Devolution Dissected – unpacking democratic engagement and future reform

You're listening to a podcast brought to you by international law firm, Trowers and Hamlins. Combining market sector thought leadership, advice and ideas, helping businesses and governments prepare for the future. Hello and welcome to Trowers and Hamlins, Devolution Disected Podcast Series. My name is Amadeep Gill. I am the National Head of our public sector practice here. As part of our awesome update to our podcast series, you will have heard our previous episode talking all things change at MHCLG and our views on Meryl and Meryl Powers and the importance of balancing that. Now we're talking about more aspects of devolution and local government reform turning to our views on what's actually happening on the ground. So without further ado. So in terms of actually some of the things we're seeing on the ground, I'm going to come to kind of talk about the broader experience that we're all having, but Paul, we've been talking a lot about corporate vehicles and strategic authorities in the context of their new powers, how they can partner the extent of their role, some of the agendas that are changing and I was talking last week about the politicisation of net zero and the consequences that we'll have. But in that kind of big economic development space where strategic authorities will have scale in a way that I think will be important to some of the key competencies that we're carrying out. Do you think we're going to be seeing different types of corporate vehicles, different types of private finance being pumped in? Is there opportunities for us to start thinking slightly, laterally about what the future shape of that could be? Would you think it's slightly premature for us to be worrying about it? Well, not worrying about it, but thinking about those potential solutions in the public sector that will be constrained and increasingly so. I think there's a couple of things in the bill. One is a lot of powers currently enjoyed by the Mayor of London are going to be given more widely to sometimes mayoral but sometimes all combined authorities. So that certainly gives a wider range of options. So I think the other thing is codification of the general power, which has been broadened successfully, also reflected local government and also can be exercised by the Mayor or the combined authority is my reading of it. So I think that gives him a wider scope. I think we have seen things, I mean, we've done work in Greater Manchester and West Midlands where the larger density issues, maybe its power is pension fund, also attracted Canadian Australian funds or others, I believe, and actually use that heft to have a more attractive offering to the market. But I still think everybody's got to remember that public works on board lending guidance still exists. There is going to be a strengthening of audit and I think people will be in the treasury at least being quite careful about people being quite sensible. But I think it does play into the government's kind of economic growth agenda and actually unleashing some of that kind of resource to help develop areas. So I think in a roundabout way, yes. Thank you. I'm not sure if this has come up in conversations in a circle I'm having, but Evie, Chris, what kind of topics are cropping up in your mandates? Because you see the conversations in a different context than we do because we often get asked about the governance arrangements and the process, etc. But you've got a much more practical experience of it. What are the things you're all tackling with? So I think we are tending to work with those places that are wanting to put forward a reforming proposition as part of their LGR bid. And what I mean by that is go beyond the sort of functional consolidation of the status quo into a one-large organisation and are instead putting forward an argument that says, well, let's correct the right kind of organisation to address the big challenges of the mid-21st century, which is a rather grand way of putting it. And I think the logic there goes that there is an inevitability that at some point a local authority has to do that. And what we've found with a lot of unitarization to date has been a larger organisation that focuses primarily on becoming safer legal in year one, inevitably thereafter has to go through a period of quite profound transformation that's expensive. We've seen very recently Somerset Council, I think, in their budget report committing to spend 25 to 50 million pounds on a wholesale transformation of that organisation. So I think the sort of short way of thinking about that is, as we said earlier in the podcast, places that are looking to kind of see the importance of growth in their area and therefore are thinking about the right functional geography and the right institutions and the right approach to leveraging growth. We can talk about this some more, no doubt. And sort of centering that in their proposition alongside building an organisation that's designed from first principles to be preventative, to adopt new technology, to work in a in a more kind of systemic way with places. And that's exciting and I suppose the question really is, is whether or not that is going to be given, it's a more nuanced position, but the argument essentially is you do it once and well rather than in leaps and bounds essentially. I like that. Safe and legal, once and well, I think we should be advocating for that. Evie, did you have any further thoughts? Just a bit of a reflection really, that when we first started this podcast, the sort of narrative was really dominated by 500,000 savings through scale. And it's always an experience of it feeling quite rapid and too slow of moving from that to actually, you know, functional economic geographies which are meaningful for communities and recognising communities of interest and where that best works and scale being about right sizing to meet outcomes, not just about population numbers. And I think that is testament to local government in the way in terms of what they're doing and how they're responding to everything is the way that they always do, which is that they respond and go on the front foot where they can to shape the conversation and engage with their stakeholders and do all the things that central government asked them to do, but where they see that those things are not going to fit their communities to talk about why they don't fit those communities. I think we're still in a state of flux that in realistically, particularly those areas that we work with, they're experiencing devolution and LGR. So how do you maintain relationships across an area whilst also submitting competing arguments about what the next steps are? That is truly one of the most emotionally