Introduction

Citizens First Transformation

Local government transformation is a very tall order. Councils are incredibly complex businesses, most commissioning or providing several hundred services. They are subject to multiple and conflicting accountabilities which create genuine difficulties in making big change happen in a concerted way. At iMPOWER we have become increasingly concerned at the pseudo-scientific approach employed by some advisors to councils. The failure rate of these approaches is very high as they have a tendency to over-simplify complex challenges and ignore the rich detail of service and citizen level issues faced by local government.

For transformation to succeed in this complex environment, a different approach is needed. Supply side efficiency is always going to be important, but it simply won’t deliver the kinds of benefits demanded by the austerity agenda. iMPOWER’s pioneering work on citizen behaviour change provides a different lens for efficiency and transformation. If councils can change their relationship with citizens and customers, they have a far bigger chance of delivering to a smaller financial envelope without ‘cutting’ in the conventional way. But citizen behaviour is only one half of the solution – councils and their staff need to change as well. So our approach quite deliberately starts at a service level. We don’t subscribe to the idea that mass consolidation of back office services creates major efficiency – these support services only account for about 10% of a council’s cost. We focus on the 90% that is in services and in winning hearts and minds for change at this level.