The largest, and arguably most successful, experiments with devolution in the UK have been undertaken on a national scale. Each of the countries that comprise the United Kingdom has experienced a significant rise in the powers that have been made available to them through the devolution process. Wales and Scotland have seen their respective parliaments installed at the Senedd in Cardiff and Holyrood, Edinburgh, Scotland. Similarly, Northern Ireland has seen its own Parliament in Stormont reinstated and going about the business of government following a successful political resolution to the recent troubles.
These legislatures have since brought forward a raft of proposals and schemes which affect their areas (See table 3.4). In many instances these policies have differed from those relating to England, passed by Westminster. This includes specific aspects of planning policy and governance.
Table 3.4 - Local Public Service Delivery Arrangements in the Devolved UK
England Wales Scotland
Scheme Local Area Agreements Local Service Agreements Single Outcome Agreements
Introduced 2005 2007
Timeframe 3 Years 3 Years 3 years
Governance - Governed by Local Strategic Partnership - Statutory Partners (Police, Fire, PCT, Job Centre+ - Governed by a Local Service Board
- Involves the Same Key Partners as the LAA
- Governed by a Community Planning Partnership - Similar key partners as
England and Wales. Job Centre+ not statutory but involved anyway, along with higher education. Negotiation - Negotiate with
Government Office for the Regions acting on behalf of the state
- Negotiate with Assembly Member from the Senedd
- Present draft SOA to the Scottish Government which then agree on it with the CPP
Funding - Combination of the Area Based Grant and mainstream funding
- Ended ring fenced local funding - Up to 35 Indicators selected from a national indicator dataset - Select 2 or 3 key priorities for the area which action is focused upon
- Emphasis on furthering 15 national outcomes through delivery at the local level Monitoring
Mechanism
- Targets set against the 35 indicators
Sources: ODPM: 2004 a,b,c. Welsh Assembly: 2007, Scottish Government: 2008
3.14.1 Wales – Local Service Agreements
In Wales, much of the political context is still broadly comparable with that of England. As in England, all Local Authority Areas in Wales have a Local Strategic Partnership in place. These work under the same principles as in England, involving the same statutory partners. However, in the Welsh context, the process is not articulated through an LAA, but rather a Local Service Board. They still contain many of the same partners as the LSP including elected members and appointed officials, representation from the key public services as well as key local stakeholders. Representatives from the private sector were also invited to take part.
In many ways the role of the Local Service Board retains significant similarities to the LSP structure. The main aim of the LSB is to foster an environment of partnership, where the key agencies work together across departmental
boundaries to improve upon service delivery and improve upon local leadership on these issues through the creation of one flagship scheme. Like the LSP, they are tasked with working jointly and for ‘connecting the whole network of public services in an area’ (Welsh Assembly; 2008, p4). Also, they are responsible for agreeing and delivering a set of priority actions, which are set out in a Local Service Agreement. In a similar way to the discussions and negotiations which take place with GOR in England, each LSB will liaise with a representative of the assembly government in Cardiff. It is envisaged that this representative will provide support and potentially remove barriers to development.
The presence of the assembly government in Wales can be seen as two different forms of government serving one area. Prior to devolution, Wales had a role within a UK context as one of the government regions, albeit with a minister of State. However, in many ways the Senedd takes on some of the state responsibility from Westminster, although not in its entirety. The conflict between these roles is shown in the negotiation phase of the LSA. The LSB must negotiate with a representative from the Assembly, as opposed to GOR in an English context, and as such, must negotiate with the state and region at the same time.
The LSB also produces annual reports on its progress, both nationally and locally. The local report signifies one of the most important initial differences between Local Service Boards and LSP’s focus. The LSP and LAA process focuses on specific areas, introducing blanket targets which apply to all areas within its administrative boundaries. However, with Local Service Boards, their output is specifically stated as to be focused on the citizen (Welsh Assembly: 2008). It expressly notes that the citizen and service user’s views should have a big influence on guiding how services are delivered and results improved.
While the LSB serves as the organisational structure, the way in which it is operationalised is a Local Service Agreement. In many ways they are directly
comparable to the LAA. Indeed, the prospectus for the first phase of LSAs notes how the experience gained from the English context has directly influenced LSA development (Welsh Assembly: 2008).
Like the LAA/LSP structure the LSB also raises questions about the locus of power the resulting impact on the decision making process. While outlining the principles under which the priorities within the agreement are decided, it sets out two opposing criteria. Priorities could be highlighted as being of local significance, having been identified through the consultation process and other evidence driven procedures. However, the prospectus specifically states that some of the priorities within the LSA could be ‘identified by the Welsh Assembly Government as being of national importance’ (Welsh Assembly: 2007, p5). While the prospectus notes that local and national concerns will be in balance with each other, it does raise significant questions, in a similar way to the LAA, about how responsive these schemes are. If a majority of the outcomes being pursued by the LSA are outlined and designated as priorities by the central government then this severely hampers the ability of local initiatives to be locally responsive and limits the impact of the consultation proceedings with local citizens.
