Our communities face unrelenting challenges – stagnant growth, fiscal restraint, rising inequality, intergeneration poverty, and a catastrophic loss of trust in institutions.

Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) offers a vital opportunity to address these issues, yet some see it as a short term cost-saving exercise through the creation of a small number of large councils. It’s an approach that relies on basic number crunching, zooming out on maps and adopting outdated models of local government service delivery. At best this approach is insufficient. At worst it will be a hugely costly and disruptive process that will simply create larger versions of semi-functional or dysfunctional arrangements that aren’t delivering for those that need it the most or for the nation as a whole.  

In terms of achieving financial resilience, recent LGR efforts have delivered mixed results, underscoring the urgent need for reform. To this end, the English Devolution White Paper highlights priorities: economic growth, housing, prevention, and restoring public trust. These are not standalone goals but interconnected drivers of sustainable, effective public services.

The returns to the public purse from growing economies, building housing, preventing future needs and restoring trust are far more significant than the short-term savings that accrue from consolidating existing functions. This is why we believe any proposition for LGR must demonstrate how these objectives will be delivered and what their delivery requires, in terms of geography, operating model, design, leadership, capability and fit with new or existing institutions or partnerships. Their realisation demands a place and people-based approach to the design of future organisations. It is in places that true change happens, be it in a region or a neighbourhood or a village. All of these are key dimensions in the renewal of public services and, consequently, the renewal of the nation.

District councils, deeply engaged in housing and frontline services, hold crucial insights. Their daily interactions with communities give them an unmatched understanding of local needs. As new institutions are designed and then delivered their insight and perspectives are invaluable and their voice must be heard.

The design of future arrangements must adopt a long perspective. Designing the right future state isn’t any more complicated than designing an interim one. While it can make strategic sense to implement change incrementally it rarely if ever makes sense to elaborate goals or a vision of the future incrementally. Such an approach will tend to the status quo. Phasing should be purposeful, ensuring each stage aligns with long-term objectives, rather than a risk adverse restructuring that postpones real transformation. Being ‘safe and legal’ is not a vision, it needs to be one of many key objectives.

LGR success depends on co-production and commitment. Reform should build local capacity, confidence, and resilience rather than merely rearrange structures. Establishing independent design and transition teams, drawing expertise from across existing councils, can ensure reforms are strategic, innovative and effective.

The greatest risk is losing momentum and settling for change that isn’t change. Instead, LGR must focus on a meaningful renewal and reform – driving economic growth, improving public well-being, and restoring faith in the local state.

Now is the time for optimism and action. By prioritising sustainable reform over short-term fixes, LGR can reshape local government into a dynamic, effective force that truly serves the people and places it is here to serve.

The Government's programme of devolution is a long-awaited opportunity for local government transformation. But, if we only focus on how councils operate, we may still fail to improve outcomes for communities and places. The question of where central government fits into this dynamic – what kind of Whitehall works – must be answered.

The reverberations from December's English Devolution White Paper were felt in areas with single tier and two-tier structures, within the Devolution Priority Programme and outside it. Many areas across England have called for more opportunities to take the initiative for their people and places. But they have also highlighted the need for central government to get out of the way, citing among other things, mandated central government policies that are insensitive to local contexts and a tendency for Whitehall to engage directly with communities without talking to local leaders or truly understanding the spirit of devolution.

Everyone working within the new system, at every level, must have a clear, purposeful role that sits within a structural redesign encompassing every part of the system and incorporating accountability, performance, and evaluation frameworks. This will ensure mayors and regional leaders are not undermined by government departments and civil servants that are separately accountable to Parliament.

The current framework does not adequately recognise and integrate the interaction between national, regional and local, or support effective co-ordination of resources and decision-making.

We must be more positive about the role of central government and the role of those who work within it. There remains a space for national policy-making where outcomes and expectations are described in a way that both liberates local leaders and also holds them to account for delivering with their places and communities.