difficult things that you can possibly do. And we just have the luxury of being advisers because we don't have to manage that number of hats. I mean the people that keep their dignity through all of those different conversations and manage to balance all of those competing interests are just a testament to local public services. So I think people are doing what they always do, which is responding to what they need in the best way they can for their communities whilst managing a quantum of change in a very emotionally charged context. And it is when we step back as advisers, however hard our sort of supporting role is, it is breathtaking that you know those chief execs that I see under that level of pressure keep coming in and keep fighting for the things that they think are the right things to do even if there is no personal future for them in that future. It's been actually I think it's been humbling actually to watch it. I haven't really reflected on it until you said that, Evie, but both the both chief execs and leaders in this place actually the level of maturity, cross party working, holding each other to account and supporting each other on some of that kind of it's a bit practicalised to call the emotion, but like that kind of sort of that sense of like these are high stakes, these individuals have committed like years of their lives to their particular place and they were now in the moment making huge trade-offs and I mean it's I mean it's kind of why we love the set to be working right, but it's like it's definitely being at its best in the minute, I think it's really great. With that I can't imagine that the pragmatism and the foresight that we're seeing in our mandates is really impressive. It did it did make me think of a slightly I think it was a contentious LinkedIn post about whether those that work in district councils will have the the capacity and capability to step up work in new unit trees and you know there was a kind of platter of conversation about that. I'm not I don't think it's fair because I am seeing officers at every level really committing to doing that doing whether it's devolution or local government reform or potentially both doing it to the best of their capabilities and some of the stuff that we're saying is it's truly truly impressive and quite humbling actually as you say when you're walking away as advisors we're not necessarily emotionally engaged in the way that these people individuals are especially when their jobs are on the line you know they are doing what they have always done which is be excellent public servants. Now moving on can I just talk about community engagement and the level of community engagement whether we call it consultation whether we call it garnering views you know that I know that the word consultation has a very specific meaning but are you seeing anything that well a critique has been the democratic democratic deficit and that communities aren't really knowing enough about this process and the implications of it are you seeing anything interesting in your mandates where people are actually addressing that head on and how they're engaging if they've got the bandwidth to engage given everything that we've heard already. Evie did you have any thoughts on that start off with? I mean I think is really I've heard the sort of critique around democratic deficit I think all of the all of the authorities that we work closely with have worked really really hard to engage their communities in what can sometimes feel quite a technical change because to a lot as I was speaking to a leader the other day and even though they are not responsible for roads local people still hold them responsible for roads so there is a like there is an unit and need to explain to people why this council that you've always thought effectively was a unitary or had the powers equivalent to a unitary isn't so there's there's a lot bound up in that conversation I'm a deep the other thing I think people don't understand sometimes from the outside is you know some of some of these authorities have very short time scales in which to put this put forward their argument and so the constraints on which you can then engage with your communities are bound up in the process itself and I've said I like I mean there are lots of there are lots of examples of councils have used media campaigns social meet like there's you know not so long ago showing my age social media would not have been a viable way in which councils engaged with people yet it is I mean it's the number of different videos that I've seen the way in which they're targeting them like young people and it's just lots of lots and lots of creative ways of doing it but there are constraints and I think it's quite easy when you're going through a process like this to throw the democratic deficit in as an argument without really understanding the full length of this process and exactly how meaningful engagement looks across the full length of this process not just how we're doing it right at the start. Chris did you want to come in? Yeah it is so Ahmad if you and I first probably made each other when you were supporting the organisation I was working for tackle a judicial review that was based if I remember rightly on a failure to consult and so your little rider there on what do we mean by consultation with essentially it was the heart of that legal challenge and so it's definitely worth pondering. I think so as Evie was saying like there's layers to this isn't it because there's I mean I saw an absolutely brilliant if slightly sweet video I think which Cambridge and South Cams are put together recently where the leader of it's lovely wasn't it and Evie's giving me a big heart emoji down to telling you now and they've definitely gone for this is about like sort of this was about who's going to empty your bins and then they very gently moved into and also who gets to decide where houses get built which in Cambridge and South Cams is like the question right so that so they clearly gone at it at that angle but all the things that we've been talking about today are all things that would be of interest to the public I guess the point is what are people actually consulting on right now because at the moment you're quite often consulting on potentially different versions of the future and the outcome of that consultation has no like is not being considered by the decision maker right so people have to be quite careful here and so I guess the point I'm kind of getting to here is like there's I think there's something about engaging people in like what is this all about why does it matter to you like these are our perspectives as one set of people who've got a view but there are other perspectives as well and in due course X is going to happen