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This article was downloaded by: [University of Auckland Library]On: 24 November 2014, At: 13:09Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
Local Government StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authorsand subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/flgs20
Localism and Accountability ina Post-Collaborative Era: WhereDoes It Leave the CommunityRight to Challenge?Tricia Jones a & Christianne Ormston ba Third Sector Research Centre , University ofBirmingham , UKb Centre for Public Policy and Health , DurhamUniversity , UKPublished online: 15 Aug 2013.
To cite this article: Tricia Jones & Christianne Ormston (2014) Localismand Accountability in a Post-Collaborative Era: Where Does It Leave theCommunity Right to Challenge?, Local Government Studies, 40:1, 141-161, DOI:10.1080/03003930.2013.801834
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2013.801834
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Localism and Accountability in a Post-Collaborative Era: Where Does It Leavethe Community Right to Challenge?
TRICIA JONES* & CHRISTIANNE ORMSTON**
*Third Sector Research Centre, University of Birmingham, UK, **Centre for Public Policy andHealth, Durham University, UK
ABSTRACT Since the establishment of subsidiarity in the early 1990s, the European-wide move to devolve governance has been interpreted by previous and present UKgovernments adopting differing ideological positions within a ‘localism agenda’.Interpretations have changed the dynamics of the community right to challenge, as wellas the structure and mechanisms for community accountability. This article adopts thetypology of forms of local governance developed by Lowndes and Sullivan (2008, Howlow can you go? Rationales and challenges for neighbourhood governance. PublicAdministration, 86 (1), 1–22) to explore the hypothesis that the localism agenda realignsthe synergy between neighbourhood rationales; citizen engagement in service deliveryand the opportunity for public scrutiny and accountability. It concludes that opportunitiesfor communities to challenge service delivery and ensure increased accountability to thelocal level will be tempered by increased complexity and demands on local authorities todevelop new relationships with both service users and providers.
KEY WORDS: Accountability, communities, localism, neighbourhoods, governance
Introduction
The UK Coalition government’s localism agenda has led to an explicit shift inthe organisational focus and location from the state at national or local authoritylevel to the level of the neighbourhood (Diamond 2011). The present UKCoalition government’s localism agenda proposes to ‘strengthen accountabilityto local people’ by giving citizens the power to ‘change the services provided tothem through participation, choice or the ballot box’ (DCLG 2010, p. 3), bring-ing together rationales for different approaches to local governance, publicservice delivery, scrutiny and accountability to the fore. Despite apparent com-mitment to empowering people at the local level, there is a lack of coherenceexacerbated by conflicting ideology from within the Coalition; budget cuts and
Correspondence Address: Dr Christianne Ormston, Centre for Public Policy and Health School ofMedicine, Pharmacy, and Health, Durham University, Queen’s Campus, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 6BH,UK. Email: [email protected]/
Local Government Studies, 2014Vol. 40, No. 1, 141–161, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2013.801834
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
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particularly New Labour’s previous approach to neighbourhood governancemeans that the ‘Coalition’s reforms will inevitably be interpreted and refractedthrough this lens’ (Lowndes and Pratchett 2012, p. 22).
The article discusses findings from a scoping study undertaken with seniorpractitioners with extensive experience of community involvement, who sharedtheir perceptions and expectations of changes in engagement processes at thelocal level. Findings are analysed using Flinders’ (2001) concept of communityaccountability and explored ideologically using the Lowndes and Sullivan (2008)typology of neighbourhood governance. The conclusion offers some insights intothe challenges facing the development of the localism agenda and communityaccountability in the new governance landscape.
First, however, the article considers the role of the neighbourhood in govern-ance and accountability structures, the shift to neoliberalism and the mechanismsfor community accountability established prior to the Coalition government asbackground and context to the study.
Neighbourhoods and accountability
Interest in neighbourhood governance has been growing since 1992 when theorganising principle of subsidiarity became established in European Union (EU)law, especially in Western Europe where local governance strategy has beenrevised, basing local government on smaller neighbourhood units. Subsidiaritywas particularly significant for the UK which, unlike many of the other Westerndemocracies in the European Union, was highly centralised (Coaffee andHeadlam 2008). In the European context, there is an increased focus on theneighbourhood playing a key role in the governance of public services delivery(Garcia 2005, Kennett and Forrest 2006, Barnes et al. 2007) and it is argued thatit continues to dominate thinking about the quality of life in local communities(Bailey and Pill 2011, p. 927). The need for ‘vibrant, engaged and sociallysustainable neighbourhoods’ has been a strong element in the development ofa European society, and has been part of a common European-wide agenda topromote active citizenship, the quality of public services, and encourageincreased engagement in political participation (Kennett and Forrest 2006,p. 713). Neighbourhoods have also become attractive as areas for networkedgovernance and citizens’ involvement to address the ‘complexity, fragmentationand remoteness’ of more centralised governance structures (Barnes et al. 2007,p. 99). Yet correlation between greater decentralisation and increased account-ability cannot be assumed.1 In Western political economies, subsidiarity has beenaccompanied by a shift to ‘neoliberalism’, which has moved responsibilities fromthe paternalistic state towards the entrepreneurial, with the state gradually remov-ing itself from the primary provision of services (Isin 2000). This has involved agreater emphasis on client and consumer control, citizens as consumers who areinvested with capacities for making choices, and expert agents rather than stateofficials assisting citizens in making those choices (Isin 2000, Rose 2000,Defilippis et al. 2006). The characteristics of neoliberalist reorganisation
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comprise downsizing the state, decentralising decision-making, devolving powerto intermediate bodies such as trusts or associations, privatising state functionsand opening them up to commercial pressures, displacing the knowledge of thewelfare professionals by the ‘knowledge of examination’ and, placing theresponsibility for scrutiny and review with accountants and consultants (Rose2000, p. 96). Previous functions of local government such as street cleaning andregeneration are increasingly likely to be devolved to private firms or public–private partnerships. Defilippis et al. (2006) contend that neoliberalism is about a‘re-articulation of the roles and goals of the state’ within which the communityplays an active role (Defilippis et al. 2006, p. 675).
