04 July 2003
Imposed targets and growing local autonomy must proceed hand-in-hand to improve public services, a study of some of England's best councils concludes.
The Improvement and Development Agency, which commissioned the study from social affairs writer Charles Leadbeater, said the results achieved by these councils showed that the government should switch its focus from delivering public services to the creation of 'public goods'.
Goods that people value most highly – safe communities, clean environments, better education and health – 'cannot be delivered in the way that Federal Express delivers a parcel', the agency said.
They can result only from public service providers and users coming together around a common goal.
In The man in the caravan and other stories, published on July 2, Leadbeater argues that the best councils are not only good at providing services but have moved into orchestrating change by pulling partners together.
He found that the best of local government was 'more focused, entrepreneurial, innovative and higher-quality service providers than Whitehall departments'.
This means that a 'further decisive shift' towards greater local autonomy in public services is vital, the book argues.
But Leadbeater found that without constant external challenge from targets and inspections, there would be a danger of councils becoming inward-looking.
'New localism will not work if all targets are abandoned,' he writes, arguing that the best councils value targets and performance management.
He is also concerned about the quality of political leadership in local government.
The councils he visited had a variety of political controls, but were marked out by 'leaders who are able to articulate simple goals the whole authority has to aim at'.
More investment in the local government leaders of the future would be needed to make further localism work, as in many areas their supply 'is often at best uncertain', Leadbeater suggests.
The book tells the stories of seven members of the public whose lives were transformed for the better by their contact with local authority services.
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