Local Government Authorities are failing to keep up with the pace of change

These are the stark findings, of a new report commissioned by Fujitsu entitled “Fit to Change”, which surveyed local government Chief Executives, Corporate Directors and Heads of Service on their own view of their organisation’s ability to cope with intense cost pressures and unprecedented demands from citizens.

The research, which included interviews with 62 local government Chief Executives Corporate Directors and Heads of Service, showed that 77% agree that “the current rate of change is too rapid for their organisations to keep pace with.” It went on to reveal that the factors most responsible for this increasing rate of change are changing work patterns (90%); working more collaboratively with suppliers/partners (86%); responding to central government policy (83%); and budget constraints (81%).

When asked how “fit to change” local government respondents considered their own organisations to be on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being in really good shape, the most frequent rating (39%) was 7 while only 18% rated themselves at 8 or above.

Commenting on the findings, Professor John Kotter, Harvard Business School, said: “By self-report which always tends to over-state positive factors and under-state negative factors only 18% of local government authorities are at all optimistic that they are ‘fit to change’. In a world that is changing more and more rapidly, these are highly distressing numbers.”

The study also analysed the gap between the attributes local government authorities felt were needed to be able to respond to change effectively and how close their own organisations were to possessing those attributes. By far the greatest gap was in “the right technology solutions”, followed by strong leadership, a culture that supports change, possessing the right capacity to change and a robust ecosystem of suppliers/partners.

Ian Hall, lead practitioner for local government at Fujitsu UK & Ireland, said: “Within the last decade the challenges facing local government have increased significantly both in terms of their scale and complexity. This increase in challenges come at a time where there are also substantial increases in demand for services, considerably reduced financial resources, particularly from central government, and rising customer expectations - most notably in the areas of benefits and social care.

“The challenges facing local government are almost all a direct result of the continuing economic uncertainty and the subsequent issues citizens face as a consequence. More significantly, the pace of change within local government is showing no signs of abating - forcing Councils to respond more rapidly. However, the requirement to respond rapidly has to be balanced with the critical review of services, in which many Councils have to establish which services they afford to provide, while trying to protect as many frontline services as possible. The majority of Councils also find themselves struggling to transform the way they deliver those services once they are decided on.

“Add to this the fact that more and more decisions are being now being made with a short-term focus in order to meet budget challenges which reduces an authority’s capacity to deliver the services its citizens need and want. Local government is constantly striving to be more efficient in everything that it does but this is now not enough to balance the books. Reducing or no longer providing certain services is a now a reality for many authorities. Technology is not a panacea for all the challenges facing local government but its true potential in enabling councils to be ‘fit to change’ has still to be harnessed effectively by many.”

The Fit to Change report for the public sector is available for download here