local government 2025

This very thought provoking article helps us think about the future for local Government – How do you think it will look in rural in 10 years time? The author speculates:

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.

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.

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.

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.