Central government can use its ability to set regulation and statute, build capacity and share best practice, alongside providing funding, financing, and investment to support outcomes. It can help shape markets by addressing critical barriers as well as acting as ‘UK plc' in a bid to secure national and regional investment opportunities.

The civil service must focus on enabling public bodies, instead of directing and controlling them.

Ultimately, for the civil service to play a positive role in devolution, we must think beyond the reorganisation of the status quo. We must start from first principles and imagine a government that is fully integrated, dynamic and cross-functional.

Rather than wondering how to get civil servants to let go of power, we must build a government that integrates its specialisms and generalist capabilities, ensuring all those who work in government understand and participate in every scale of policy design and delivery.

In this way, those who work in government could better understand what is required to deliver devolution and information could flow more easily across all government layers and drive better decision-making.

We could remove current incentives to hold on to power rather than transfer it to where it is likely to have a better impact.

Only by reimagining all forms of government can we trigger the structural change we need to reverse the behaviours, practices and cultural norms that determine how government runs today.

In this way, we could expand upon the transformation hinted at in the devolution White Paper to dream and deliver an entirely new model of government at all levels: one that is able to inspire all public servants to serve all communities and places together.

Specifically, it demands reform to deliver growth and housing, reform to focus on prevention and reform to restore trust in politics and institutions. Those demands insist we move beyond the narrow ambition – a focus on ‘safe and legal’ and an over-reliance on off-the-shelf business cases - of previous re-organisations. For this moment to yield a smaller number of organisations working as before would be a dismal failure for all involved.

Instead, we will be supporting clients to plot a response that can establish local public services fit for the big challenges of the next 50 years. This means designing in these goals from day one and reflecting on the following:

·      Places are pivotal to growth and the delivery of much-needed housing of all tenures and prices. We welcome the proposal for greater local strategic leadership of this agenda, including the alignment of national institutions such as Homes England. New authorities should play a more intentional role, leveraging their planning power, land holdings, balance sheets and investment strategies to shape their economies for the benefit of those who need growth and homes the most. Consolidation and scale will bring benefits, but these can be amplified through the deliberate design of new operating models that fulfil this ambition while managing risk. Key will be the design and purpose of the new and existing MCAs and their fit with new or repurposed unitary authorities. They will all have a part to play in delivering the growth we need, but how they interface, and the sequence of their implementation, will be a complicating factor. While some will want Government to colour in this detail, it will more likely be down to local places and leaders to navigate and deliver arrangements that make most sense to them.

·      New service delivery models are needed if local public services are to successfully pivot towards prevention, the alleviation of the root causes of demand and the co-option of ‘community power’ in support of this. Too many households hold risk factors most associated with the drivers of crisis and distress. But public services all too often understand and respond to these issues episodically and only once a service need has manifest. The horizontal integration of services across local government, health and employment support; a progressive, symbiotic relationship with communities; and the adoption of deep relational practice is proven to cut cost and deliver better outcomes. Achieving this in a two-tier setting has always been challenging. We believe new organisations can be designed from first principles to overcome these barriers and support people to live better lives. We also believe that Government should be less equivocal in its desire to see Mayors exercising influence and leadership of the local health systems. This shouldn’t be optional – in our view, it is essential.

·      Trust is a commodity much in demand and scarce in supply. Building trust between people and between people and the state should be a conscious goal of any change and reform. The white paper focuses on the importance of Mayors in providing a locus for leadership, accountability and belief. However, we know that trust is won or lost in a multitude of interactions. Some are mundane: the missed bin or the inability to transact at a time or through a means of our choice. Some are profound: gaining support for a loved one who needs extra help, getting support if you lose your job, or having the right information about a new development proposed close to your home. In these moments we assess whether public services are on our side and have our best interests at heart. People won’t always agree, and won’t always hold the same truth about context or intention. But delivering new organisations provides the opportunity to reimagine how we may orchestrate engagement, discussion and consensus in ways that reflect how we live and the different realities that constitute the place we call home, be that our street, town or county. All options for this should be on the table, from the exploitation of new technology, experiments with direct and participatory democracy and the adoption of neighbourhood working arrangements.