It has been recognised that securing accountability in a public policy environ-ment with complex delivery relationships and a large number of actors is difficult(Sullivan 2003). Therefore, the focus on the level of the neighbourhood isfounded on the premise that ‘the chain of accountability’ can be more easilyidentified and addressed (Barnes et al. 2007, p. 108).
Although the UK Coalition government’s Localism Act has prompted muchspeculation about accountability, localism itself is not an entirely new policyconcept (Pratchett 2004). Historically, the community’s role at neighbourhoodlevel in the UK has been to call to account the standards of local serviceprovision. Increased engagement of communities was encouraged within theUK’s previous New Labour administration with a modernisation agenda, whichintroduced a number of mechanisms to encourage greater accountability. NewLabour attempted to conjoin both a pragmatic perspective with a collaborativeapproach while emphasising accountability, performance management andpartnership working (Driver and Martell 2000).
The Local Government Act 1999 imposed the requirement on local authoritiesto deliver services within the bounds of economy, efficiency and effectivenessthrough the principle of Best Value;2 a change of emphasis from previousattempts by the Conservative government to bring greater efficiency to localgovernment and health services by the use of competition. The high level ofsupport for challenging existing practices was seen as a widely importantdeterminant of the process (Martin et al. 2003).
Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), comprising statutory, voluntary, communityand private sector partners, were set up in 2000.3 The aim was to promote jointworking and community involvement to address local problems. The concept wasbased upon accelerated network governance through collaboration, which broughtpower dynamics in addition to power differentials between sectors (Sullivan andSkelcher 2002) to the fore. Coaffee and Headlam (2008) contend that power isinherent in the local governance process in the UK, and fraught with tensionsbetween central statutory directive and local initiative and experimentation.
UK public sector reform now features an alternative paradigm for devolvingpower to citizens and the Coalition’s interpretation of localism involves a newapproach to governance that places the voluntary and community sector centrestage. Within the Act, the ‘community right to challenge’ has been interpreted interms of options to take over service provision. Importantly, the obligations
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enshrined within the democratic renewal agenda for local authorities to engagewithin networks such as LSPs have been diminished. Regional strategies regard-ing policies, targets and planning have been abolished, with a view to reducingtensions between tiers of government. They have been replaced by the duty tocooperate, promoting collaborative decision-making between local authoritiesand communities in the belief that this will be instrumental in developing anongoing process of community involvement and engagement (DCLG 2011a).
Concepts and frameworks
As a concept, accountability is open to interpretation but is primarily aboutrelations of power and authority and is dependent on the processes and institu-tions that enforce it. Processes and institutions are often concealed within a widerperspective framed by complexities that govern the policy context; politicalintentions of decision-makers and subsequent revision of the roles and goals ofthe state (Defilippis et al. 2006, Ebinger et al. 2011). At the time of writing thedynamic regulating these contexts was particularly heightened by the change innational administration from New Labour to the Coalition government, whereexisting policy structures, tools and concepts, such as the notion of localismitself, were beginning to be revised and reinterpreted at local authority level.
The theoretical concept of accountability to the local community underpinningthis study is based upon understandings that accountability is ‘fundamentallyconcerned with the (re)distribution of power’ and that ‘a claim for greateraccountability is a demand for a transfer of power between institutions andindividuals’ (Flinders 2001, p. 359). However, we interpret that communityaccountability of the kind encouraged by the increased powers given to commu-nities at the neighbourhood level in the Localism Act infers a transfer ofpolitically collective power between institutions and communities rather thaninstitutions and individuals. Flinders (2001) claims that accountability relation-ships can lead to an improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of publicpolicies and the enhancement of the legitimacy of government.
The Localism Act, introduced to parliament by the Coalition duringDecember 2010 and given royal assent in November 2011, does not appear tointroduce a new concept into local government thinking. New Labour employed‘new localism’ to describe sustainable local governance that increased account-ability and transparency, where a bottom-up approach rather than top-downdiktat underlined the move to partnership models of working (Coaffee andJohnston 2005). Embedded in the Coalition’s localism agenda is the ‘commu-nity right to challenge’, which was subject to public consultation in February2011. Nonetheless, ‘challenge’ is specifically defined as ‘the right for commu-nity and voluntary bodies, parish councils and authority employees to bid totake over the running of local authority services’ (DCLG 2011b, p. 10). Thisdefinition differs greatly from ideas of public scrutiny, participatory democracyand increased accountability of local officers and elected members to localcommunities, embodied in New Labour’s series of ‘Communities in control’
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papers (DCLG 2008). Consequently, the community’s ‘right to challenge’ iscentral to our research analysis because the reinterpretation of the perception of‘challenge’ radically realigns the relationships between local communities andstate at the local level.
Although the Coalition government includes mechanisms for public scrutiny,capacity building resources have been depleted and local authority engagementteams and neighbourhood managers have been reduced via spending cuts. Publicsector reform, with its shift towards a delivery-based philosophy making greateruse of the private and voluntary sectors, signifies a change in discourse aroundthe emphasis on a ‘community right to challenge’. Stakes have been raised; linksare being made with ‘right to buy’ and ‘right to build’; and the ‘right tochallenge’ has been associated more firmly with asset transfer and social enter-prise culture. Therefore, the Coalition’s definition of localism is a materiallydifferent concept from that of New Labour. This study considers how this newconceptualisation of the ‘right to challenge’ changes the impact of citizenengagement in service delivery on neighbourhood governance as well as publicscrutiny and accountability. The analytical framework is adopted from theinfluential work of Lowndes and Sullivan (2008) who established a baselinefor neighbourhood governance to capture the arrangements and opportunities forlocal decision-making and service delivery, founded on classic arguments thatfavour devolution. They presented their analysis in four ideal types (Table 1).
