By 2025 the UK population will be nearing 70 million. There will be an additional 5.5 million elderly people and just 2.8 working people to support every pensioner. Meanwhile, public sector budgets are dwindling.
How is local government going to cope? Following a new report put together by Civica and local authority leaders, The changing landscape for local government, I’ve painted a picture of how the role of the citizen, frontline worker, senior manager and local councillor will change between now and 2025.
The citizen
Most people currently have minimal contact with their council. They interact only for essential tasks, such as refuse collection, paying parking tickets and council tax – much of which is still done in person or over the phone. Credibility and trust is growing (albeit from a low base), but engagement is unstructured and reactive, and processes can be slow, inefficient and bureaucratic. User experience is, at best, mixed.
By 2025, it will be those born between 1982 and early 2000 that will shape public service demand. The first generation to be completely immersed in digital life from birth, they will be connected, mobile, independent and self-serving, but also demanding and impatient. With their own personal budget for health and social care, they will purchase what they need directly online, topping this up with a range of customised discretionary services from their own pockets, on a pay-as-you-go basis. They will use their local authorities as brokers of broad, collaborative and integrated services, rather than waiting to be informed about things happening in the local community. They will be fully engaged with issues that interest them in a vibrant civic life through real and virtual social networks, and will directly influence decisions that affect them – whether that £25,000 will be spent on a playground or filling potholes, for example.
The frontline worker
At the moment, the local authority frontline worker has a challenging role. Handling citizen requests and ensuring good-quality customer service is often a lengthy and inefficient process, thanks to disjointed systems, siloed departments and clumsy paper processes that fail to put the customer first. Job insecurity looms large as many authorities continue to reduce head count in a desperate attempt to close gaps in their budgets.
In the future, staff at all levels will be able to perform numerous roles flexibly as part of joined up, multi-sector teams. Processes will be digital, allowing data to be shared across services to provide a single view of the customer. This will enable frontline staff to better understand and anticipate the needs of their local community, gather useful information and respond accordingly. Overall their roles will be more valued by the public, more varied, and more sustainable.
The senior manager
Senior managers are currently trapped between a rock and hard place. The rock is knowing they need to begin transforming their authorities in order to meet evolving citizen demands and dwindling budgets. The hard place is that this has to be done without a drop in service levels. Transformational change is held back by a restrictive culture, inadequate succession planning and inflexible and limited technology, according to recent research by Civica. Many authorities are still acting as monolithic providers of services – though a growing number have started exploring partnerships with expert third parties.
From 2025 and beyond, senior managers will be far more focused on strategic planning and delivering sustainable change. They will have built a culture of innovation within their organisation and will predominately act as conductors of strategic and integrated partnerships, like a small spider within a big web. A reduced and more agile management team will shift the focus from maintaining the engine room to more strategic issues – while specialist third-party experts will deliver the majority of services more efficiently. A commercial mindset will be central to this new breed of management, which will reinvest profits into service delivery.
The local politician
Trust in local councils is fairly strong, with two-thirds of people trusting them to make decisions about their local community, LGA research found. However, outside of local elections most local councillors are still fairly detached from and invisible to the people they serve.
As the devolution debate evolves over the next decade, council leaders will become more accountable for progress in creating a better quality of life for local people, not least in relation to investment in infrastructure for local economic growth. They will be culpable for managing citizen data, taking action on behalf of the citizen, and making policy choices to meet local needs – not just translating national government directives. Councillors will also have much stronger and more direct relationships with the communities they serve, using social media and focus groups to ensure they understand what local people want. They will be activist leaders, bringing together networks of contacts as well as resources in their local community, to drive collective action on what matters most to local people.
Kim Ryley is chair of Solace in business and former chief executive of Cheshire East council and Shropshire council
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