I chose, in career terms at least, to board a sinking ship. Local government, alongside vast swaths of the public sector, is sinking into a sea of austerity. In the next five years of Conservative government it will continue to sink. I recently started working in a sector that is rapidly reducing and being attacked from both above – national government seeking to reign in public sector spending – and below – a public highly suspicious of government spending. So why did I do it?
Generally, public sector ethos is assumed, rightly or wrongly, to be the motivation of everyone entering the world of public service. It is true that after numerous stints in the private sector I realised that making company executives more money was not enough to get me out of bed in the morning. But values alone weren’t enough to help me navigate private and public sector graduate schemes. I had to reflect more on what having a career meant to me.
I knew that I wanted to challenge myself. And by that, I don’t just mean learning complex spreadsheet formulas and how to put together slick and shiny PowerPoint presentations; I mean emotional, intellectual and political challenges. The prospect of working with shrinking budgets while delivering valuable services to an increasingly attuned, if sometimes apathetic, public met all three of these challenges. Having to wrestle with my own gut instincts about fairness and equality while helping to redesign or possibly cut services was, oddly, one of the most appealing factors of working in local government.
I started the national graduate development programme with Islington council in September 2014, at the same time as I was studying for a leadership and management qualification. Being able to combine working, studying and meeting like-minded people has challenged me beyond what I had originally hoped. Spending my first year in the chief executive’s office means I’m fortunate enough to have worked with senior individuals, frontline operatives and in partnership with the NHS.
Joining an organisation that is only concerned with its own position has never interested me. I am naturally curious about resilience in the face of adversity. There is little intellectual fun or spontaneity in a job where your main concern every day is about staying at the top. Local authorities are doing the best they can with the hand they have been dealt, and with austerity forcing councils to strip away bureaucracy, I realised that working at a local level would give me a chance to directly help people.
It also meant I could take on responsibility in areas I knew little about, unlike in private sector graduate schemes. When most people consider local government they think of council tax or bins. But as I looked into the breadth of what local government covered it became clear that, despite my secret dream of one day riding on a bin truck, the world – within geographically defined boundaries – could be my oyster.
Austerity has compounded the big problems that need big solutions – and five more years will only magnify those problems. But helping to solve unemployment, commissioning mental health services or cultivating relationships with hard-to-reach communities are all possibilities with a career in local government.
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