·      The adoption of new technology, pushing the boundaries of AI, automation and machine learning, can rarely deliver substantial benefits without the need for corresponding organisational change and leadership. We are deeply sceptical of any solutions that can be described as “out of the box” or “plug and play”. Often the opposite turns out to be the case. We wouldn’t upgrade your home wiring after replastering the walls – so here too we would highlight the risk and consequence of putting off ‘messy’ seeming things to a later date. Building new organisations provides the perfect opportunity to consider and assess prevailing systems and their ability to meet the demands we will have of them in years to come. In truth this means designing for outcomes and not for technology.

We await more detailed plans. But we are excited to work with the willing to help to raise and maintain ambition and momentum, to provide support and help deliver results. And to be part of the movement to build something better.

By Olly Swann

We recently had the pleasure of hosting a round-table event with a group of Directors from both Adult and Children’s Social Care to reflect post-Budget on what the new Government had (or hadn’t) committed to and explore the consequences of that in advance of the NCAS conference, the biggest gathering of social care leaders in the public sector calendar.

The challenges facing the social sector are well documented and few expected the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement to deliver the step-change in funding and targeted transformations required. Funding gaps dominate the current landscape, making it difficult to consider the medium-term. But our session with Directors offered these further reflections and recommendations for local and central government:

·      Whole system reform now the only viable solution... The new Government’s commitments are cause for some hope across the sector.  However, the Budget will have minimal, if any, impact on current delivery arrangements and the challenges councils are facing.  With short-term funding commitments being swallowed by the National Insurance and Living Wage increases, whole system reforms are now the only viable solution, and the ongoing Spending Review has to grasp the nettle and set out a series of funded ambitions in the Spring.  This must include a rethink of the funding models as current structures are linked to outdated funding arrangements and the benefits system when it comes to the step between children’s and adults’ services. This does not represent lives children and families lead and the challenges they face, so how can it motivate complex systems and the multitude of professions within them to seamlessly work together to deliver better outcomes?

·      … and Social Care reforms must happen ASAP.  The fact that children’s services were even mentioned in the Budget demonstrates real progress.  The Government has committed to system reforms but the risk is that too much focus is placed upon placement spend and profiteering. Children need integrated offers that address health, employment, education and social care and show holistic understanding of the real lives of children and families that require support. Meanwhile there are no confirmed plans for Adult Social Care reform. While it’s encouraging to hear how the social care plan will run alongside the ten-year plan for health as part of a neighbourhood-based vision, we mustn’t underestimate the scale of the cultural shift required.  The current challenges are forcing councils into short-term, sometimes short-sighted, action and providing little opportunity to even consider the activity needed to sustainably reform care and support.

·      Housing matters.  The prominence of housing issues within wider presenting needs profiles is not new for many councils, but the catalyst for change and growth definitely is.  The Government’s commitments to housing must translate into local action, and whether the requirement is for quality and warm homes for individuals and families, or supported accommodation arrangements for those with higher needs, initiatives typically spanning organisational silos or interfaces need mobilising at pace.

·      Time to make early intervention and prevention meaningful.  Prevention and protection are very much two sides of the same coin, but we’ve been inconsistent with the former given the lack of national guidance and the variation in local finances.  When grounded in needs-led intelligence, preventative services play a crucial role in identifying issues early, determining potential risks, and providing early intervention to prevent issues escalating before they reach crisis point.  These programmes and services need to be seen as statutory going forwards and both the Care Quality Commission and Ofsted need to start caring about it.  The Government’s wider stance on devolution and Local Government Reorganisation (often confused!) also provide an opportunity for much greater collaboration and integration across place.