First neighbourhood empowerment based on the simple proposition that thesize of a neighbourhood enables shared values and beliefs, more opportunity toparticipate in effective decision-making and more appropriate space to exercisevoice and choice. Within this type, citizens are more likely to invest time andeffort, and the primary rationale is civic in nature, based on ideas of ‘economiesof scope’ (Bovaird 2012, p. 8). Second, neighbourhood partnership, locatedwithin a social rationale, offers a form of neighbourhood governance where it
Table 1. Forms of neighbourhood governance – four ideal types
Neighbourhoodempowerment
Neighbourhoodpartnership
Neighbourhoodgovernment
Neighbourhoodmanagement
Primary rationale Civic Social Political EconomicKey objectives Active citizens
and cohesivecommunities
Citizen well-beingandregeneration
Responsive andaccountabledecision-making
More effectivelocal servicedelivery
Democratic device Participatorydemocracy
Stakeholderdemocracy
Representativedemocracy
Market democracy
Citizen role Citizen: voice Partner: loyalty Elector: vote Consumer: choiceLeadership role Animateur,
enablerBroker, chair Councillor, mini-
mayorEntrepreneur,
directorInstitutional forms Forums,
co-productionService board,
mini-LSPTown councils,
areacommittees
Contracts, charters
Source: Lowndes and Sullivan (2008, p. 62).
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is easier to see what works and what does not, coined by Bovaird as ‘economiesof learning’ (Bovaird 2012, p. 8). This type creates an arena for innovation andcommunity-led partnerships that benefits from an holistic approach to long-termstrategic goals such as urban regeneration. Third, the neighbourhood governmenttype is based on a political rationale where citizens have more knowledge aboutwhat is at stake and political leaders are increasingly responsive to citizensbecause their actions are made more visible. Within this type there is arguablymore accountability because communication between politicians and citizens isphysically easier within the unit size of the neighbourhood, although ongoingcommunity representation is not guaranteed. Finally, neighbourhood manage-ment, established primarily on an economic rationale, suggests that better use canbe made of resources because neighbourhood governance is better able toidentify waste, needs and commission services. Institutional instruments suchas contracts and charters mean that this type is more conducive to market-styleaccountability because consumption is more transparent.
Methodology
The topic guide sought to capture respondents’ opinions about both existing andproposed structural context for localism, with a focus on their perceptions aboutwhich are the most enabling processes for community accountability. Thedimensions in Table 1 were developed by encouraging respondents to identifythe changing democratic devices, institutional forms, leadership and citizens’roles that underpinned their observations of the previous and projected rationalesfor a localism agenda.
The research study was carried out through two distinct stages. In the firststage, a series of eight in-depth interviews were undertaken with a range of keypolicy shapers, regional strategists, local practitioners and community represen-tatives. The individuals were selected to reflect a mix of status and experience, toinclude practitioners from front-line, manager, director and chief executivelevels, and across a range of organisations including local authorities, regionaland third-sector bodies. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were considered themost appropriate for both logistical and expediential reasons (Marshall andRaabe 1993); to allow detailed exploration of respondents’ perceptions andviews about the enablers and dynamic complexities of localism, and to makebest use of the researchers’ longstanding practitioner networks where mutualtrust had accumulated and increased the potential for rich data (Fontana and Frey1998). This work is the beginning of an ongoing study capitalising on research-ers’ professional embeddedness to track the policy and practice of localismacross various local authority areas.
Local governance is a relatively small research pool so respondents have beencoded to anonymise their contributions and to protect professional identities.Practitioners were asked to discuss their experience of existing processes andbarriers to community accountability and the key opportunities and challengespresented by the Localism Act now and in the future. Interview data were
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evaluated according to their content and context within the neighbourhoodgovernance typology then thematically cross-referenced and analysed to revealcoherence and contradiction between the four political rationales in Lowndes andSullivan’s model. The timing of the interviews, undertaken between January andApril 2011 was crucial as the interviewees were based within local authorities,regional organisations and communities that were on the cusp of change.4 Thisprovided the opportunity to capture key insights into the impact of changeshappening during the early development of the Coalition’s localism agenda,before the bill was given Royal Assent.
The second stage of the study involved triangulating the findings with those oftwo workshops that were undertaken as part of an Arts and Humanities ResearchCouncil (AHRC) Connected Communities research study. Each workshopinvolved approximately 40–50 senior practitioners from local government,central government, the private sector, the voluntary and community sector,and from across the fields of housing, children’s services and economic devel-opment. Findings from these workshops were synthesised and made available toparticipants in the form of workshop reports (Laffin et al. 2011a, 2011b).
The discussion of the emerging findings of our study has been structuredaround four key themes; collaboration, roles and relationships, resources, andtransparency and competition and is detailed in the section following considera-tion of the findings of the study.
Findings
The civic rationale (Lowndes and Sullivan 2008) is characterised by citizensbeing empowered to have a voice within their own communities. The leadershiprole of the local authority is one of animating and enabling communities toparticipate in a wide range of institutional forms from local forums toco-production, with a focus on participatory democracy.
The study revealed that there were typical examples of community self-governance and empowerment of the kind favoured in the Localism Act alreadytaking place within the geographical areas that the study covered. This includedan example of an asset transfer of a community centre to a local community,which developed as a successful self-financing community resource, providingimportant local services to the neighbourhood. In another instance, a communityhad specifically constituted itself as a group, with support from communitydevelopment workers, to campaign for a pharmacy in their area. It is importantto note that these successful examples were reliant on empowered citizens havingstrong social capital and, in the case of the latter, community developmentsupport, to enable this level of community leadership. Such empowerment tooka significant length of time to develop successful outcomes, and the projects haveexperienced ongoing issues around sustainability. Further examples arose ofcommunities who were in the process of constituting themselves as communitygroups in preparation to bid to take over community assets once the LocalismAct had passed. Overall, it was felt that there was a genuine interest and appetite
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to take full advantage of forthcoming opportunities as long as capacity buildingsupport was available: ‘There are some really articulate people within the com-munities as well as people who are willing to get out there and do somethinggood for their area if they are helped through the process’ (NeighbourhoodManager).
