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Scoping Study for the Local Authority Research Council Initiative (LARCI) INTERNATIONAL INSIGHTS ON CIVIC LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC SERVICE INNOVATION Authors: Robin Hambleton, Jo Howard, Michael Buser and Marilyn Taylor Cities Research Centre University of the West of England, Bristol June 2009

Local Authority Research Council Initiative

The views and statements expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of LARCI.

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Scoping Study for the Local Authority Research Council Initiative (LARCI) INTERNATIONAL INSIGHTS ON CIVIC LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC SERVICE INNOVATION Robin Hambleton, Jo Howard, Michael Buser and Marilyn Taylor Cities Research Centre University of the West of England, Bristol Contents Preface Executive Summary 1) Introduction – why have we done this report? 2) The public service innovation agenda 3) Understanding civic leadership 4) International lesson drawing 5) Scanning international experience - learning from innovation abroad 6) Implications and opportunities Acknowledgements About the authors Appendix 1 Members of the Civic Leadership Steering Group Appendix 2 The international literature on civic leadership and public service innovation Appendix 3 International advisors

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Preface Twenty years ago I went to work in Turkey. It was a country that I had not visited before, and I could speak not a word of the language. I went because the Turkish Government had seen some things that I had done as a regeneration consultant and wanted me to replicate them in their country. I went prepared to give my experience to help and educate in a country which wanted to up-skill its entrepreneurs and business people. What I learned in helping and teaching people in Turkey was that I had much to learn myself. On reflection, I believe I learned two types of things. Firstly, in Turkey, as in every other country, there are some things that they simply do better than we do. We can learn from what they do; we can adapt what they do; and we can bring it home Secondly, the experience helped me to improve my understanding of why we do things the way we do in our country. To deliver effective advice in Turkey, I had to deconstruct my UK practice. I had to piece together the logic and illogic of what I did to make things work in our culture, in our ways, using our laws, before reconstructing my ideas to fit with the laws and culture of Turkey. The experience was salutary. Ever since then, I have been convinced that we need to engage in international learning both to give help and information and to receive it. Yet too often, overseas exchange and dialogue is scorned. This could be because of a blind 'little Englander' belief that other countries have nothing to teach us; short sightedness about this potential source for innovation; or an opportunity for political points scoring about 'holidays on the tax payer'. We should reject this kind of narrow thinking and be bolder in relation to international learning. This Scoping Study will be of value to all who are interested in widening their horizons. Both stimulating and useful, it offers many practical ideas and suggestions. I hope you will use this Scoping Study as the excuse to initiate debate about international learning and actually start people doing it! Cllr Richard Kemp European and International Portfolio Holder Local Government Association

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Executive Summary This Scoping Study examines the potential for using international exchange to advance the understanding and practice of civic leadership and public service innovation in UK local governance. Prepared for the Local Authority Research Council Initiative (LARCI) and Communities and Local Government (CLG), the study adopts an international perspective. The study has been prepared in response to requests from leaders in UK local governance and stems from discussions in the Local Government Association (LGA) and elsewhere. Our starting point is that much of the present debate about leadership and innovation in UK local governance seems to be neglecting the potential of learning from abroad, although the recent take up of participatory budgeting has demonstrated that there is keen interest. This study examines whether international exchange could play a more prominent role in policy making and it explores how those concerned with public service reform in the UK could become more effective in drawing practical lessons from experience in other countries. Section 1 sets the scene by expanding on the reasons why we have prepared this report and it explains the process we have used in preparing the analysis. We have relied heavily on the advice and guidance of our Civic Leadership Steering Group to ensure that the trajectory of the report resonates with the concerns of leaders and policy makers at different levels of government and the third sector. In Section 2 we refer briefly to the ‘innovation agenda’ confronting public services in the UK. We clarify what we mean by innovation and we examine neglected aspects of this debate, including the differential ‘readiness’ of different agencies and localities to engage in innovation. We introduce the concept of an innovation curve and show how the profile of this curve is shifting over time. In Section 3 we set out our conceptual framework for understanding civic leadership. This suggests that there are three different (but overlapping) ‘realms of leadership’ in any given locality and that the areas of overlap between these realms provide particularly promising arenas for the encouragement of public service innovation. This is partly because they bring together people with different perspectives and, in addition, they often open up new possibilities for community involvement in decision making. Empowering approaches that stimulate dialogue between autonomous third sector organisations, officers and elected leaders of the local sphere can build synergies that can bring about new thinking. We therefore stress the importance of improving ‘leadership across boundaries’ if we are to respond adequately to current challenges and pressures in ways that strengthen democracy by connecting people at all levels within and across these realms. In Section 4 we outline the case for widening the horizons of public policy debate about local governance in the UK by focussing more attention on

