Town halls: the next generation, by Chris Leslie

24 Apr 08
Local government is the biggest employer in the UK but too few graduates dream of a career in it. Add a shortage of young talent to an ageing top management and councils have a problem. Chris Leslie explains the action the sector needs to take

25 April 2008

Local government is the biggest employer in the UK but too few graduates dream of a career in it. Add a shortage of young talent to an ageing top management and councils have a problem. Chris Leslie explains the action the sector needs to take

What skills will tomorrow's council chief executives require to face the vast policy and operational challenges of running a modern local authority? With some 2 million council staff now representing the largest sector of the UK's workforce, and with ever greater demands on services, an ability to forecast workforce requirements accurately has got to be near the top of the list.

Local government faces two critical challenges. The first is an ageing workforce, with a third of local government staff due to retire in the next ten years. This demographic trend is particularly acute within the senior management teams, with some local authorities due to lose more than half their top team to retirement in the next five to ten years.

At the same time, councils do not have the young talent in place to fill their boots: the proportion of those under 25 is 7%, compared with 15% in the wider economy. An increasingly competitive marketplace for skills, coupled with restrictions on salaries tightened by the ongoing efficiency agenda, is straining the talent pool.

The second challenge is the rapidly changing local government environment. It is more important than ever for councils to think ahead and recruit leaders who will be able to face the demands of partnership working, of community leadership, of delivering services through networks and of rising citizen expectations.

A report from the New Local Government Network, published on April 21, reveals a catalogue of complex organisational problems that must be tackled before local government can significantly address these challenges head on.

The starting point must be to recognise the types of skills and competencies needed. Our report, Leading lights: recruiting the next generation in local government, shows that in the new working environment the premium will not just be on traditional professional qualifications but on more generic management skills. These are essential for service delivery and include deal-making, negotiating and partnership working.

But managers also need underlying abilities, such as political acumen, managing ambiguity and risk, and leading through influence.

There is also a new emphasis on networks, on partnerships, on delivering outcomes and on cross-sector participation, which demands joined-up services across the local area. Traditional departmental approaches and career routes cannot provide the answers to questions posed in this new context. These require a fresh emphasis on cross-sector working and a move away from professional service-led working practices to outward-looking broader management skills.

Defining the talent needed is difficult enough. Securing and recruiting it is a hurdle that local government is currently failing to surmount. Our research identifies critical obstacles at each stage of the human resources process – recruitment, selection, development and succession planning – and we recommend several radical reforms.

Local government is struggling not only to bring in talent at the senior level, but also at the graduate level. Despite the size of the sector, it languishes in fortieth position in The Times top 100 careers list. Our focus group research with final-year university students reveals an overwhelmingly negative impression of what working in local government is expected to be like: staid, comfortable, stagnant, dull, white, middle-class, male and slow.

This is not just an historical accident nor can it be dodged or blamed on external factors. To a large degree it is a problem of local government's making, stemming from the failure to market jobs to the right audience in the right way. While much of the working population would look with envy on the local government pension package, the majority of job advertisements fail to mention this draw to potential recruits. Even fewer adverts mention career development opportunities or training.

The false division between civil service and other public sector jobs is also hampering recruitment. A nationwide 'Governing Britain fast-track scheme' should be set up. This would bring together the best of all the fresh potential to shape public services across the country, not only in local government, but in the civil service, police and health.

This would have many benefits, including raising the profile of local government employment and ensuring a rounded skills-set and breadth of experience for future managers.

The next test would be how to select from this enlarged pool. Local government ignores some of the best candidates. There remains a lingering reluctance to bring in people from outside local government and the public sector. Yet this is precisely the diverse talent that local authorities need.

Bringing in high-quality recruits is only part of the challenge. What happens afterwards is equally important. Our research has found that young managers are unlikely to remain within local government if its culture and organisational structures remain unchanged.

Those on local authority graduate schemes spoke of their organisations as 'staid', as 'a painful machine' and said career progression felt like a 'lottery'. Too many councils do not have systems to identify the most talented: the majority reward and promote simply on the basis that someone has been in post for a certain number of years. These approaches contribute to stagnation and hinder the progression of the best employees.

There must be a new concept of fairness that rewards those who are outstanding in their work and who deliver solutions for citizens. This means fewer and broader pay bands; performance-related pay and promotion based on robust appraisals and competency frameworks; and fixed-term contracts for managers.

A new overarching approach is also needed. The unique structure of local government, in which more than 450 organisations compete for the same talent, means that individuals are always likely to seek opportunities in different authorities. Even if a council invests in good training and development, the beneficiary might leave to work in another one. Against this backdrop, how can the sector ensure that authorities still have an incentive to invest in staff?

We recommend that a 'transfer fee' system should be considered – perhaps facilitated by the Local Government Association – where the new employer would pay a fee to the old one. This should be calculated on the basis of the costs of investment in training the individual, with a cap of 5% of salary.

The final piece of the jigsaw is ensuring that councils plan for the future: both within their organisations and across their local public area. Different training and practical experience is needed to provide the next generation with political acumen and innovative leadership skills.

Together these recommendations offer a means to attract and develop the leaders of tomorrow. Ensuring that the most talented individuals are snapped up by the local public sector and then given new skills to meet the needs of residents is a fundamental duty that all councils must put at the top of their agenda.

Chris Leslie is the director of the New Local Government Network

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