More Failure? More Choice?

The posting below briefly covers future challenges facing local government. These arise out of increased expectations over choice of services services creating pressure to expand capacity at a time when there is also a greater public expectation regarding efficiency.

How local government solves these challenges will have a strong impact on the rest of the public sector.


In recent years we have had long debates about the cost of computer systems, most of which have had significant cost-overruns. Personally this is what I would have expected in an area where we were developing new integrated management almost from scratch.

One of the problems is that local Council's as public bodies are rightly seen to hold money in trust on behalf of the public and as a result should be ultra-careful as to how they spend it.

When they get it wrong they then come under criticism. Many times this is from people who might also claim they admire the risk-taking of entrepreneurs in private sector, many of whose failures inevitably reduce the returns of those who may have their money invested in them.

Thus we inevitably see a situation where officers and Councillors seem to have a naturally risk-adverse approach to future plans to avoid public criticism.

What this leads to, is that smaller voluntary groups or social enterprises will not be asked to tender for services as they are seen as too risky! Instead less "risky" larger private contractors are favoured, despite the fact they are just as likely to fail, but when that happen and they are "taken over" we have little control over that.

In order for services to improve we need to accept that there will be failures. The economist Paul Ormerod recently wrote a book about how failure helps drive progress. Members of all political parties have to be mature to recognise this, rather than simply point score out of individual failures, unless there is good reason to suspect that something untoward occurred.

We also need to recognise the future challenge that there is likely to be legislation that allows the public to request extra choice through additional services. In other words consumer choice may be less tolerant of local failure and demand improvement and will risk-adverse local government be flexible enough to respond to this?

In the coming years, there could be debates around how we develop services in the following areas, which may imply some risk of failure in provision to the Council:

a) Waste Management

b) Sports Centres

c) Parks

d) Theatres

In addition we also need to recognise there may also be a need to cater for greater local choice in:

a) Personal budgets in Social Services (an extesnion on from Direct Payments)

b) Which local health facilities people want to use.

c) Improving local Neighbourhoods through a statutory rights to request this.

d) Requesting more Police for an area through a specific local precept.

The logic of the above issues are that local government culture will have to come to terms with more failure and more choice, whichm themselves may come into conflict from time to time!

Unlike some past challenges, this does not call in to question the future of local government. Instead it may requires flexibility and the need for greater risk-taking.

Over the coming months I will cover the above issues in much more detail.