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experience and practice in other countries. We claim that the neglect of this valuable resource lacks wisdom, and we point to ways of advancing the cause of international lesson drawing. We recognise that there are dangers with ‘policy tourism’ but these can, in our view, be circumvented by developing more sophisticated ‘lesson drawing practice’. In the light of the conceptual frameworks developed in the earlier sections we turn, in Section 5), to examine some practical experiences with civic leadership and public service innovation in other countries. To illuminate the possibilities we offer five ‘cameos’ drawn from five very different countries:

• Regional civic innovation in the Capital District, New York, USA

• The civic leadership response to climate change in Malmo, Sweden

• Urban leadership and community involvement in Enschede, The Netherlands

• Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil

• The planning and participatory budgeting programme in Medellin,

Colombia These cameos are chosen to illustrate the inventive approaches to local action taken by localities in other countries to issues that we believe to be of real interest to localities in the UK. In each case we end each cameo by identifying specific ‘pointers’ or questions for UK policy and practice. In Section 6 we take stock of the arguments advanced in the Scoping Study and offer some practical suggestions on the implications and opportunities for further action in the UK context. This section discusses how to improve international lesson drawing and includes some specific suggestions – or ‘pointers’ – for different stakeholders under the following headings: 1) Settings for advancing civic leadership and public service innovation Promote cross-sector conversations in new and existing arenas and networks (local, regional, devolved government, national and international) to advance understanding of the links between civic leadership and public service innovation.

2) Leadership development programmes in the UK Encourage the various leadership programme providers – via the Public Sector Leadership Alliance and those responsible for community/voluntary sector leadership development - to explore opportunities for closer joint working in relation to the theme of ‘place-based’ leadership. 3) Enhancing international thinking and practice

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Strengthen existing international networks through ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ exchange and celebrate the benefits of international dialogue in a variety of practical and inspiring ways 4) Civic leadership – a Whitehall initiative on ‘place-based’ leadership Create inter-departmental space in Whitehall for idea development in relation to ‘place-based’ leadership 5) Bridging academe and governance In line with the objectives of LARCI spur further linkage and movement between academia and governance organisations, and invite the UK research councils, the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFC) and the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) to give far more attention to the encouragement of engaged scholarship 6) Research and development to embed international learning Identify funding opportunities for international knowledge exchange and promote an expansion of Research and Development programmes relating to civic leadership and public service innovation The preparation of this Scoping Study has involved extensive interaction between the research team and the Civic Leadership Steering Group. Our approach has been to ‘co-produce’ the insights presented in this paper and we hope that the methods we have used will provide a model for future engaged scholarship and knowledge exchange. We hope that you find the report interesting and if you would like to offer any comments on it please offer your feedback to the version of this report displayed on the IDeA website: www.idea.gov.uk/international 1) Introduction – why have we done this report? Politicians of all parties, as well as civil servants, public service professionals and third sector activists, are showing a renewed interest in ‘civic leadership’ and ‘public service innovation’. This is encouraging as many of the challenges now confronting central and local government, including the onset of a recession, reinforce the importance of of developing more imaginative approaches to leadership and innovation. This is because it seems clear that ‘doing more of the same but better’ represents an inadequate response to the situation we now find ourselves in. ‘Leadership’ and ‘innovation’ are both concerned with change, at times transformative change, and this is why they