Respondents emphasised the importance of local authorities’ willingness to backthe Localism Act and to provide local communities with the information andcollaboration needed to take full advantage of it and ‘… explain the opportunitiesthat are out there’ (Policy Manager 2). This changing role of local authorities wasparamount as many respondents expressed concern about the knowledge, capacityand resources available to communities to allow them to capitalise on new powersand opportunities presented to them within the Localism Act.
‘Many of the new proposals in the Localism Act will only work if thecommunity has the capacity to run the service’ (Community DevelopmentWorker). The local authority outlook and role in supporting communities toaccess these opportunities were considered essential, particularly as several ofthe interviewees argued there was still a dependency culture and a question ofcommunities saying: ‘It’s not my job, it’s your job. We’re paying you to do it …’(Local Authority Director) and this respondent also voiced a general mistrust oflocal authorities: ‘They don’t trust the council; they think that the council tellsthem things that they know not to be true’ (Local Authority Director). Somerespondents wondered whether deprived areas would have the social capital toaccess opportunities to the same extent as middle-class areas. In one instance, asocially connected and well-educated community group formed to save theirlocal library, but one respondent asked whether groups without these particularresources and attributes would be as well positioned to achieve their goals.
The study revealed universal concern about the extent to which local autho-rities could provide support due to funding cuts, loss of key staff, and the phasingout of neighbourhood management in some areas: ‘Public sector cuts are a bigthreat for lots of reasons … In terms of community development – I think thecuts to voluntary and community sector funding, and the subsequent removal ofthe community networks will of course impact on community development workin the country’ (Community Development Worker).
The second ideal type of Lowndes and Sullivan’s (2008) neighbourhoodgovernance, based on the social rationale, focused on improving citizen well-being and regeneration through partnership working to input communities’ knowl-edge and experience into collective decision-making. This involves stakeholderdemocracy driven through service boards and LSPs at different levels. Those whosit on partnership boards do so with different types of ‘mandate and legitimacy’,and they are seen as having diverse and sometimes conflicting interests.
Under the social rationale, the study revealed some critique of the keystructures and frameworks of partnership working set up by New Labour,including LSPs, and the neighbourhood management approach. Criticismsfocused on a perceived lack of sustainable outcomes which these initiativeshad achieved in deprived communities; ‘I would like to go back and see what
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the longer term impact has been … That area is still very deprived’ (CommunityDevelopment Worker).
As programmes have come to an end or reforms have dictated restructuringand review of support and budgets, one interviewee observed the damage thatthis did to continuity of relationships with community partners: ‘when youabandon a community, it is extremely difficult to work with them again’(Neighbourhood Co-ordinator). Practitioners at one of the workshops commen-ted that the funding cuts had led to a significant loss of expertise in the localauthority and community sectors, which would take time to build up again, andwhich was felt could lead to increased fragmentation and silo working.
Some respondents observed that the relationship in terms of accountabilitywith local communities was remote. Citizens remained simply a partner amongstmany other partners and community representation was often substituted throughthe voluntary and community sector. Representation was also reduced due tofunding cuts leading to a loss of community networks and neighbourhoodmanagement structures: ‘Well, the LSP is there, but because lots of communitynetworks are gone, there is limited input into the LSP from the voluntary andcommunity sector’ (Community Development Worker).
Nevertheless, one respondent identified an incorporated relationship betweenhis LSP and the Local Neighbourhood Partnerships (LNPs) within the constitu-encies: ‘… the resident involvement feeds in (to the LSP) from the LNPs. Sowhen they’re cutting off the LNPs, it’s like throttling off the blood that feeds thebody. Therefore your community involvement comes down to a once a yearconsultation’ (Neighbourhood Manager).
There were issues highlighted around the complexities in reaching agreementabout targets with local partners within central government directive.
I was trying to get (partners) to agree and negotiate what seemed to them, quiteabstract targets with central government. I think that added layers of bureau-cracy to the innovation that was trying to be encouraged. (Policy Manager 1)
However, in spite of criticisms, the value of partnership working was recognised.Despite the implications for dismantling collaborative structures in the LocalismAct, respondents retained a commitment to working with stakeholders, and it wasacknowledged that valuable social, bridging and linking capital could be gener-ated from bringing people together. There was an understanding that in the pastpartnership working through structures such as LSPs was driven by the avail-ability of funding and the need to meet centrally determined targets. Respondentsanticipated that in the future addressing the cuts agenda could be a strong basisfor partnership working in the post-collaborative era.
‘We think that now more than ever there is a need for partners to continue toget together to agree on shared priorities, shared initiatives, and where possibleagree on shared budgeting’ (Policy Manager 1). One respondent talked abouthow a revised partnership approach to delivering children’s services in theborough had led to the development of a new service ‘… It’s just going through
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our HR committee now. The budget pressures have forced our hand here’ (PolicyManager 2).
Within Lowndes and Sullivan’s typology, the political rationale is characterisedby neighbourhood government, where traditional structures including constituen-cies and wards are enhanced. This model was part of an attempt by the Labourgovernment to establish ongoing dialogue with constituents and develop residents’awareness of the advantage in engaging with their political representatives. Theintention was to build on ‘bottom-up’ initiatives like area committees to encouragemore accountable councillors and emphasize representative democracy built ongreater transparency. In the context of the political rationale, respondents through-out referred to the importance of structure and process and the fact that communityaccountability was ‘very much tied up with the democratic process’ (PolicyManager 2); a process that demonstrated various dimensions in terms of achievingkey objectives associated with more responsive and accountable decision-making.Ward committee structures, the importance of statutory processes with key mile-stones and a need for ‘robust governance and assurance arrangements’ (PlanningManager), were mentioned time and again in effecting necessary communityparticipation in decision-making and ensuring transparency especially via evi-dence-based decisions.
