki and surrounding engagement activities. Therefore the report must drive "traffic" and contributions to the wiki and act as a spur to regular scanning.

We thought about a number of options, and decided we would mirror the approach of the World Federation of UN Associations' Millennium Project, a highly authoritative futures programme. They set out a series of 15 global challenges for the early 21st century. 
"The 15 Global Challenges, updated annually, continue to be the best introduction by far to the key issues of the early 21st century."
-- Michael Marien, editor, Future Survey

The good thing about adopting this approach, we think, is that it has the potential to satisfy all the criteria above. i.e. it distils lots of data into a manageable number of big themes, and poses them in such a way as to prompt ongoing action and monitoring through horizon scanning and reporting 

Anyway, below is our suggested structure.

 

1. Executive Summary

• A c. 2 page executive summary of the report

 

2. Goals and methods

• A summary of the project objectives and the way we approach futures work
• A summary of our approach, illustrating how all the strands of the work were intended to fit together.
• Lessons we learnt as a result of conducting the work: pros and cons, process recommendations etc

 

3. Challenges for C.21st local services

About the Challenges

• The Challenges are named
• About the Challenges. Some brief explanatory text about how the data was compiled and analysed, and why the report presents the challenges in the way it does. How they are set out and why.
  
• NB the challenges are broadly presented in such a way as to work down from the general, the uncertain and the more future-oriented towards the nearer horizon and the more concrete and actionable (e.g. exploring opportunities for innovation)
• they follow three headings:
• 1. Defining the challenge (i..e. what is this challenge all about? what have people across the the project broadly been saying is the problem or opportunity and what would a good outcome look like? how much agreement is there on this? what is the consequence of failure?)
• 2. Addressing the challenge (i.e. what hypotheses do we have about addressing the issue? how have people suggested we might address the issue in some way?  what would success look like? a headline overview - what new tools, approaches or methods could be deployed to change the situation?)
• 3. Strategies and Innovations (i.e. what specific attempts have people been making which look promising, or from which we can learn, even if they have been "noble failures"?)
• throughout we will aim to link key themes to pages and references in the wiki so that it it is clearly evidence-based. Where there are evidence gaps we can invite contributions on the wiki on this area
• The idea of the "challenges" is that it gives you a set of important issues against which to perform ongoing cycles of scanning and publish updates through reports, media events 
• Throughout we will point up the links between the challenge(s) to other important themes - PPF, LGA business plan etc

The Challenges

NB these wordings are still provisional - we welcome your ideas about how to refine them

1) How can we achieve vibrant local democracies through new dynamics between citizens and the state?

1.1. Defining the challenge

Pointers towards participatory budgeting, double-devolution agenda etc

1.2. Addressing the challenge

This centres on all the issues the project has surfaced regarding the evolving role of the state in citizens' lives, the extent to which individuals wish to have influence and choice over the services they receive and the way that these services are funded. This relationship is likely to differ in rural and urban areas as the distance from service providers and demographic of service users differs, in a similar vein this will also differ based on level of economic prosperity.

Tension between participative and representative democracy, engagement apathy, personal budgeting and the cost-savings (or possible increases).

1.3. Strategies and Innovations

Discuss examples of innovations and attempts to crack this.

How they differ regionally.

e.g.

SILK project
Mixed tenure (blind tenure) housing schemes

2) How can local places do more with less?

2.1. Defining the challenge

Local service providers will be faced with the choice of whether to spend less on service provision or consider more partnership working and shared working to spread costs. Local residents are also likely to feel the pressure of rising costs with fuel and food bills rising, and therefore be less willing to accept 5% rises in council tax. What impact will this have of rural and urban areas, and on areas with different demographic profiles?

2.2. Addressing the challenge

With the reducing central grant for local authorities and rising costs for fuel and wages the local service spend available will continue to be pressured. Local areas are going to need to be innovative and share priorities and budgets with partners to continue to improve the quality of life for local residents.