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now loom large in debates about public service reform – and not just in the UK. This Scoping Study has been commissioned by the Local Authority Research Council Initiative (LARCI) and Communities and Local Government (CLG) with the specific aim of bringing a fresh perspective – an international perspective – to current debates about local governance and public service reform. The specific aim of the study is to examine the potential for using international exchange to advance the understanding and practice of civic leadership and public service innovation in local governance. At the outset we should stress that this is a Scoping Study, rather than a Research Report. The whole study has been carried out within a ten week period. It follows that the purpose is to scope out the terrain rather than offer research-based conclusions. The report builds on an earlier study of International Insights prepared by Robin Hambleton for the IDeA in 2008. 1 The findings of this IDeA funded work were published in Municipal Journal and discussed in a workshop, chaired by Councillor Richard Kemp, at the Local Government Association (LGA) Annual Conference in July 2008. The organisations who supported the International Insights series – the LGA, IDeA, SOLACE, RTPI, UDITE, EURA and MJ – all felt that it would be very useful if further work could be carried out to examine in a little more detail the possibilities for improving cross-national learning for local governance. Hence this study. We are most grateful to LARCI and Communities and Local Government (CLG) for providing the funding for this study and we say more about this support in the Acknowledgements. The Scoping Study has been written by a team of researchers based in the Cities Research Centre at the University of the West of England, Bristol. However, we wish to acknowledge at the outset the important contribution made by the members of the Civic Leadership Steering Group – see Appendix 1. The Steering Group has been heavily involved in the preparation of this study and, in many ways, this report has been ‘co-produced’ – it is a product of a rich interactive exchange with our Steering Group. In developing this Scoping Study we have, as well as taking the advice of our Steering Group, drawn on three sources: 1) our own fairly extensive experience of international lesson drawing, 2) previous published research in this field (some of this is listed in Appendix 2), and 3) inputs from a team of international advisers. We are particularly grateful to our international advisers who have provided many comments, insights and suggestions. Advisers from 18 countries have made inputs to this study – the full list is in Appendix 3.

1 A series of five short articles on International Insights was published in Municipal Journal on a fortnightly basis starting on 24 April 2008. Longer versions of each article are available on the IDeA website: www.idea.gov.uk/international

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This Scoping Study has been prepared to spur fresh thinking in relation to civic leadership and innovation. It is guided by three ideas:

• Improvements in leadership – particularly ‘place-based’ leadership – are needed. How can thinking and practice relating to civic leadership be advanced, and notions of civic leadership broadened and deepened?

• While the topic of public service innovation is now receiving renewed

attention in public policy circles there has been relatively little exploration of the links between leadership and innovation. What is to be the future role of leadership – both within and outside government – in supporting and encouraging the development of the innovative capacity of the government and, more broadly, society as a whole?

• Despite the fact that many of the pressures now being faced by both

national and local governments are global in origin there is a dearth of effective, international lesson drawing in the formulation, development and implementation of public policy. How can we become more effective at drawing practical lessons for policy in the UK by examining experience in other countries?

These are ambitious questions and no claim is made that this report answers all of them. Rather, with the support of our experienced Steering Group, we seek to examine some of the main dimensions of the debate about civic leadership and public service innovation and, hopefully, provide insights that might guide the development of more imaginative practice, particularly in central and local government and in third sector organisations. 2) The public service innovation agenda There is considerable evidence to show that UK local government has improved over the last decade or so. For example, the IDeA report, Getting better all the time, showed that: ‘By 2006, more than three-quarters (78%) of authorities achieved three or four-star rating and, for the first time since Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) began in 2002, no authorities were placed in the lowest CPA category’.2 The ‘performance model’ of setting targets, focussing effort on partnership working and the monitoring of outcomes has led to measurable improvements. These achievements are signficant and are not to be dimissed. However, there is a growing awareness of the fact that the ‘top down’ target driven model of service improvement has important limitations. As foreseen by scholars who developed policy implementation theory in the 1970s and 80s, implementers when confronted with a performance regime will attempt to

