January newsletter: The Force Awakens
2015 WAS A GOOD YEAR FOR LOCALISM – CAN IT REACH LIGHTSPEED IN 2016?
Making Devolution Work
The start of the New Year presents an opportunity to reflect on what was a significant year for local government. Amongst the many reforms announced in the past year, we have seen a flurry of devolution deals signed in Cornwall, Greater Manchester, Liverpool, the North East, Sheffield, Tees Valley and West Midlands – all of which are to be celebrated – and we can expect more to be announced in the coming months. A total of 38 bids were submitted to the Treasury last September, with some even crossing traditional county lines with the North Midlands(Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire), Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, and Oxfordshireand the accurately named Three Southern Counties (West Sussex, East Sussex and Surrey) bids competing to become the first successful cross-county devolution deal.
To get under the bonnet of this devolutionary process and offer a practical guide for local leaders, we published Making Devolution Work in October, a report written in partnership with Grant Thornton. You can read the report in full here.
One of the main findings of the report was the importance of a ‘unity of purpose’ across participating local authorities. This is of course more challenging where there is a limited track record of joint working but that shouldn’t stop neighbouring authorities putting their historic differences to one side in the pursuit of further powers that are mutually beneficial for the wider local area.
It is also encouraging that there has been direct involvement from LEPs in a number of devolution bids, but more needs to be done to include a wider range of local stakeholders in the process, notably CCGs, universities, housing associations, the voluntary sector and the wider business community.
Ultimately devolution proposals will be judged by the Treasury against their ability to further key local and national policy agendas, especially those relating to growth and productivity, so we recommend that areas prioritise reflecting these in their proposals.
The report was launched at the SOLACE conference in Bournemouth in October 2015 and was widely covered in the media, notably in the Guardian, City AM, LGC, the MJ and Local Gov Editors.
Health devolution
One aspect of these devolution deals that Localis is keeping a particularly close eye on is that of health. 2015 saw positive developments in this regard with Greater Manchester being given control over health and social care spending from 2016/17, Cornwall being invited to build a case for similar powers, and five health pilots in London getting the go-ahead. As we said in our response to the latter announcement, this should just be the “start of a process of devolution [as] more locally-focused healthcare services can improve patient outcomes and enhance efficiency.” And this move towards a more locally-orientated, integrated and financially sustainable healthcare system in England is the focus of a major piece of research we are conducting in partnership with KPMG (see below).
Garden Villages Polling
In other news, last week saw the publication on ConservativeHome of the results of a Localis survey of senior local government stakeholders to gauge the support within the sector for garden villages, conducted in collaboration with Policy Exchange. Garden villages would be new, small-scale, settlements of between 1,500 and 5,000 new homes each, which could be a way of delivering more homes without, as Policy Exchange’s Chris Walker put it “fan[ning] the flames of NIMBYism.” Our research suggests that garden villages could be a viable localist option for tackling the housing crisis, with 69 per cent of respondents saying that giving local authorities the option of creating a garden village would be very helpful or helpful as a contribution to delivering their housing growth needs.
Work in progress
Healthcare reform
As outlined above, we are partnering with KPMG on a major piece of thought leadership looking at the next generation of care models. This agenda-setting research project will analyse how a more locally-oriented care system in England will be managed. While examining the whole system, the research will have a particular focus on those cohorts which tend to attract less attention e.g. ‘troubled individuals’ with complex drug/alcohol/behavioural problems, and those with learning difficulties and mental health issues.
The importance of cash to local economic growth
In conjunction with Cardtronics, we are currently investigating the importance of cash to local economies and communities, culminating in a report to be published in the Spring. With the increasing prevalence of online shopping and new payment methods such as contactless cards, we are focusing on the role of cash now and in the coming decades and what options are available to policymakers to help maintain the availability of cash in the long-term.
The Future of London
We are currently partnering with the think tank Bright Blue to produce a collection of essays, which will consider how changes in transport, culture, family life, finance, housing, health and a whole range of different areas will alter the way Londoners live their lives in the middle of the twenty-first century. Look out for an announcement of the stellar lineup of leading thinkers, decision makers and industry champions we have recruited to propose radical, original ideas for London’s future in our essay collection published in April.
Recent and upcoming events
In December, as part of the research on healthcare reform outlined above, we hosted three roundtables in London, Manchester and Birmingham considering ‘Will a more localised health and social care system deliver better outcomes for the most vulnerable?’ The roundtables brought together senior figures from central and local government, the health sector and other relevant stakeholders.
Roundtable on the role of cash for local economies and communities
This week we held a roundtable on the role of cash for local economies and communities. The roundtable, attended by representatives from the ATM industry, retail sector, charities and local government, also focused on what the future holds for cash and what policy options are available to help maintain the availability of cash in the long-term.
Look out for announcements for more exciting events for 2016 in the coming weeks.
Localis in the news
- Our Chief Executive Alex Thomson was named in the LGC’s local government powerlist.
- Alex was quoted in the Independent responding to proposals in the Autumn Statement to allow councils to spend the proceeds of asset sales on providing council services: “Asking local authorities to use capital reserves and assets to continue providing services is short-sighted. It is prudent for all organisations to have some reserves to balance out variations in cash flow. They are not a sustainable source of funding, especially for local authorities for whom they would cover just a few months of expenditure.”
- And in his round-up of the conference season, Michael White mentioned our fringe event which he kindly chaired: “at another fringe meeting… Stephen Dorrell said he loved attending Labour conferences and saying “I’m a Blairite”. It made them crosser every year. Dorrell was on a local government panel discussing integration of devolved health and social care. It sounded chaotic but dynamic, and will need more money if the opportunity is not to be wasted in Manchester and other cities newly “liberated” by George Osborne.”
- In his most recent Plugged In column for the MJ, Alex Thomson has argued that local government needs to adopt a collaborative mindset: “there is no doubt that collaborative leadership will be an absolutely crucial element if areas are to navigate the financial circumstances of the next five years. I see collaborative leadership as a mindset, a way of doing things, rather than a set of policy prescriptions. And it is a mindset which can – and I hope will – be adopted by local public sector stakeholders across the country.”
- Alex has also written for Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP on why the future is bright for local enterprise partnerships: “With the Conservative party re-elected at the General Election in May, it’s fair to say that LEPs are here to stay for the foreseeable future.”
- Writing for Left Foot Forward, Grace Blakeley has considered how the state should respond to the closures of the steel plants in Redcar: “there are always compelling economic and social reasons to stay in a failed town. Economically speaking, it might make sense for someone with an engineering degree to relocate when employment opportunities dry up in his town, but why would someone on minimum wage move hundreds of miles to take a new job which will pay them the same wage in a town with much higher living costs?“