Accountability through members’ queries and neighbourhood forums were notconsidered as crucial as one interviewee described: ‘(T)he mechanism thattranslates that into action (which) depends on the architecture of the councilitself’ (Policy Manager 2) thereby linking the democratic process with thestructures that are available for community engagement and implying thatmechanisms alone are not enough.
Some respondents noted that political will at local authority level to promoteaccountable decision-making was as important as the existence of democraticstructures. Workshop attendees suggested that there was a more conceptualproblem of how to ‘marry’ the demands of accountability with the drive towards‘grass roots delivery’. Generally, interviewees felt that community accountabilitycould not depend on structures alone but required the political will to translatethe community monitoring perspective into a change in practice at the grass-rootslevel. One respondent was particularly articulate on this point:
The local authority in the area I worked don’t appear to want to do it anddon’t appear to see the value of doing it … when you force a localauthority to do something like (community) engagement, it doesn’t meanthat they will do it well. (Community Development Worker)
It was found that part of devaluing community engagement was the deprofessio-nalisation of the community development role. The local authority blamedapathy for the lack of engagement in area committees but one respondent feltit was more a case of local authority control over the agenda coupled with anineffective engagement strategy where there should have been ‘more to engagingresidents than putting up posters’ (Community Development Worker). The need
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for a change in roles of elected members and officers was mentioned by allrespondents, ‘XX Council tends to be paternalistic … I think that’s an unequalpower balance, that “we know best attitude’’’ (Neighbourhood Manager).One policy manager observed elected members taking on community represen-tative roles on their LSPs. This supported the opinion expressed by most inter-viewees, that councillors’ roles had to change to meet the challenges of theLocalism Act because ‘the idea that we can plan everything from an office in theTown Hall, or from Whitehall for that matter, is madness, it just won’t work’(Policy Manager 2). Most respondents expressed the need for training and theneed for metamorphosis in the role of elected members towards a more ‘facil-itative role’, making a different level of contribution by knowing ‘everyone intheir ward, who to speak to, which groups of people to put into contact with eachother’ (Policy Manager 2).
It is the economic rationale that most accurately typifies the Coalition govern-ment’s model of localism and their interpretation of the community right tochallenge being that of taking over service delivery themselves. The economicrationale expressed by Lowndes and Sullivan as the neighbourhood manage-ment type of governance is differentiated by effective and efficient locallyintegrated service delivery that enables managers to commission targeted exter-nal services to match local need. It is a market democracy model that supportersargue is better able to hold providers to account through consumer choice thanthrough the ballot box. Nonetheless, it was found that this rationale was notwithout political dynamic as one respondent described a local authority governedby coalition:
… there was a tension within that coalition between the more community-minded members and the hard-headed cost cutting finance cabinet membersand it’s how much political weight they have within their respective organisa-tions to keep community support at the front of it. (Neighbourhood Manager)
The demise of LSPs provoked much discussion but one respondent crystallisedthe fear that several others voiced about the lack of strategic collaborationbetween local authorities observing: ‘The big difference for me is that localauthorities now find themselves in a competing world, it’s like a dog-eat-dogworld, with every authority out for themselves’ (Planning Manager).
Business risk and trust in delivery partners were also mentioned as elements inthe economic rationale, where the community right to challenge might entailtaking over service provision: ‘It’s a huge risk to step up and deliver a service ifyou are struggling to cover your core costs’ (Local Authority Director). Oneinterviewee told the story of a community group wanting to work actively withthe police in delivering community safety. Resident members of the communitygroup were willing to use two-way radios to help the police respond swiftly toincidents of antisocial behaviour on their estate. Initially the police were dubiousthat the community would be impartial and behave professionally in this role and‘faith in the community took time to build up’ (Neighbourhood Coordinator).
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There was evidence of the link between the political and the economicrationale associating more effective service delivery and accountability withconsultation that enabled the citizen as consumer to make a more informedchoice over neighbourhood priorities. Discussion about community accountabil-ity within this rationale revealed a lack of compulsion to ensure that some serviceproviders equipped communities with the necessary data for them to engage ininformed consumer choice. Loss of local officers sometimes meant that crimefigures and health take-up figures were no longer presented to local meetings andone respondent felt, ‘it’s almost like they’ve centralised the services again andtaken accountability with it back to the centre’ (Neighbourhood Coordinator).
Our respondents expressed concern that the anticipated shift in third-sectororganisations becoming mainstays in terms of local service delivery was fraughtwith difficulties. Although the third sector’s strength was perceived as being ableto deliver quality and fill the niche gaps in provision, there was a view that theywould need to ‘form under an organisational umbrella to compete for contracts’(Neighbourhood Manager) that would otherwise be won by bigger players. Theissue of procurement-readiness and the time and resource it takes to capacitybuild community organisations to run services was made by several intervieweesand workshop respondents, and more than one respondent expressed the cynicalview that the Coalition’s ideology: ‘is just a smokescreen for cuts. I’ve yet to seeanyone in Central Government give a coherent explanation to how the commu-nity can take over a service such as a library’ (Local Authority Director).