2 Grace C. and Martin S. (2008) Getting better all the time. London: IDeA. p23

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play the system to their own advantage.3 Critics of the hierarchical, performance targets approach suggest that it tends to generate ‘conformance’ rather than ‘performance’. Ticking the correct boxes may, they argue, satisfy the inspectors while masking an actual decline in the quality of local services experienced by local citizens and service users. This is, however, to oversimplify the nature of the interactive process between those setting out policy and those charged with implementing it. In the UK local government context there is now negotiation between central and local government about the nature of local targets and different localities, not surprisingly, choose to emphasise different targets reflecting local circumstances. However, concern about the issue of mismatch between ‘target compliance’ and ‘service results’ has been given renewed attention in children’s services following the publication of Lord Laming’s investigation into the death of Baby P in Haringey. And this is seen as a problem that cross-cuts all public services. One consequence of the recognition of the limits of top-down targets is that there has been a growth of interest in ‘public service innovation’ as distinct from ‘improvement’. These words are often used too loosely in public policy debates and some of the work on ‘innovation’ is bland and superficial. We believe it is helpful to draw on organisational learning theory to help distinguish the overlapping concepts of ‘improvement’ and ‘innovation’. The former is allied with ‘single loop’ learning and the latter implies a commitment to ‘double loop’ learning. 4 In ‘single loop’ learning the focus of interest is on how best to achieve defined goals. This is, of course, the central theme in the ‘performance targets’ approach that now dominates central government’s dealings with local government. This form of learning involves the detection and correction of error in ways that do not (on the whole) require change in underlying norms, policies and objectives. ‘Double loop’ learning occurs when error is detected and corrected in ways that involve a modification of underlying norms, policies and objectives. In other words the organisation encounters challenges that cannot be dealt with by doing more of what it already knows. To be effective the organisations has to innovate. In similar vein Hambleton has suggested that innovation can be described as ‘doing something nobody told you to do’. 5 If you have been told what to do in advance you are not engaged in a process of social discovery. It is, of course, possible to adopt innovative behaviour within the context of ‘single loop’ learning – there can be different ways of achieving a stated objective. However, in our view, a crucial feature of modern public service innovation is that it involves ‘double loop’ learning . This requires change in patterns of

3 Bardach E. (1977) The Implementation Game. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 4 Argyris C. and Schon D. (1978) Organisational Learning; A Theory of Action Perspective. London: Addison-Wesley. 5 Hambleton R. (2009) ‘Civic leadership and public service innovation’ in Parker S. (ed) More than good ideas: The power of innovation in local government. London: NESTA/IDeA p79.

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thinking and behaviour and is more demanding and more interesting than compliance with guidance or instructions. As a generalisation, then, we can suggest that there is a move to shift prevailing attitudes in central government, in local government, in public agencies and in third sector organisations away from a ‘conformance’ model of service improvement (‘tick a box’ regimes of obedience) and towards a ‘performance’ model of service improvement. This means valuing, supporting and encouraging innovation. 6 To ensure that reform efforts relating to innovation are well suited to the local context it is helpful to think of an innovation curve in local governance. First developed in 1998 the notion of an innovation curve suggests that the readiness of different localities to take on the innovation challenge varies considerably.7 This work identified three kinds of local authority – see Figure 1.

‘Adventurous’ councils were eager to exploit opportunities available to them. They set demanding aims for themselves, and welcomed the chance to compete for ‘Beacon status’. Most councils, it was suggested at the time, could be described as ‘cautious’. They tended to adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach, and moved to adopt new approaches only after taking account of the experience of the pioneering councils. 6 See, for example, Maddock S. (2008) Creating the conditions for public service innovation. London: National School of Government; Burton M. (ed) (2008) Innovation through people. London: SOLACE Foundation Imprint, July. 7 Hambleton R. and Holder A. (1998) ‘The price of change’, Municipal Journal, 2 October, pp20-21

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The term ‘stuck’ was used, perhaps unkindly, to describe councils who were furthest back on the innovation curve. These authorities were, for a variety of reasons, resistant to change. They tended to be backward-looking and seemed intent on either ignoring or attacking the modernisation agenda. The 1998 article acknowledged that this framework was a simplification – for example, different parts of the same authority could be at different points on the innovation curve. The analysis did, however, highlight two points that are still relevant today. First, councils are not at the same starting line when it comes to their capacity to innovate. Councils, and this is a point well recognised by the IDeA over the years, at different points on the innovation curve need different kinds of support and encouragement. Second, more attention needs to be given to the emotions of councillors and officers. Winning the intellectual argument for change is not enough. While the literature on ‘emotional intelligence’ is relatively young, it does at least offer the insight that emotions matter. Leaders who manage their own emotions appear to be better equipped to understand the emotions and feelings of others. Leadership involves change and successful leaders inevitably generate opposition. It follows that they need to be both sensitive to the feelings of others but also resilient in the face of opposition. Fast forward ten years and the picture is rather different – see Figure 2.