·      Health is a risk as much as it is an opportunity.  The tensions and gaps between care and health are at risk of widening.  Where the interface works well, it’s normally as a result of individual relationships and not aligned system ambitions across a place.  Whilst the details are still to be revealed, we need to ensure that the c£22bn investment in the NHS is spent on the right things and not more cost-shunting exercises towards local government (AKA ‘complex care reviews’).  Tensions will remain while these respective, yet dependent, systems are treated differently through the Whitehall lens.

The ICC team will be at NCAS conference this week, so please do reach out to hear more about our work in social care and at the interface with Health.  Equally, if you are not attending we’d love to meet you when we’re back! Please get in touch via [email protected].

My first reaction to the news of children’s social care reform was: “Finally!” For many of us working in this field, the connection has long been painfully clear between the number of local authorities facing bankruptcy notices and an out-of-control provider market in fostering and private residential placements.

There is no doubt that morally and financially, preventing profiteering from our most vulnerable children should be a key priority for any government. Also welcome in Labour’s policy paper is a focus on the quality of placements. It’s vital to ensure, via the key discipline that is professional curiosity, that providers are actually providing top quality accommodation and don’t simply see the housing of vulnerable children as an easy source of profit.

These reforms are important, but they are a necessary response to crisis. Children should not be living in crisis. We must work to create systems that hold them safe from the start. Preventing care entry must be this government’s focus. The announcement on the government website starts promisingly - ‘The government will today embark on major reform to end years of neglect of the children’s social care support system – breaking the cycle of late intervention and helping keep families together wherever possible so every child has the opportunity to thrive.’ – but this will be an uphill battle if the main reforms only centre on children’s social care placements.

If the government is going to go further and take a radical approach to social care transformation, it needs to look through the lens of public service reform. What does this mean in practice? I’d be looking to prioritise initiatives where:

• Local people who are accessing support are treated as experts in their experience. Where it is demonstrable that their insights and experiences are being drawn upon in the design, improvement and even delivery of early help and prevention services

• VCSE partners are valued as a crucial and equitable partner to public services in community based prevention and targeted early help

• Interventions are by their very design preventative in their approach, with shared values and mission across multi-agency teams 

• Public institutions have been creative with the use of budgets, understanding that investment in one part of the ‘system’ may result in benefits being realised elsewhere 

• There is an integrated support offer that addresses health, employment, education and social needs and demonstrate a holistic understanding of the real lives of children and families that require support

These priorities are as much about culture change at every level as they are about service delivery. This government has already announced £100m of funding for Public Service Reform. I hope that the Cabinet Office and the Department of Education use this moment to identify interdependencies and apply the learning to the next wave of social care reforms aimed at early intervention and prevention. 

We have been working with clients to step back and define what Public Service Reform means in their local context and understand what it will take to apply this lens to service transformation in areas such as Children’s Services. If this sounds like something your local system could benefit from, please get in touch.

By Samantha Jury-Dada, Managing Consultant

Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking: “Today, I am going to be uncurious at work.”  Yet most of us who have worked in social care can recall a case that made us wonder why those involved failed to look beyond what was being presented at the time and dig deeper.

I’ve spent ten years working in public service transformation and my career has been marked by a common thread: responding to people whose lives could have been dramatically altered earlier by professional curiosity.

I will never forget working as a strategic domestic abuse manager in a local authority, making the case for investment in evidence-based specialist health provision. Facts and statistics made less impact to an A&E board than the case of a woman who had presented with significant internal trauma. Accompanied by her partner, she explained this was the result of falling off a horse. Months later, living in a refuge as a high-risk victim of domestic abuse, she asked her support worker: “Why did nobody at the hospital take me to one side? If anyone had asked, I would have told them the truth.”

When faced with this real life example, the senior doctors in the hospital were horrified, but acknowledged that they too could have missed the opportunity to discover this abuse given the demands of the job and the environment of A&E. It’s a shocking example but unfortunately common. The recent resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, following the Makin review findings that he demonstrated a ‘distinct lack of curiosity’ over child abuse allegations within the church, highlights the importance of tenacity and professional curiosity at every level of an organisation, from frontline professionals through to senior leaders. 

