Perhaps the greatest of the myriad challenges facing local government is the continued delivery of local public services against the headwinds of rising inflation and inexorable demographic pressures. With the dozen missions outlined in the Levelling Up White Paper due to be enshrined in law, and all relying on not just the upkeep, but the improvement of local public services, there are serious questions of capacity to be addressed.
Level Measures is a public service integration research programme carried out by Localis in partnership with Capita, and involving input from stakeholders across the local government family. The majority of the report is the result of extensive research engagement with local corporate leadership – primarily council chief executives, deputy chief executives and service.
Key findings
Canvassing the views of senior corporate leadership within local government – as well as those of independent experts and central government officials – seven prevalent themes emerged, from which the underlying principles for a modern public service integration agenda can be discerned. These principles are:
- reliable, consistent and long-term funding
- a holistic understanding of public services and their interconnected nature
- trust between levels and tiers of government
- deep internal insight into and understanding of performance data, shared across boundaries and between tiers
- external audit that is based on outcomes, not outputs, considering the totality of local circumstances
- an integrated, systems-based approach to provision which focuses on upstream prevention and user outcomes
- partnership frameworks based on long-term strategic goals which maximise local value.
Read more about how modern public service integration can help change the way local services are delivered:
