Approach to failure in local government needs rethink

A new paper has argued that local government does not currently have the mechanisms to deal consistently with council failure, and has urged for a radical rethink of how failure is approached.

While local government failure is often seen financially, with the cash-strapped example of Northamptonshire County Council the most recent and obvious example, the Centre for Public Scrutiny (CfPS) says that councils experiencing the four different types of failure often become more introspective and defensive.

Those types of failure usually manifest themselves in either culture, service, function or duty. And with councils becoming less outward looking, more introspective and more defensive, the Decline and fall research paper introduces the idea of a ‘typology of failure’ – an articulation of the key factors that lead failure to happen. This charts a course for how government-led improvement and intervention might be enhanced, especially with more attention being paid to the strength of governance at a local level.

With failure deemed a process not an event, the centre also encourages the sector to think about the current systems for intervention and support within the sector, and whether they match the needs identified in this typology and to come up with practical suggestions about what we might need to change.

Jacqui McKinlay, chief executive of the CfPS, said: “Our recent experience of working with local authorities shows that it is time for a thorough rethink about local government failure. Failure in local government is not something that is going to go away – in fact, a range of looming pressures mean that the problem is likely to become more prevalent in the years ahead.

“We need to prepare for that – from symptoms through to root causes, we need to develop a far better understanding of failure if we are to significantly reduce the need for intervention of one form or another in the future. We are clear that improved scrutiny processes are the local level will be crucial in this effort, and I am excited to see the results that this workstream delivers in the months ahead.”