We can learn a lot from these examples when we look at the challenges facing children’s services. Professional curiosity is not only important for safeguarding outcomes but vital at the other end of the spectrum too, in order to ensure commissioned services are actually being delivered according to the contract terms. The power of a strong commissioning and brokerage function combined with a tenacious social worker can be the difference between children receiving just the minimum standard of care or outstanding support catered to the needs of that individual. Beyond the humanity at stake there is also efficiency - given that local authorities are paying for high-end ‘complex’ and ‘high need’ placements, they should ensure that they are getting what they pay for.

A requirement to apply professional curiosity is often confused with ‘trusting your instincts’. But sometimes, there are not enough warning signs from the information being presented to be concerned. True professional curiosity is asking questions when it seems that there are no questions to be answered. It’s having pride in what you do. And it is about holding your practice to a high standard. The mantra I work to is always: ‘Have I asked enough questions to give myself assurance?’ 

To enable this approach, local authorities need to ensure they have the basics right - a single practice model across children’s services, balanced case loads, well supported newly qualified social workers and value placed on learning and development delivered through a mixture of peer training, leadership from the principle social worker and where required, external provision.

But even with these enabling conditions, ultimately, professional curiosity is dependent on individuals. 

Responding to the consequences of a failure to investigate may have been a painful constant in my career but it has been exceptionally rewarding to work with children’s services. If you are interested in developing a curious workforce, a culture and a service that can improve outcomes for children and families, please get in touch. 

Over the last year we have been restructuring and expanding our people and places teams. The big missions of local government and its partners are our purpose, and we see daily the impact of austerity, Covid, the cost of living crisis and the housing crisis. We also see what happens when policies respond inadequately to intersecting inequalities, or tackle effect instead of cause; and the daily toll of social care costs on top of all of the above. We know that radical transformation and rebuilding trust are the only way to meet these challenges. And we know ICC needs top talent who can grow alongside the company as it rises to the responsibility.

Last week our team came together to consider how far we have travelled, how much we have learned, and how much there is still to do. As co-founder of ICC, I cherish these away days as an opportunity for our expanding team to celebrate their achievements, share feedback and recharge relationships. Our people are a talented, thoughtful bunch and time spent all together is always invigorating.

I was immensely proud to share the extent to which we are now all together delivering effectively for our clients and becoming increasingly innovative as we grow. It’s incredibly exciting to see the frequency with which we set new standards that enrich the lives of our clients’ communities and our own working life. And it was a huge pleasure to discuss feedback from clients who value our high-quality standards, purpose-led work and collaborative approach. This year we have exceeded our expectations and built a foundation for future growth while living our values and seeing the impact of our efforts.

We are always looking ahead, and a key part of the day was to consider what mission-driven government means at a local level. It was an honour to be joined by Isadora Spillman-Schappell, cities programme manager at UCL IIPP, Alison Griffin, chief executive of London Councils, Hassan Pesaran, director of strategy at Nesta, Jessica Studdert, chief executive at New Local and Daniel Wainwright, portfolio lead at LB Camden, to explore how the new government’s agenda offers opportunities for new ways of working and new focus. Their suggestions on the approach, principles and processes of delivering for local communities were thought-provoking and enlightening. We discussed community power and culture change, linking tech innovation to social change, reviving and driving the art of finding and strengthening consensus, when to involve the market - and where to find hope and inspiration in key work that's already happening across the UK.

As consultants, our ambition extends to the consultancy industry too, so these kind of insights form our ongoing wider reset in client relations. We want to model a consultancy that digs much deeper to answer the challenges of our lifetimes and advocates more assertively for public sector support, policy change and people-centred models of sustainable, place-based growth. Consultancy is currently widely understood as an extractive economy that takes and moves on. We want to establish a new, regenerative consultancy.

And while we do that, we want to raise our ambitions for our own people. An important part of the day was a wellness session that supported a discussion among our people about knowing when to rest. We know that our team are here because they care deeply about the issues that ICC wants to help councils resolve. We know too that that drive can sometimes override the important requirement to pause, breathe and look after ourselves.