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The least innovative councils can now be described as ‘cautious’. 8 Given the improvements of the last decade, no council in the UK is now ‘stuck’ in the sense used in Figure 1. This is progress, but the cautious councils are followers – it is unlikely that they will startle their peers by breaking entirely new ground. The second group in Figure 2 is described as ‘adventurous’. This could, perhaps, be an optimistic view. However, we have already suggested that there is evidence to suggest that a good deal of innovation is now taking place in UK local government. But being adventurous is now no longer enough. The truly innovative councils of today have raised their sights beyond the targets suggested by national performance regimes and are striving to be ‘outstanding’. By this we mean operating at an exceptional level when compared with the other localities internationally. In Section 5) we provide some examples of innovative practice in other countries to illustrate this argument. While we recognise that it is a dramatic simplification of a more complex reality we suggest, in Figure 3, that the innovation curve is in the process of moving in an international direction.

8 Hambleton R. and Holder A. (2008) ‘A decade of innovation’, Municipal Journal, 2 October, pp 32-33

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This emphasis on the international may seem an unfamiliar idea in the world of government – local and central – but perhaps government is out of step. International comparisons are commonplace in other spheres of society – in, for example, business, the arts, sport and higher education. Universities now compare themselves not just with others in the UK but with universities across the globe – and there is even a system (albeit flawed) of university ‘world ranking’. In business, sport and the arts outstanding success is often measured in international terms. Why is this not commonplace in government and its partners in local governance? 3) Understanding civic leadership We define civic leadership broadly to embrace all leadership activity that serves a public purpose in a given locality. We also take the view that civic leadership is ‘place-based’ leadership meaning that those exercising decision-making power have a concern for the communities living in a particular ‘place’. Some of the most powerful decision-makers in modern society are ‘place-less’ leaders in the sense that they are not concerned with the geographical impact of their decisions. Thus, for example, senior figures in multi-national companies are, on the whole, unconcerned with the fortunes of particular localities. They serve a different agenda - that of their shareholders. The fact that some areas decline if they withdraw their investment carries little or no weight in their calculations. Civic leadership is different – it is driven by the needs and concerns of particular communities in particular places.

In our view successful leadership is inspirational and collaborative. In previous work, we have defined leadership as ‘shaping emotions and behaviour to achieve common goals’.9 This implies a wide range of activities aimed at generating both new insights and new ways of working together – it prizes respect for the feelings and attitudes of others as well as a strong commitment to collaboration.

Drawing on earlier work carried out for the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance we distinguish three overlapping civic leadership roles in modern local governance.10 Civic leaders are found in the public, private, and community/voluntary sectors and they operate at many geographical levels – from the street block to an entire sub region and beyond. The three kinds of civic leadership discussed in this study are as follows:

• Political leadership – referring to the work of those people elected to leadership positions by the citizenry. These are, by definition, political leaders. Thus, all elected local councillors are political leaders,

9 Hambleton R. (2007) ‘New leadership for democratic urban space’ in Hambleton R. and Gross J. S. (eds) Governing Cities in a Global Era. London/New York: Palgrave. P 174 10 Hambleton R. (2008) Civic Leadership for Auckland: An International Perspective. Auckland: Royal Commission on Auckland Governance.

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although we should acknowledge that different councillors carry different roles and responsibilities and will view their political role in different ways.

• Managerial leadership – referring to the work of public servants appointed by local authorities, central government and third sector organisations to plan and manage public services, and promote community wellbeing. These officers bring professional and managerial expertise to the tasks of local governance.