2.3. Strategies and Innovations

• Consideration of ways in which spending might be avoided, i.e. by minimising landfill tax is one option.
• Consideration of shared service provision such as One Oxfordshire presentation at Summit.

 

3) How can local leaders maximise their potential to deliver improvement?

3.1. Defining the challenge

Behavioural change of residents through approaches typified by ‘the nudge’, the facilitative leadership approach is suggested as the most effective in local areas, some areas have benefited from mayors, but in the opinion of likelihood of an increase in their number is not considered high.

3.2. Addressing the challenge

Leadership at both elected and officer level has an important influence on the way that an organisation behaves and provides services. The choices made by this leadership can also make a difference in the approach taken to shaping residents’ behaviour. The relationship that local leaders have with central government and whether their approach is top-down or bottom-up at a local and regional level is also important for the culture and relationship with residents and staff.

3.3. Strategies and Innovations

Chief Executive interview

 

4) How can local places perform in a way that is greater than the sum of their parts?

4.1. Defining the challenge

A whole systems-thinking approach involving all relevant partners in decision-making is one way that could prove more common to deal with the constraints of rising costs, and need for innovation.

4.2. Addressing the challenge

The importance of improved partnership working is considered great. As mentioned in previous dimensions, the need to do this well will take on renewed vigour as area and place based policy-making progresses and the possibility of cost-savings are explored.

4.3. Strategies and Innovations

Interview with Chief Executive, importance of development of trust in partnership working and sharing responsibility.

 

5) How can we create the right formula for happy communities?

5.1. Defining the challenge

There are a great many possibilities for the future of happy communities, which involve locally determined solutions and will be influenced by a number of the other dimensions identified, such as partnership working, leadership and empowerment.

5.2. Addressing the challenge 

With concern about community disintegration and social and ethnic fractionalisation, ongoing in both urban and rural areas, local areas are focusing on the different tools that they require to keep their communities happy. This will require a greater understanding of the implications of migration on local areas across the country and the different needs of different groups (age, class) across the community.

5.3. Strategies and Innovations

The Clonesville example worked up in the Summit provides one example of the way happy communities might develop and the barriers that the realisation of this type of goal may face.

6) How can local areas become more active in shaping their own future?

6.1. Defining the challenge

This could mean that local areas and organisations are more open to scans of the implications of emerging technologies, and the implications for different types of service provision for different communities and localities. This may also have implications for reaction to shocks and general counter-contingency planning.

6.2. Addressing the challenge

Understanding the potential future that a local area might be able to capitalise on will depend on an awareness of the possible benefits of different technological advances, a willingness to innovate and take risks, and the response to shocks such as a local disaster.

6.3. Strategies and Innovations

Waltham Forest vision (SCS)

  

7) How can local areas create growing, but green, economies?

7.1. Defining the challenge

The impact of environmental issues upon decision-making will be an important dimension to monitor in particular reference to public behaviour, and the implications for rural and urban areas. In rural areas this would have implications for where house building might take place to meet the needs of local communities without spoiling the green areas. In urban areas this would have implications for urban design and planning. In both the role of public art and the demands placed on city, town and village centres by local residents will be key.

7.2. Addressing the challenge

The efforts made by local planners creating and sustaining local communities and the support provided by local institutions training and employing local people will shape this dimension. The decisions then made by residents, and the way their choices are shaped by local planners will also be very important.

7.3. Strategies and Innovations

Green technologies and industries, urban planning decisions, carbon efficient buildings etc air pollution monitors carried by children.

4. Over the horizon?

• Other themes, blips and more marginal/lesser known issues that emerged from the study
• Opportunities to improve strategy and innovation in local government through horizon scanning and knowledge sharing

• Community development and stakeholder communications
• Ongoing monitoring and feedback of the 7 challenges through community-based horizon scanning
• Collaborative technology
• 3 vignettes or short stories from hypothetical local areas in 2025

5. Conclusions