However, concern was expressed about the withdrawal of capacity building toensure that those in deprived areas were going to have the same level of time,knowledge and experience as those in affluent areas to take over the running oflocal services, linking issues between the economic and civic rationales.Workshop respondents suggested that there was a tendency for government to‘fail to recognise’ the need for capacity building support in the voluntary andcommunity sectors. This, as well as the lack of immediate opportunities forconsortium working, potentially hindered the voluntary sector from competing:
… procurement and commissioning structures are more suitable to privatecompanies than charities. Often the voluntary and community sector doesnot have enough working capital and a lot of the contracts are payment byresults and because we work with some of the hardest to reach people, itmight take years to get this off the ground … Not many people could waitup to 1 year or even more to get paid. (Community Development Worker)
Discussion
Early findings reveal that respondents interpreted the changes that were happen-ing during the incipient implementation of the localism agenda within the contextof the neighbourhood, and that views readily fitted the framework of neighbour-hood governance ideal types of Lowndes and Sullivan (2008). Moreover, theydemonstrate the contention by Lowndes and Sullivan that the rationales on which
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any scheme of neighbourhood governance is based can be mixed; the linkbetween institutional design and purpose is vital. The findings suggest aninextricable link, indicating a changing dynamic between all rationales wherebythe process of neighbourhood governance is influenced by structure, resourceand political will, implying that ‘different democratic values and principles’ dohave an impact on conceptions of localism (Lowndes and Sullivan 2008, p. 71).Following the summary in Table 2, we next discuss the four key themes;collaboration, roles and relationships, resources, and transparency and competi-tion, and overlapping concerns within primary rationales which emerged fromour case study findings.
Collaboration
There are advocates and critics of inter-sector collaborative working (Sullivanand Skelcher 2002) and one of the early criticisms of collaborative workingthrough LSPs was the lack of accountability (Audit Commission 2005). Thestructures of LSPs in particular were generally intended to ensure greaterstakeholder involvement in strategic and financial priorities, yet instanceswere found of ‘old patterns of tokenistic inclusion’ (Coaffee and Headlam2008, p. 1595) and local communities feeling at a remote distance from theaccountability function that LSPs provided. In some cases, voluntary andcommunity organisations, and sometimes elected members, were a substitutefor meaningful community representation at this level. However, the findingsshowed that LSPs performed a tactical function in authorising and endorsingcommunity involvement within more localised structures such as LNPs and inencouraging local authorities to construct workable community engagementpolicies. There was unmistakable value in having a pyramid structure, withLSPs at the strategic apex, legitimising and promoting partnership working atthe local level.
It was evident that structure alone was not enough and that process, togetherwith political will, are essential components of equitable collaboration, since‘power can corrupt the pragmatic process’ (Coaffee and Headlam 2008, p. 1588).Interestingly, the council’s architecture to process feedback was considered amore important mechanism for achieving accountability than reliance on theballot box. It may have been anticipated that the task of balancing centraldirectives with local innovation (Coaffee and Headlam 2008) would have inten-sified under the Localism Act but it appeared that competition between localauthorities may also become a legacy of the removal of ‘layers of bureaucracy’.It was reported that the broader structural changes taking place at a nationallevel, including the abolition of strategic health and regional government bodies,meant that some key partners that attended LSP meetings had been removedcompletely. This was also reflected at neighbourhood partnership and scrutinylevel, where cuts in local personnel meant communities no longer gained accessto evidence-based performance data. This led to a questioning of the future roleof LSPs among some respondents. It was felt that LSPs in their current form had
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Tab
le2.
Analysisof
enablers
andconcerns
Collaboratio
nRoles
andrelatio
nships
Resources
Transparencyandcompetition
Enablers
Longlead-intim
e.Trust.
Sharedpriorities.
Transparencyin
evidence-based
decision
s.Professionalcommunity
develop-
mentsupport.
Assurances.
Pooledresources.
Com
munity
-definedbo
undaries.
Mutualexchange
ofinform
ation.
Com
munity
-based
scrutin
ypanels.
Legislatio
nto
leveltheplayingfield.
Local
controlof
assets.
Concernswith
incivic
ratio
nale
Necessary
levelsof
social
capital.
Lossof
community
expertise.
Lackof
neighbourhoodlevel
performance
data.
Businessrisk.
Needfornew
leadership.
Fearof
change.
Unfaircompetitionfrom
bigbusiness.
Concernswith
insocial
ratio
nale
Needforrecognised,workable
decision-m
akingstructures.
Reduced
representatio
n,choice
andvo
ice.
Lackof
procurem
ent-
readiness.
Lackof
inform
eddecision-m
akingfor
commun
ities.
Rem
oval
ofkeypartners.
Concernswith
inpoli-
tical
ratio
nale
Needforpo
litical
will
tojointly
engage/cam
paign.
Lossof
professional
expertise.
Substitu
tionalism.
Differing
democratic
values
and
principles.
Chang
ingideology
surrou
nding
localauthority
collaboratio
n.Developmentof
afacilitative
role
forelectedmem
bers.
Cynicism
anddemocratic
deficit.
Politicalwill
torespon
dto
commun
itymon
itoring.
Dim
inishedopportunity
for
localecon
omyandjobs.
Politicalwill
torespon
dto
commun
itymon
itoring.
Concernswith
ineco-
nomic
ratio
nale
Potentialforincreasedecon
omies
ofscopeandlearning
interm
sof
servicedeliv
ery.
Fragm
entatio
nandsilo
working
.Inaccessible
commissioning
structures.
Tensions
betweenausterity
budg
eting
andloss
ofelectiv
esupport.
Lackof
continuity
andlocal
know
ledg
e.
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an uncertain future as they did not feature in the Localism Act, and, in certainauthorities, funding streams for partnership working through LSPs such asneighbourhood renewal had gone. Despite a general feeling of LSPs ‘being inlimbo’, there was a view that ‘those reasons by themselves (were) not enough notto have one’. Time, effort and capacity had been invested and developed in LSPs,alongside other partnerships, and some respondents saw an even greater need forcollaboration to cultivate social capital, share budgets and pool resources in thecurrent economic climate.