• Community leadership – referring to the work of the many civic-

minded people who give their time and energy to local leadership activities in a wide variety of ways. These may be community activists, business leaders, voluntary sector leaders, figures in religious organisations, higher education leaders and so on. Particularly important here is the potential contribution to civic leadership of an independent and engaged voluntary and community sector.

These roles are all important in cultivating and encouraging public service innovation and, crucially, they overlap. We describe the areas of overlap between these different realms of leadership as innovation zones and these are a particular focus of interest for this Scoping Study. The conceptual framework is presented in diagram form in Figure 4.

It can be claimed that effective civic leadership in the coming period is likely to involve leadership behaviour that spans the boundaries between our three realms of civic leadership. Moreover, this approach takes it as read that inspirational leadership can emanate from any of the three realms of civic leadership, and innovation is likely to emerge through a conversation or series

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of conversations between them, in the spaces of overlap. Leadership capacity in modern society is dispersed. Our systems of local governance need to respect and reflect that diversity if decisions taken in the public interest are going to enjoy legitimacy. Further, more decentralized approaches both across localities and within each realm of civic leadership can empower informal leaders to be part of the dialogue.

This approach suggests that we need to be more active in recognizing and cultivating leaders within all three realms of civic leadership. To emphasise the interactive and dynamic nature of civic leadership we offer three simple illustrations. In Figure 5 we depict a process of politically inspired innovation. In this example, it is politicians who take a lead in shaping the emotions and behaviour of their officers and their partners in the community. The process is, of course, two-way. Effective political leaders are quick to learn from those they are attempting to influence.

In Figure 6 we picture a process of community inspired innovation. In this example, it is actors from outside government who are the main drivers. By working with elected politicians and appointed officials, leaders from the community shape the trajectory of local policy and action. This leadership can come from the grassroots as well as universities, commerce and intermediary bodies of the third sector. Grassroots leadership is crucial in developing the social capital that strengthens democracy and underpins sustainable local development.

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It is also the case that appointed officers – for example, an inspiring chief executive or service director, a neighbourhood manager or area police officer – can set the tone of local leadership. In Figure 7 we envisage a process of managerially inspired innovation. Here the officers work closely with political figures and community stakeholders to bring about transformative change. Street-level workers can play a key role in promoting dialogue over time that stimulates creative solutions to local problems.

All the diagrams we present in this section represent a drastic simplification of a more complex reality and are not intended to show how the dynamics of

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local power struggles work. The relative power of the three realms varies by locality and this would imply different sized circles, whereas we have kept them all the same size. Moreover, the realms shift in influence over time. The interactions across the realms are also far more complex than implied by Figures 5, 6 and 7 – and, of course, there are many different interests operating within each realm. Nevertheless we believe that the notion of three different realms – with leadership stemming from different sources of legitimacy within different realms – provides a helpful way of framing discussion about civic leadership and we draw on this framework in subsequent sections. 4) International lesson drawing The International Insights series, mentioned in the Introduction, sets out the general case for investing time and effort in international lesson drawing and we recap on the main arguments here. First, experience abroad can act as an invaluable source of practical and useful ideas. Thousands of local authorities, third sector organisations and social enterprises across the world are constantly breaking new ground in how to enhance the quality of local government and the quality of local services. Why deny ourselves the opportunity to learn from others? And, in the other direction, has UK local government nothing to offer those concerned to enhance local democracy abroad? Second, in a world in which unprecedented numbers of people are now migrating across national boundaries – and this is particularly the case within the new Europe - it is essential for all councils to lift their intercultural knowledge and understanding. Responding to the needs of increasingly diverse communities is clearly now a top challenge for local government. Third, examining local democracy abroad reveals in stark terms how over-centralized the British state has now become. Recognizing that many other countries have far more powerful and more effective local authorities can help both ministers and local leaders engage in a radical rethink regarding the future direction of local/central relations in the UK. This centralization is also apparent in the third sector, and leaders in the community realm equally need to find ways to re-engage with the grassroots. Fourth, at a broader and more conceptual level, study of democratic approaches and practices in other countries should enhance the ability of UK local authorities to anticipate future events. Given that we now live in a hyper-connected world it follows that any professionally run organization, whether public, private or voluntary, needs to be alert to trends and developments in other countries that may turn out to have a decisive impact on the UK.