And we also know that fun is a key part of working life. We ended the day with a karaoke session, which is one of my favourite things to do with the people I love to spend time with. Watching colleagues take to the stage to belt out a song that has meaning for them, or overcome initial shyness to share their enjoyment of a particular number, creates valuable trust and affection. And their tolerance for my habitual take on Sweet Caroline is always appreciated!

This week we are all back to the office raring to go and ready once again to help clients sustain, grow and succeed.

Come and talk to us if you'd like to be part of it all with us.

The government’s plan to build new towns has largely been framed as a way to build thousands of new homes. But this agenda is a chance to do far more: to create new economic, social and cultural infrastructure that can drive prosperity and good lives for all as well as stimulate the regeneration of existing towns and neighbourhoods.

Stewardship is key to the success of any new town ambitions. By this we mean specifically local stewardship, whereby the design, planning and management of these new towns are placed in the hands of those committed and invested in driving the best outcomes for the local area. Homes must be an outcome of the New Towns movement, but they should not be the starting point.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves asserted that new towns would “kick start economic growth and give businesses the confidence to invest” as well as “creating good jobs and delivering the transport links, access to public services like GP surgeries and schools, and high quality green spaces that communities need.” This is music to the ears of many of us who have battled the housing crisis for years now and welcome the opportunity to look at this problem differently, as well as a way to help support the prosperity of existing communities.

At ICC we think the new towns agenda is an opportunity to bring together the best of all we have learned over decades into creating high quality, sustainable neighbourhoods that are shaped by and involve residents who already live in, or close to, the area. Done well, new towns can help drive regeneration of existing towns by creating improved connectivity, education and employment opportunities and driving more footfall to retail and cultural destinations.

The government has floated the idea of mayoral development corporations to make sure these new towns come forward at the scale and pace intended, as also mooted in post-war planning. But local councils must not be bypassed – and they must be ready in turnn to ask clearly for what they want and need it to deliver for their residents and their borough’s prosperity, in co-operation and co-ordination with local people.

“It’s no use jibbing, it’s going to be done”

Since the New Towns Act of 1946 there have been many chances to learn how to do this. The original vision was based on Ebenezer Howard’s garden cities movement, with its principles of strong community engagement, community ownership of land, mixed-tenure, affordable, well-designed homes; a wide range of local jobs; strong cultural, recreational and shopping facilities and integrated and accessible transport.

What actually occurred however looked very different: a mash-up of different approaches from town expansions (rather than new towns) and new towns that were created without local ownership over the changes happening, fuelling opposition and lending the overall project an often negative reputation. In Stevenage, the first new town created under the Act of Parliament, Labour MP Lewis Silkin’s words to protestors in 1950 – “it’s no use jibbing, it’s going to be done” - drove even more opposition.

While current day politicians might have better understanding of public relations, their words must be met by concrete actions that support a model of local stewardship if this Labour government’s new towns are to be more successful. This means recognising local councils as the lead convenors and curators of place-based partnerships to bring the expertise, investment and creativity required to combine the social, economic, cultural, educational, and environmental qualities we should all expect of our neighbourhoods. Plans must draw on the expertise and experience of anchor institutions, local businesses, elected representatives, key community leaders and representatives and developers and investors.

At ICC we’ve been supporting clients across the country to take the lead in these place-based approaches to growth and development, helping councils to:

· convene communities and partners to develop diverse and ambitious visions for their places;

· steward the process from the outset in a way that holds this vision for the long term through inevitable shifts in policy and funding; and

· establish locally-constituted stewardship of the places themselves through innovative land and asset models with communities at their heart.

If the conferences we have been to lately are anything to go by, the development industry is really excited about the new towns agenda. Developers, investors and consultants have packed into rooms where panels offer ways to predict where and when these new towns will be. But as we’ve pointed out here, a new town is about far more than a geographical target.