Revised roles and relationships
Given adequate resources, there was evidence that some communities, particu-larly the articulate and those with strong social capital, have an appetite to takeover the delivery of local services. The issue appeared to be much more one ofrevising relations between communities and the state at the local level. It wasanticipated that the role of officers and elected members would have to radicallychange to adapt to the new policy environment. A key element emerging fromthe civic rationale was a need for an empowerment agenda that would delivercommunity leadership. This linked to a revised role for local authorities in thelocalism agenda, particularly as the Coalition rhetoric has focused on the reducedrole of the state (Kisby 2010). Fundamental to this is the political will totransmute and present an ‘open door’ rather than a ‘concrete bunker’ andnecessitates elected members and council officers taking on a more facilitative,educational and enabling role. The key to successful localism lies in ‘establishinga focus for community-based decision-making in a multi-actor and multi-levelgovernance environment’ (Lowndes and Sullivan 2008, p. 68).
The need for professional community development support was commonlyasserted in the study as well as community-defined structures, boundaries andlevels that encourage community involvement at every stage. It was seen asdetrimental when one local authority attempted to deprofessionalise communityengagement and adopted ineffective alternative measures instead. In a period ofuncertainty and transition, the fear is what is going to be lost with the newchanges that are being implemented. The frustration for many community devel-opment workers and neighbourhood managers that were engaged in NewLabour’s strategies appeared two-fold; communities have already had a ‘sniffof localism’ and there are dangers in taking that away as cuts bite and supportmechanisms are withdrawn. Additionally, the task of reanimating communitieswho have been previously engaged is more challenging than starting fromscratch because community engagement relies on building up trust and capitalover considerable periods of time.
Resources
Accountability in LSPs was considered four-fold (Audit Commission 2005,p. 33): Giving account, that is, reporting widely; Being held to account, that
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is, via scrutiny and inspection; Taking account, that is, using research andconsultation; and Redress, that is, through complaints procedures. All theseaspects of accountability relied on funding for staff time and in increasingtransparency through greater community involvement. It was found that cuts inresources were anticipated to have a massive impact on levels of communityrepresentation on partnership boards in areas where voluntary and communitysector grants had been reduced.
In addition, broader local authority cuts to voluntary sector grants meant thatrepresentation from the voluntary and community sector, often representing theneeds of community groups in that area, had been reduced significantly. Publicsector cuts pose a threat to neighbourhood empowerment as redundancies andstaff turnover have meant a loss of trust and relationships with communities thatwill take time to build again. There is a risk that budget cuts to resources whichsupport local communities, such as the cuts to neighbourhood management andcommunity development noted by practitioners in the study, will mean commu-nities will not get the support they need to take full advantage of the LocalismAct. There is an emerging issue around whether the voluntary and communitysector has the capacity to take up opportunities presented by the Localism Act.There are pressures on local authorities to decrease their procurement costs, bymaking contracts larger, longer and passing on higher risks to contractors(Bovaird 2011). The voluntary and community sector, more likely to be char-acterised by small third-sector organisations seeking to provide niche localservices, faces significant challenges in competing with the private sector totake over the delivery of key services in local communities (Bovaird 2011) andprocurement-readiness brings an altogether different dimension to capacitybuilding.
For example, the award of the government’s work programme, has been atest of the Coalition’s support for the third sector since coming into office(Pugh 2011). When the government announced who had won major contractsfor the work programme, only two out of 40 contracts went to not-for-profitgroups.5 The biggest winner was Ingeus Deloitte, who won seven largecontracts, and who had underbid more experienced providers (Toynbee2011). The procurement process gave priority to price rather than scoringperformance.
This poses a challenge to current finance and public procurement practices.The Public Services Bill (Social Enterprise and Social Value) currently goingthrough its final stages in the House of Lords aims to alter the way in whichpublic sector services and contracts are commissioned and obliges public bodiesto consider the wider social and environmental impact of procurement to expandthe role of social enterprise in the delivery of public services (House ofCommons 2011). This has encouraged some local authorities such as DurhamCounty Council to develop protocols that will support social enterprises andother civil society organisations to bid for contracts, as well as training commis-sioners to consider the additional value such contract providers could offer
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(Jones 2011). Therefore, this bill potentially has an important role in levelling outthe playing field.
Transparency and competition
The findings of the study suggest that a market-led model of neighbourhoodgovernance based predominantly on an economic rationale of localism cannot bedelivered without political and ideological tensions around community account-ability (Ebinger et al. 2011). New Labour advised local authorities to engage thepublic and their partners in the scrutiny process as contributors, participatingspectators, co-opted members and expert witnesses (Snape et al. 2002, p. 88).The present Secretary of State for communities and local government has calledfor ‘armchair auditors’ to examine every invoice, payment and receipt in thecouncils’ ledgers (Pickles 2011).
There are obvious difficulties in achieving transparency and accountability inservice delivery that are compounded by outsourcing services to private sectorproviders delivering at arm’s length. Accountability can also be an issue whencommunity businesses are involved in procurement, and services also mean localjobs and a boosted local economy. There is a possible dichotomy in scrutiny bythe community for the benefit of the community, which again broaches theunsettled issue of criteria for service review. The traditional challenge mechan-isms are disappearing as service delivery is changing, but there could be adeveloping role for community-based scrutiny panels as the example on oneestate cited in this study suggested, to ensure the accountability of outsourcedservices with contractors themselves attending scrutiny panels to ‘drive forwardimprovements’. One neighbourhood manager of a Community HousingAssociation expressed the view that the only way community accountabilitycan be achieved is through local control of assets because only under thissolution will any surplus be reinvested, calling for a governance and manage-ment structure controlled and driven by the community. This solution was theonly one put forward to ensure that competition did not only focus on lowestcosts rather than preserved standards monitored by the community right tochallenge. This point reiterated the interrelationship between economic, political,civic and social rationales that several respondents in this study emphaticallyendorsed, and suggested that market-led localism is more likely to fail in aclimate of austerity and elimination of engagement structures and processes.
