Predictive analytics, developing the right organisational culture, and only going at the pace you can are some of the keys to successfully innovating in local government, according to a panel at the LGA Annual Conference and Exhibition 2024.
Gavin Jones, lead commissioner at Slough Borough Council, said that using predictive analytics would allow councils to “go up the prevention curve” and could “make a real difference”. He offered examples from his time as CEO of Essex County Council (a role he is leaving next year) in which predictive analytics was used successfully in primary care networks and in adult social care services, as well as helping to reduce knife crime offenses.
“If we do not develop this capability [as a sector] we are really missing a trick,” Jones said.
Rob Whiteman, former chief executive of CIPFA and current chair at the University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, noted that predictive analytics had been useful in other sectors, as it has the ability “to put datasets together” and create tangible outcomes. Councils should be pushing for ethical cases to use it, he said, and increase their expertise. “We don’t know how to judge prevention decisions to the same rigour as we do treasury decisions yet,” he stated.
At a more fundamental level, data is vital to any transformation programme to allow councils to “know what they are moving from and moving to”, Jones said. At struggling councils he has worked at as a commissioner, Jones said a common denominator was a lack of data.
Jones also emphasised the importance of setting a culture at leadership level – or, in other words, the environment in which innovation takes place. He warned councils to beware of identifying a ‘silver bullet’, stating that a successful transformation agenda “should be a blend of various different risk profiles”. Another danger is “taking your eye off the ‘here and now’”, he added.
Maria Christofi, interim chief financial officer (section 151 officer) at Somerset Council, offered her own warning, that “if we don’t transform, we won’t exist”. Outcomes are vital but it must be delivered in the right way and at the right pace. For her, innovation relies on knowing what needs to be changed, and why, as well as developing a robust business case.
She emphasised the importance of “everyone being on the journey together” and having “trust and confidence” in any transformation programme. Additionally, while “agility during the programme can be difficult”, she said, it is important to “understand the risk profile of what you are entering into” and to “develop people to be brave enough to call out when they can’t see [the purpose of something]”.
Whiteman noted that transformation programmes can take various forms, and might involve continuous improvement, digitalising services, and innovation – and wondered whether innovation should come “last, with there potentially being a maturity curve”, or “first, to cut across everything else”.
Additionally, while innovation too can take many forms, Whiteman said that doing fewer things at a time was more likely to result in success.
Christofi noted that continuous improvement, because it can pick up momentum, often becomes more important than innovation itself.
The relationship between governance and innovation was also highlighted in the session, with Whiteman stating that good governance would likely lead to good decisions being made, and Jones adding that trust and taking shared risk was essential. “Governance is a means to allow things to happen, not to stop them,” he said.
Where the process can go wrong, Jones highlighted an example of section 151 and other officers “delegating too much power to themselves”. At Thurrock, he said, the s151 had “an enormous amount of decision-making power with no scrutiny”, with the outcome being less than optimal.
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