The convoluted process of collective leadership in Local Area Agreements

Dr Crispian FullerLocal Government Centre

Institute of Governance and Public ManagementUniversity of Warwick

LAAs are intended as a mechanism for delivering better service outcomes through improved co-ordination:

•  Devolved decision making;

• Focusing on a range of agreed outcomes shared by all delivery partners;

•  Simplifying the number of additional funding streams from central govt;

•  Allowing greater flexibility for local solutions to match local circumstances;

•  Helping to join up public services more effectively;

•  Reducing bureaucracy and cutting costs.

Developing in response to:• Continuing drive for service improvements• Perceived failings of existing institutional arrangements

In reality, and within a broader political economy, they represent:

• Devolved responsibility for addressing policy issues

• Services outcomes, rather than citizen engagement/empowerment

• Support for LAAs is the responsibility of local partners (but mainly local government)

• LSPs are heterogeneous entities, with CLG promoting these as such, rather than a one size fits all framework

• New, additional forms of state control

• State control through continuing diverse means, most of which impact upon LAAs

Local actors originally ‘seduced’ by CLG:

• Freedoms and flexibilities

• Streamlined govt. accountability lines

• Less PM  The rationale for continuing involvement now:

• Streamlined govt. accountability lines

• Less PM

• Continuing belief in partnerships (based on the success of certain LSPs)

• Another govt. policy that has to be implemented

• “A job for the corporate policy people”

Complexity of governance, including:

• Role of regulations and other forms of parent department control

• Nature of organisations and sectors (e.g. cultures, structures, systems, procedures)

• History of partnership working in the area (e.g. development of trust)

• Collaborative capacity of organizations

• Role of key animators/leaders/boundary spanners

• Contextual factors

• Complexity of the task to be undertaken

• Aims and objectives are central to collaboration, but there is often a web of interacting

sets of aims

•Shared risk amongst a range of stakeholders

The challenge of collective leadership in LSPs/LAAs

• Contingency-laden bodies

• Dependent on the ability & desire of agents to work through them

• But, agents work through complex:• vertical chains of command, • broader networks, • the market and civil society

Collective subnational leadership versus national priorities

Heterogeneous nation state Strong vertical accountabilities  Tension - uniform standards and universal access to service - scope for choice and flexibility at local level

Trade-off:• focus on local issues/targets - risk being penalised for being too ambitious in the event of failure to deliver• Or restrict the localisation and risk partners focusing on delivering national priorities

Governance arrangements for LSPs/LAAs

Most LSPs are unincorporated bodies - but becoming executive mechanisms for LAAs  LAAs require greater collaborative effort at both strategic and operational levels

Appropriateness of decision making/PM etc. arrangements in LSP  Lack of clarity over - accountability and the role of other partners

Collective leadership and subnational state agents

Many LAAs are not presently developing innovative systems or enacting major changes

Local authority community leadership versus collective leadership

Collective leadership versus commitment of subnational state partners

Weakly developed horizontal accountabilities

Democratic accountability - Citizen engagement and empowerment in LAAs

CLG impetus on community engagement/empowerment

Delivery versus community engagement/empowerment

No new radical interventions

Democratic accountability are relatively weak

No recognition: of the heterogeneous nature of communities and voluntary sector

Representative democracy and LAAs Government wishes to see councillors at the heart of the process under the new phase of LAAs  Tenuous link beyond Cabinet and Overview and Scrutiny Committee  LSP/LAA – moves decision making away from representative democracy/ party political rules and arrangements  New local state partners – not familiar and accountable to councillors

Conclusion

LAAs internalise previous/existing governance failure

Represent devolved responsibility, yet greater national uniformity and control

Delivery subsuming development of capacity for citizen-centred governance and subnational collective leadership

Weaknesses of nation state superimposed onto localities Weaknesses of existing endogenous governance systems now working through LAAs

Thus, citizen-centred governance and subnational collective leadership constrained through LAAs