Conclusion
The typology of neighbourhood governance set out by Lowndes and Sullivan(2008) is a useful framework for considering ideological and operational shifts. Ithelps to capture the emerging issues through the lens of the model’s interrelatedrationales; ‘The point of specifying ideal types is to bring conceptual order tomessy realities, enabling the investigation of variation within and betweeninstitutional alternatives’ (Lowndes and Sullivan 2008, p. 63).
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The UK Coalition government’s localism agenda promotes the neighbourhoodlevel in both service delivery and governance (Diamond 2011, Bailey and Pill2011, Lowndes and Pratchett 2012). The findings of this scoping study alsoindicated that practitioners appeared to interpret the localism agenda within thecontext of the neighbourhood. Localism is not a new concept, but in its currentform reflects a neoliberal shift which puts a greater emphasis on devolving powerto the community level and opening state functions up to commercial pressures(Defilippis et al. 2006). This makes accountability increasingly complex(Sullivan 2003) and the neighbourhood has been identified as a structural levelat which this complexity can be better negotiated by key stakeholders, throughbringing lines of accountability closer to communities (Barnes et al. 2007).
The localism agenda opens up new opportunities for communities to challengeservice delivery and ensure increased accountability to the local level. Thisrequires a new distinct role for local authorities in supporting communities totake advantage of the opportunities presented in the Localism Act. The demandsare multiple: Local authority actors are required to develop new relationships andnew ways of working in order to provide a facilitative, enabling role to supportcommunity leadership. Local authorities’ willingness to collaborate and shareresources, functions and ideas is key to creating the necessary landscape foraccountability in a multi-layered environment. Simultaneously, local authoritieswill need to withdraw from top-down service provision, and this requires a newapproach to skills, knowledge, capacity and the development of trust. This willpresent a significant challenge, particularly in an environment of reduced publicsector funding and restructuring at local authority level. Their willingness tosupport the voluntary and community sector in spite of cuts and pressures toprioritise financial sustainability in the procurement process is fundamental andwill hopefully be reinforced by the enactment of the Public Services Bill.
As with most ideological shifts in discourse, the study revealed examples ofreluctance to embrace change from both the local authority and from commu-nities themselves. Instances were reported of communities’ dependence on localauthorities as well as local authorities dominating their relationship with localactivists. It appears that political will is a fundamental prerequisite in being ableto take the agenda forward and highlights the importance of contextual variablessuch as the political goals of decision-makers (Ebinger et al. 2011).
Capacity is essential for communities to take full advantage of the potential forcommunity leadership in the Localism Act. However, this does raise the questionabout groups without ‘expert’ knowledge, social capital and organisationalcapacity or equal access to the opportunities in the Act. Public sector cuts havebeen identified by respondents as a potential fundamental impediment to thedevelopment of resources required by communities to become more than arm-chair auditors in a scrutiny role or indeed take over resources and servicedelivery in their localities.
There are still questions about whether social enterprises and the civil societymore broadly have the capacity in terms of procurement-readiness, confidenceand resources to deliver the public services on the scale that the Coalition wants
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(Hayman 2011, p.14, IPPR North 2010). The community right to challenge isrecognised as giving support to the increased delivery of public services by thevoluntary and community sector, but it is argued that ‘there will also need to be aleap of faith by public bodies’ (Pugh 2011, p. 15).
The study revealed that even though there were criticisms of LSPs in terms ofunrealised outcomes and their remoteness, a level of community accountabilityhad often been achieved in the past through structures such as local neighbour-hood partnerships. Although LSPs appear to have an unclear future, the findingsrevealed valuable social capital built through partnership working and an impetusto continue collaboration to counter funding and other constraints through sharedresources and budgets. This endorsed the continuing need to develop socialcapital and to pool resources.
Accountability is crucial to service delivery yet new forms of accountabilitywill be needed to address the challenges presented by the outsourcing of serviceprovision to the private and voluntary and community sectors. Suggestionsemerging through this study included increased local control of communityassets to ensure reinvestment of profits back into the community, and developingroles for community-based scrutiny panels to act as a check and balance onprivate sector service delivery.
This research is still underway and is moving to a broader cross-regionalstudy, with a more nuanced analysis of the tensions and dynamics that areimplicit in the relationship between citizens, local authority officers and electedmembers and their traditional roles, as the landscape of service delivery under-goes incremental change.
Notes on contributors
Tricia Jones is an honorary fellow based in the Third Sector Research Centre at theUniversity of Birmingham. Her research interests include community investment strategy,neighbourhood regeneration and collaborative network dynamics. As a member of theHousing and Communities Research Network she is committed to mutual knowledgetransfer between academics and practitioners. She is a trustee of the Midlands-basedindependent ‘think tank’, the Human City Institute.
Christianne Ormston is a post-doctoral research associate at the Centre for Public Policyand Health, Durham University. Her background spans public sector practice and theacademic world, with particular experience of working in policy and strategy developmentwithin various levels of governance. Her research interests include: central-local relations,accountability, the localism agenda and its impact on the delivery of services – particularlyfocusing on public health and priority setting for public health investment.
Notes
1. For instance, analysis of comparative case studies in Germany, England and Franceconcluded that contextual variables such as ‘characteristics of the policy field, politicalgoals of decision-makers and the time passed since the reform’ were far moresignificant (Ebinger et al. 2011, p. 572).
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2. A significant development of Best Value was that services were held to account atlocal neighbourhood level by instigating rigorous reviews.
3. Initially in formally declared areas of neighbourhood regeneration (generally areas ofhigh multiple deprivation), but later in all parts of England.
4. Regional organisations were being disbanded, local authorities were looking at newforms of service delivery and the direct impact of the spending cuts being implementedduring this time was becoming a reality for all.
5. The Department for Work and Pensions noted that about 200 voluntary sector groupswould be involved in its delivery, but they are to be largely part of supply chains.
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