and this will be the impact on it and I think if you can get that across then that's great because I think anything that can start to build trust in these new institutions like is fundamental and you have to start from their conception don't you which is what's happening right now. Paul did you have thoughts because we've been asked about the concept of consultation which isn't relevant because there's not actually a decision here to consult on is there and it's a value-laden term for us lawyers at least but the point is deficit what are your thoughts on this. I've got two thoughts I think it's easier for the combined authorities in most areas sometimes those rival plans because it's new for the area and I think it's goody back there and certainly that's been part of our experience I think LGR is much harder because I think you're right people might not want to be in the same area as the district or the burrow next door but but that's probably the level they're going to think and actually get them to think deep pretty hard but I will say and then it's quite enlightened one of the areas we've been speaking to about LGR are already started a community governance review and they are already trying to embed kind of local town type councils and again not to rival the new entity but as well so they thought ahead and that seems to be bipartisan as well politically so that's quite positive but I think it's going to be a big ask for anybody to do it really well in the time frames that we have. Yeah absolutely in a meaningful way that is considered truly consultative to use the non-legicative concept there. There's been some criticism of the process you know hindsight is a wonderful thing and the fact that this has been an expensive process with you know lots of support required for different visions and ultimately that no matter what people want there will be a cohort of those that will be disappointed especially in the LGR conversations. If we were going to do this all over again what changes would we make to the process? Is that criticism fair? Is it is it sensible to ask people to come up with lots of different visions and and cause some of the divisions and political debate that we've seen to date or what do you think? I wouldn't do it any differently to be honest and the expense is a problem but I think what they were trying to get over is the Cleveland dilemma where you know the centre creates these areas that don't really work no one likes them and they get abolished about 20 or 30 years later so I kind of get the thought and I also thought it was a good instinct they wanted to listen and I think that bit's been genuine but the problem is going to be ultimately the department and the secretary of state are going to have to make decisions when people can't create so it'll be seen so I wouldn't change it and I think I think in the current climate, current lack of consensus for Westminster to just have imposed a new set of boundaries really would have worked actually. Chris you thought some that? I mean it feels a little bit harsh to kind of give any sort of what would you do differently and so this is I'm sharing this with love right so I think there's an appreciation for the complexity of it and if this is successful probably there'll be a lot of disappointed people because to some extent that's the nature of these things right and I mean you two both will spend your time arbitrating between conflicting parties and if they both leave unhappy there's probably the right outcome right so anyway the but I do think the the kind of richness of the parameters within which you make a decision about what's right for a place has definitely elaborated as this process has gone on and so that kind of starting position of scale you know the kind of whole 500,000 thing I think like led to a set of positions forming quite early in this process that have then had to be you know a lot of the richness of our conversation today around the right economic geography the interrelationship with combined authorities the platform for wider prevention it's kind of it's kind of all in that founding document be had to really quite closely and I think some of the initial sound bites that government didn't squash quickly enough have made this process potentially more complicated and adversarial than it needs to be or rather that a sense that there is a kind of there's a there's an established position that no one can argue with because it's been established from the get go and that therefore those who are putting forward an alternative proposition or somehow seen as it's a bit David and Goliath if you know what I mean so I think if at the start that had been clarified and I think government have gone on to clarify it but they did it in response rather than you know recognizing that this is going to be more complicated than they imagined at the start I think I'm just going to come to you in a second maybe I just want to go back to Chris though you know the point you made earlier about the ministerial change and the facts that you know particularly Jim had been out there having various conversations do you think that the absence of that corporate knowledge to use that term is going to be detrimental to some of the decisions which may now be made about which options should be pursued well there's definitely that risk there is of course an alternative proposition that says this new ministerial team can make decisions based on what's put in front of them and they have not got to I mean I think I think everyone has said to me that Jim at mine has not given a fingerway sensibly but inevitably if there are some you know difficult decisions to be taken or decisions that some people may particularly not like and I'm definitely thinking now if that's certain county contexts where a new ministerial team can just go this is it you know we've read the submissions and this is our view and so actually it might actually help now whether that's in the right answer is another matter but I think they'll be able to take decisions it's potentially easier for them to take those decisions understood DB you thought was on this one I mean I actually have thought about it quite a lot and I'm probably in the same place as Paul in that it's really it's quite difficult to see from the starting point how you do this differently but I did think would it have embedded to set out the combined authorities first to do LGR after that I've obviously I'm my team are working with places who have experienced different sequencing of that and it has resulted in in sort of different pressures and different impacts none of them perfect though so I think that's what comes back to how do you say how would you say this should be changed because everything has a pro and a con I think also though