Again, like the LAA, the LSAs are intended to run for a period of up to 3 years. The significant difference with this scheme, however, is the level of focus. While the LAAs are charged with focusing on up to 30 national indicators, representing some of the most significant challenges to each respective area, the LSA is designed to focus on just two or three key challenges. This reduced scope could lead to further questions about the role of central government, especially within a project of such a narrow remit. Furthermore, questions could be raised around the different partner agencies and their involvement, particularly if their immediate goals or interests are not served or furthered by the priorities that are selected.
The use of indicators is not as prominent within the LSA process as it is within the LAAs. While they form the basis of the LAA, the indicators do not have to exclusively come from the national dataset.
The Local Service Board policy documents attempt to respond to several emerging governance issues which could arise, and relate directly to an English context. Many of the partners within the LSB scheme will involve themselves primarily through high ranking members of their organisation, which then attend meetings. As such they would occupy a leadership role within the process. Seeking to provide guidance for those members, the prospectus notes several important values and characteristics to which all its high end partners must aspire, including;
- A willingness to transcend organisational interests in the interests of better delivery for citizens
- The capacity both to lead, and to follow other’s lead
- A willingness to contribute to work where others are in the lead
(Welsh Assembly: 2008, p10)
This echoes several of the key governance questions from the English context which will be explored throughout this thesis. While these are desirable attributes of any partner within an organisation, the distinction between theory and practice could be important. Within a Welsh context at least, these issues have been identified, potentially drawing from the experience of LSPs and LAAs.
3.14.2 Scotland – Single Outcome Agreements
Like Wales, the performance management mechanisms for local public service delivery in Scotland share some similarities to those of England, although the Scottish system offers an alternate vision of how similar governance structures can be utilised to deliver local public services.
The scheme is overseen by a Community Planning Partnership – a coalition of actors that again stands to compare with the LSP or LSB of England and Wales respectively. Like the English and Welsh counterparts, the SOA is negotiated and delivered on a three year rolling basis.
However, the Scottish system strikes a different balance to that of the LAA in particular. It does this in two central ways. Firstly, rather than being target based the SOA is outcome based, meaning that ‘it should clearly focus on people’s quality of life and opportunities’ (Scottish Government: 2008) rather than simply performance against any indicator. Whilst this ostensibly makes measurement harder, it makes the process less abstract and requires a deeper consideration about each goal’s implications and how to join up working in order to improve delivery. Similarly, the performance management nature of the scheme is potentially diluted compared to the LAA as, although continuous improvement is expected, the Scottish Government anticipate that outcomes will be delivered over a longer period of time than the three year span of the SOA.
The second key way in which the SOA differs from its English counterpart is the number of outcomes that it sets out. In England this number is up to 35 (plus 18 further statutory indicators), whilst Scotland mandates only 15 outcomes that reflect the ‘strategic priorities’ of the area (Scottish Government: 2008). However, there are concerns that the outcome based model presents problems in terms of monitoring, in that as opposed to quantifiable targets, it is difficult to measure progress about general outcome statements (SSRG: 2008), in much the same way the initial Sustainable Community Strategies were criticised.
Further to this, given that there are questions in the English context about the number of indicators that an LAA must work with and consequently the ability to really focus on the pressing issues in its area, the SOA deepens the pertinence of these questions, asking whether a significantly reduced number of priorities is more manageable or deliverable. This does reflect concerns, however about the
potential for stronger actors to dominate the agenda if fewer outcomes are up for consideration, freezing out actors with less capacity.
One of the striking similarities between the LAA and SOA is the level of top-down control over the agenda that local areas can set. Not only must the 15 outcomes reflect national policy priorities, as set out by Holyrood, ensuring a tie through between national and local, but in the absence of regional government, each SOA must be negotiated and agreed directly with the Scottish Government. This process clearly represents a limitation on the scheme to be truly bespoke and focus on any unique issue, and in many ways chimes with some of the research questions about LAA indicators.
In an assessment of the first year of the SOA, Park and Kerley (2011) identify a number of issues corresponding to those raised by the LAA literature. In particular they note the challenges presented by the rollout of the SOA and the timescale preventing effective relationship building between partners as well as the restrictive influence of central government in SOA development – albeit considered more ‘light touch’ than Westminster (Park and Kerley: 2011). Thus, the extent to which these finds are replicated by the LAA process is of interest.
In all, the Scottish example presents a much better comparison to the LAA than the Welsh LSA. It offers contrasts in its structure and monitoring which act as a comparator to the LAA. Furthermore the issues that it faces are similar to those of the LAA and thus provide can assist in the analysis of LAA working.