Drawing on the historic and emerging thinking and work of others, Andrew Laird describes a practical pathway towards a radical model of collaborative place leadership, which builds trust and breaks siloes.
Missions are all the rage. The new government has adopted the terminology and (some of) the principles that Marianna Mazzucato has set out in her excellent books on what Governments can achieve if they focus effort and rally the considerable collective resources of the State. These missions inevitably challenge the normal siloed working of public services and the behaviours and governance processes which have become embedded as a result of “New Public Management” ways of working.
This is good news as the challenges the government needs to face down are complex and messy. Meeting these challenges will involve changing the behaviour and improving the capability and wellbeing of real people – who are also complex and messy.
Mayoral Combined Authorities and Councils will play a central role in the delivery of these cross-cutting national missions. Collaborate CIC’s Elle Dodd has highlighted that this will require everyone to essentially “unlearn” New Public Management and “the behaviours of the siloed, competitive, target-driven, top-down cultures” and reach out beyond their own organisations. Following on from this, Ed Hammond, from the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, highlighted that this much “messier” and necessarily “more experimental” way of working is not what our current governance arrangements and approaches were designed to support – work needed is needed here. Anna Randle made similar points in an article reflecting on her time as Chief Executive of Collaborate CIC. National missions aside, councils have been forced to “expand their lens to place rather than organisation” by budget cuts and the increasing complexity and messiness of the challenges they face.
This change in the way councils and their partners need to work was already in train prior to Labour adopting a missions approach. In fact, some councils have started focusing efforts around missions (e.g. Camden) or Goals (e.g. Sheffield). But it’s not happening in very many places. Too often services are still siloed, people are still being passed from pillar to post, repeating their story and being subjected to criteria assessments which often send them off to become worse before they can get help. This produces terrible outcomes and costs a fortune. There is a much better way of working. Mutual Ventures Non-Exec Director, Prof Donna Hall, set this out in an article, which kicked off our Radical Place Leadership journey.
So how do we make this thinking accessible and sustainable in a way that isn’t just a one-off, time-limited programme which stops when the funding stream runs out? This is where our concept of Radical Place Leadership comes in. Inspired by the Wigan Deal, the Liberated Method work led by Mark Smith in Gateshead and the Total Place programme (which the new Government seems very interested in), the Mutual Ventures team (with Donna) are working with a number of places to explore how local partners can break siloes and work together to tackle their shared challenges. The challenges is doing this in a way where everyone (Exec to frontline - Council to police to NHS to third sector) understands and commits to.
Our approach
Our approach, which is summarised below, is as much about building trust and relationships and “buy in” between partners as it is about the development and implementation of a new model of working.
We start by establishing a shared understanding of a place’s starting point (the baseline). We do this through: looking at the data and existing strategies (there will be many!); leadership workshops and interviews; staff surveys; and engaging with community and “experts by experience” groups. Many have been surprised by some of the insights which crop up through this exercise.
We then take that rich picture of a place and agree a shared vision and a set of priorities/missions/goals around which to focus effort. Our view is that you simply can’t create a radically new way of working if you try and do everything at once – so priorities are key and will be different in different places. Examples which have surfaced from the baselining work include: homelessness; school readiness; transition from adolescence to adulthood (esp. for care leavers); and frail elderly. Having a clear set of priorities is important for what comes next.
We then start to think about what an integrated neighbourhood team model could and should look like for that place. The blueprint will cover a range of things such as: a clear definition of the Service Delivery footprint; an agreed set of collaboration principles; the required capabilities and professional skills (e.g. social care, police, DWP, youth justice, mental health etc.); simple, streamlined organisational structures; a commitment to having a key-worker for each person/family; professional accountability line-of-sight; physical places for staff to co-locate; transparent governance oversight; a robust metrics model to measure progress; and (critically) open community knowledge links.
Going back to the learning from Wigan, once these teams are established and the building blocks in place, they then use their agreed priorities to look at the shared data they have access to (critical!) along with community intelligence (even more critical) to identify the real people who are either already in-crisis (pretty easy to find) and those who were “wobbling” or on the bring of tipping into crisis (harder to do). They then go out, find the people and offer support. Co-location is important for at least part of the week and regular multi-disciplinary “huddles” are a must.
There is substantial evidence that this much more collaborative, un-siloed way of working doesn’t just create better outcomes, it reduces cost across the system. An excellent case study from the Liberated Method team in Gateshead shows a dramatic decrease in A&E attendance and arrests for one person, saving huge amounts for everyone. More formal evaluations, such as by the Kings Fund on the Wigan deal, back this up.
This may seem an obvious way to work – but it is not happening in very many places. So, Donna and I are looking for ambitious local leaders to engage with and learn from. Get in touch if this sounds like you.
Find out more
If you want to read or listen to more, the Mutual Ventures team, have produced a range of articles, webinars and podcasts which explore these concepts by hearing from those who have been there and done it.
Prof. Donna Hall’s foundational article - Radical Place Leadership - how we can change public services for the better
Council Chief Execs as Place Leaders - Radical Reformers podcast - The changing role of the council Chief Executive with Donna Hall and Stephen Young
The return of Total Place – Reflections from those who have been there and done it! – Webinar - Could a return of 2009’s Total Place policy help address 2024’s challenges in public services?
Place Leadership discussion with Tom Riordan – Radical Reformers podcast – City Turnaround with Tom Riordan
Radical Place Leadership and the third sector (with PossAbilities and Care City) – Webinar - Radical Place Leadership and The Third Sector
Prof. Donna Hall's most recent article – Brokering a new social contract
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