So far our twenty-first century new towns have struggled to win the same kind of vision, ambition and commitment as that which framed last century’s project. At ICC we’ve set the bar high for what new towns can and should achieve. We’re excited about this opportunity and we’re ready and willing to help make it happen with you.

10 July 2024

Right now, the UK is a jumble of places subject to a patchwork approach to governance, funding and powers. This follows years of competitive funding rounds and selective, inconsistent approaches to devolution. The whole has been left less than the sum of its parts.

All of us who work with local and regional government know there is huge potential waiting to be unleashed – self-sustaining, resilient communities with safe homes, social infrastructure and education that leads to secure jobs and good lives for all. 

There is a golden opportunity for something better and we cannot let this moment pass. Our new political landscape must change local places and local power dynamics. It must reboot agency, independence and trust, creating rich, fulfilling lives for people who have been left behind for a long time.

All places can and should have the power to unlock local opportunity, wellbeing and prosperity. And there are clear ways to do this.

First, we need an intentionally-designed framework for regional government that fits the size and shape of the needs of people and the places where they live. Effective devolution should create the right scale, fiscal powers and financial capacity to drive coalitions across place, implement policy and crowd in investment to deliver long-term sustainable outcomes. This cannot be a case of handing power from one top-down institution to another.

Now is also the time to consider how power and resources are shared with local communities, businesses and all local public services so decision-making is shaped by those closest to where the impact is felt. 

Today there is too much disparity between and within places where competition for finite resources often results in the success of the few while power, capacity and control are concentrated in the hands of a top-down state or through a hotchpotch of regional agreements.

It is this system that has been unable to stem the tide of the increased inequality and lack of opportunity we see in the news headlines every day – low wages that have pushed 900,000 children into poverty; 145,800 children recorded as being homeless in 2024; almost half a million people on waiting lists for care in residential settings or at home; 7.5 million people waiting for an NHS appointment, and more.

Building better places is not just about achieving targets for new homes and GP surgeries alongside the usual crisis response for people who have been failed by the system. It is about designing for the best possible lives, being preventative, nourishing services and opportunities, local economies, education and skills.

It is tempting to tell the new government there is one thing it can do to make the biggest difference now, but there is no single silver bullet.

It is not possible to do this with a handed-down template from central government. It requires coalitions of partners, citizens and sectors across place who work together to pool resources, invest in design and deliver shared outcomes. These coalitions are best placed to think about what they need in order to deliver their agreed purpose – be that development corporations, investment vehicles or community trusts. 

The goal must be to start measuring the success of local economies in more than just gross value added terms. We need to look beyond narrow definitions of growth ambition that consider the in-time and in-budget implementation of capital investment portfolios as good enough.

If inequality is not improving in a place, sustainability is out of reach. And, if communities are disengaged, then growth strategies are not working. If you want to improve employment opportunities for 16-18-year-olds, or for the over-60s, you need to link your capital investment to those same outcomes.

If your place needs different targeted responses to different groups of people, you must build those outcomes in from the start. And all levels of government must see themselves accountable for shifting these dials, not on growth for growth's sake.

Building a good place means ensuring the people who live in it have the independence and confidence to walk towards opportunity on their own terms. That is why, in my role at Inner Circle, I care deeply about harnessing all our expertise to design and deliver growth, while also ensuring local people are ready to make the most of these positive changes through early intervention and prevention.

Our experience shows it is essential to build capacity and capability, both in services and in fostering growth, to really enable places to forge their own path to success. 

It is tempting to tell the new government there is one thing it can do to make the biggest difference now, but there is no single silver bullet.

We can but hope we have a government confident enough to create the conditions of success through long-term commitment, long-term plans and long-term funding. Equally, regional and local government and its partners will need to be ready to embrace such an opportunity. 

A mission to transform places, realise local potential, and create shared prosperity will take a whole-system approach, with bravery, imagination and collaboration from all of us – institutions, businesses and communities alike. Let's not miss our chance.