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These arguments are explored at some length in a recent SOLACE Foundation Imprint, Global places and local forces. 11 However, a word of caution is needed. Cross-national learning is not as sophisticated as it needs to be - and both practitioners and academics can be faulted. Thus, practitioners, including ministers at times, have fallen into the ‘myth of the quick-fix policy import’. A foreign visit, an exciting encounter with a new idea, a desire to make a newsworthy announcement – all of these factors can conspire to bring about the hasty introduction of a policy instrument from another country in advance of any thoughtful evaluation of the merits of the policy being imported or how it can be adapted into a different context. Academics, on the other hand, sometimes fall into the opposite trap of researching a topic to death and still failing to offer clear advice to policy makers. Thus, much of the academic literature on comparative government juxtaposes models and practices without engaging in the difficult process of drawing out lessons for practice. Fortunately there is a way out of this dilemma. The key is to focus on ‘lesson drawing’. In his short book – Learning from comparative public policy. A practical guide – Rose argues that policy makers do not seek fresh ideas for their own sake but to promote political satisfaction.12 He argues that it is important, therefore, to engage in ‘instrumental learning’ – that is learning that generates practical lessons for policy makers. Rose’s book makes a valuable contribution but one limitation is that it is relatively weak on local government. His analysis tends to view cross-national learning as a job for national governments but this is already a dated view. In a rapidly globalising world some of the most influential cross-national dialogue is locality-to-locality or city-to-city. International lesson drawing remains an under-developed area of scholarship but experience is growing. Clearly there are pitfalls to avoid. Some of the enabling factors present in another country may not exist in the UK. For example, as we shall see in Section 5), Swedish local authorities are more powerful than their British counterparts and have much more discretion in setting local policy. Also some of the driving forces spurring innovation in another country may not apply in the UK. These contextual factors matter a great deal but they do not rule out international lesson drawing. Rather they suggest that it is very important to focus on how change was brought about, to consider what forces were critical and to unearth practical lessons for leadership style and modes of operation in the UK context. Policy relevant cross-national research lays down a significant challenge for academics. Comparative study of public policy is an expanding field. But when this work is limited to advancing understanding – the traditional focus of

11 Aitken O. (2008) Global places and local forces. London: SOLACE Foundation Imprint, January. 12 Rose R. (2005) Learning from Comparative Public Policy: A practical guide. Oxford: Routledge. Appendix 3, Section 5 provides information on other literature relating to international learning.

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scholarship - it falls short of instrumental learning. Cross-national lesson drawing requires investigators to go beyond description and analysis and offer evidence-based advice to policy makers. This requires scholars to engage directly with the policy conversation and practice, what the Americans call, ‘engaged scholarship’.13 5) Scanning international experience – learning from innovation abroad

Introduction

In this Scoping Study, we suggest that civic leadership has a key role to play in stimulating and supporting public service innovation. As we have explained in Section 3), we believe that a fertile location for fruitful public service innovation is in the areas of overlap between the different realms of civic leadership – the potential innovation zones.

In this section we expand on this concept by providing insights into how this collaboration occurs through the use of illustrative examples drawn from practice in five different countries. We call these examples ‘cameos’ rather than case studies. This is because this is a Scoping Study and we do not have the resources to provide an in depth investigation of the change processes underpinning these various innovations. However, we believe that the cameos can encourage fresh thinking in the UK context. They are intended to break with established ways of discussing public service innovation in the UK and, hopefully, spur unconventional insights. The purpose is to stimulate new ways of framing debate about leadership and public service innovation, not to provide ‘quick fix’ policy prescriptions.

