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