there are lots of reasons why government might have chosen not to be overly specific about boundaries and therefore and be and be quite sort of top level with their criteria while that is sort of understandable you know they're in previous processes their government have been delayed by judicial reviews and challenges their the lack of that means that I don't know whether there's always felt like there's sufficient guardrails around how to think about boundaries both from a combined authority sense and from an LGR Unitarization sense to make sure you're not creating an adversarial context that's unnecessary and so and and and then the last thing I'd say is just the opportunity of other public service footprints like health get lost in a in a space where you're not giving a little bit more of an idea of what you consider functioning economic political public sector footprints are I think there is I just think there is probably something to learn whilst recognising the number of constraints government are operating in just both in terms of time pressure political man's a not being able to deliver a perfect process. I'm going to come off scripts actually with the final question I'm going to propose which was I want all of us just to think about something that we haven't been able to articulate during the course of the podcast that is worthwhile sharing and mine is I've had some really interesting conversations about AI which if we were doing this process last year I just don't think we would have done so but in the public service redesign piece I am being increasingly asked about the utilisation of AI so evening did you have anything quickly to share? What I think it's throwing up is a real I think it's putting a spotlight on a lot of really interesting things lots of people across local government have been wanting to get onto the table around public service reform early intervention prevention and yes the use of technology in the context of that amazigh but that because people were being pushed to think about organisations and first principles and also what sits locally hyper locally and also regionally I think you're unlocking a lot of innovation that was already going on or you're not unlocking it you're putting that conversation in a different spotlight and it's appearing in front of government in a different spotlight and I think that's really interesting because I think some of those things say hidden within local public services generally and don't come into the conversation with national central government apart from in processes like this so you wouldn't you wouldn't hear from power to change talking about community governance on a bill reading if you don't have processes like this and I think that's that's what I think that's really interesting. Chris did you have any thoughts about I do I'm going to say something that is provocative there which is I think lots of people are talking about AI but and there are lots of organisations out there peddling a solution and using words like plug-and-play and you know this sort of stuff and I think our experience and my experience over 20 years of doing this stuff is that you need organisations that are designed from first principles to adopt the potential that AI has and to be honest with you if you've got some bright people around you you can get 90 to 95% of what kind of off-the-shelf tech solutions look like so why is this relevant to the conversation about LGR because I think as Evie was saying there what is happening and and where people are thinking creatively about the potential of LGR they are asking the foundational question which is how should this organisation be designed and governed and and how should it operate day to day to make the best use of AI and if I just use a slightly daft analogy you know Spotify wasn't like created by hmv records that wanted to have an online presence right Spotify started from the perspective of there is some technology here that can transform the way in which people access music and and they designed it from that perspective what they didn't try to do was take something that already existed and then put a kind of AI well not AI in this case but a technology sort of sticker on top of it and I think that I mean that is I think when you were talking earlier about mandates that feels like the dividing line at the moment is those who have seen this as an opportunity to create the new and as a part of that they're thinking where does technology play a part in that where does partnership play a role in that or you essentially have a perspective that says let's take what we've got and scale it and as a part of that you can definitely automate some of it but it's not it's not first principles thinking and I think that's you know and as I said before it's kind of all in the original founding um you know white paper but it's just how how people have chosen to interpret that I think is um it you know it's quite telling yeah and I've got to say um on that AI tech piece you know there are there is a lot of um there's a lot of existing solutions that are being wrapped up as being you know revolutionary AI tools and that's not the case at all actually from our previous experience of it but um Paul final words have wisdom from you I my wisdom is kind of going back to the underlying point in the white paper which was this was about boosting economic growth and about economic inclusion and I do think you know whether this process has been perfect will probably be better it probably could be for it potentially one enables that and the other thing you just know at the moment it just seems everybody in the England is just desperately unhappy about the world that it actually hopefully people engage with their local strategic authority their new local authority you know that sounds like a big wish list but they actually feel that that decisions are being made locally and they kind of engage in citizens which is very lofty bring the current backdrop that kind of political backdrop I think anything that pushes it's in that direction it's important and if we have great growth consistently across the great cities and be those cities I think that's all for the good in the future but your college is like that absolutely well thank you everyone for your contributions to our awesome update of our devolution and dissected series lots of feed for thought in a fast moving plane of activity join us for our next edition which will be closer to Christmas when we talk about some of the practical realities and some of the concrete decisions that may be emerging at that point thank you again for joining us we'll see you soon you have been listening to a podcast brought to you by trowers and hamlands find us at trowers.com or find us on LinkedIn and Instagram