Labour Party conference: innovation from the regions
Researcher
How can the ‘devolution revolution’ making its way throughout the country enable desperately needed innovation in how public services are delivered?
This was the key question at the heart of our Labour Party conference panel yesterday, chaired by Dr Simon Kaye, and kindly sponsored by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. The panel explored how the emerging regional tier of Mayoral Strategic Authorities can lead the way on testing and sharing innovative approaches to public service delivery, with Liverpool City Region’s Office for Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) providing a a prime example of what this can look like in practice.
Simon was joined for this discussion by:
- Kirsty McLean, Executive Director for Public Sector Innovation, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority
- Susan Jarvis, Co-Director, Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place, University of Liverpool
- Racheal Jones, Chief Executive Officer, One Knowsley
- Jack Shaw, Director of Groundwork Research and Fellow at The Productivity Institute
If you were unable join us in Liverpool don't despair – my three key takeaways from the event are here:
- The role of Strategic Authorities. There are an ever increasing number of combined authorities in England, and the Government has set out plans to roll out strategic authorities to cover the whole country. Panelists stressed that – as the name suggests – the role of these authorities is strategic, and that they have a clear and separate role from Local Authorities in improving public service delivery. Whilst Local Authorities are primarily seen as delivery-focused bodies responding to the current and pressing needs of their constituents, Strategic Authorities have the ability to plan for the longer term, to prioritise prevention, and to experiment and innovate. It was clear that these opportunities can not be taken as inevitable, and it’s crucial that authorities take steps to build cultures that encourage collaboration, embrace failures as an unavoidable ingredient of innovation, and seek to achieve coterminosity of public services in the long term.
- Telling a good story. Place-based approaches to public service delivery enable bespoke solutions that best fit the needs of local communities – but to do this, a clear and compelling narrative of place is required. This cannot come just from Strategic Authority level, but needs input from Local Authorities and community groups who know the character and needs of their areas better than anyone. A clear narrative is also essential for making the most of the experimentation and innovation that is currently taking place across various Local and Strategic Authorities. Experimentation and innovative approaches to public service delivery can yield amazing results, but to have widespread impact these must be captured, tracked, and disseminated widely to all who could utilise the lessons learned.
- The relationship between local and central government remains pivotal.
Devolution gives combined authorities and local councils the chance to experiment, but their effectiveness still depends on central government’s willingness to back this approach. Fiscal centralisation, churn in local leadership, and the lack of coterminous boundaries make delivery harder. Stronger, clearer, and more consistent relationships with Whitehall are needed – not only to secure resources, but also to ensure that lessons from local innovation can be scaled and embedded nationally.