Leadership across boundaries Civic leadership can encourage collaboration and innovation across public, voluntary and private sector boundaries. For example, when local authorities or other agencies introduce structures for public engagement in governance they can create new ‘spaces’ for dialogue and exchange. These have been described as ‘invited’ spaces – arenas for dialogue which are set up by the state and into which a variety of stakeholders from civil society, the private sector, government, donors and lenders may be invited.14 13 Hambleton R. (2009) ‘Scholarship is multi-faceted, but the RAE is blind to its richness’, Times Higher Education, 19 March, pp28-29. See also Benyon J. and David M. (2008) Developing Dialogue. Learned Societies in the Social Sciences: Developing Knowledge Transfer and Public Engagement. Final Report of the AcSS and ESRC Project. December. 14 Cornwall, A. (2004) ‘Spaces for Transformation? Reflections on issues of power and difference in participation in development’. In Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (eds) Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? London: Zed Books

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Such spaces are often the result of the combined efforts of political, community and managerial actors building support over a prolonged period of time. Furthermore, these spaces evolve over time as the broader configuration of political institutions and social and economic forces within which they are located impinge on what happens within them. For example, Gaventa describes spaces for participation as being ‘closed’, ‘invited’ or ‘claimed/ created’, with a dynamic relationship between the three categories.15 On the one hand, a space that has been created by community actors (‘claimed’ space) can evolve into an ‘invited’ space, if it is recognised and institutionalised by the state. A space which is closed to participation from outside government can be opened up either by officers in local government and individual elected members who are ‘champions of participation’16 or through the efforts of community actors. It is in the areas of overlap or the ‘interstices’ between these spaces that, according to Gaventa, new and interesting ideas and practices emerge. This perspective resonates well with our own approach emphasising the importance of the innovation zones linking the different realms of civic leadership. Our research is finding that the boundaries between closed, invited and claimed spaces are constantly opening and closing as struggles for legitimacy and efforts to collaborate or control are taking place. And in a similar way, the boundaries between political, managerial and community leadership, as described in Section 3), are in dynamic interplay with each other. Some actors are adept at working across these boundaries. Others straddle them and find ways to belong to more than one sphere. For example, a front-line worker employed by the state may also belong to a neighbourhood association. An elected politician may also be a trustee of a community organisation and so on. Working across boundaries brings with it challenges for accountability and representation which we need to keep in mind as we consider the international examples in this scoping study. Similarly, a snapshot of an innovative initiative will not tell us about the underlying power relationships, and how conflict and tensions were managed. As outlined in Section 3), our diagram of the realms of civic leadership gives equal space to each realm, but in reality one realm may dominate the others. For example, in some cases business will have overwhelming influence and in others it may be elected politicians who hold most sway. But these relationships are dynamic, and where leadership is open to collaboration across the artificial boundaries of ‘realm’, then there is greater potential for innovation.

15 Gaventa, J. (2004) ‘Towards Participatory Governance: assessing the transformative possibilities’. In Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (eds) Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? London: Zed Books 16 Institute of Development Studies (2007) Champions of Participation: Engaging Citizens in Local Governance. International learning event report.

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Learning from innovation abroad Our five international cameos are drawn from the USA, Sweden, The Netherlands, Brazil and Colombia. Innovations in municipal governance in all the examples have, of course, germinated in particular political and cultural circumstances. We stress, once again, that we include these cameos to spur fresh thinking, not as examples to be emulated in some kind of automatic process of imitation. A challenge for future research will be to explore such cases in more detail and find ways in which learning from overseas can inform policies relating to local governance here in the UK. With more time we could have included more cameos drawn from more countries. However, with the benefit of guidance from our Steering Group, we believe we have identified five cameos that speak to many of the important challenges now confronting civic leaders in the UK. In each cameo we adopt a systematic approach and consider three aspects:

• Context and the problem

• Innovation: building new relationships

• Lesson-drawing, including providing some ‘pointers for the UK’ At the very end of each cameo the ‘pointers’ are deliberately posed as questions for debate and discussion. The five cameos are:

• Regional civic innovation in the Capital District, New York, USA

• The civic leadership response to climate change in Malmo, Sweden

• Urban leadership and community involvement in Enschede, The Netherlands

• Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil

• The planning and participatory budgeting programme in Medellin,

Colombia In Section 6) we draw out important cross-cutting themes emerging from the cameos as well as the discussion in earlier sections of the paper. 5.1 Regional Civic Innovation in the Capital District, New York, USA Context and the problem In the Capital District (encompassing the communities of Albany, Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga) in New York State’s Hudson Valley, urban

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governance decision-making is fragmented across some 70 local authorities. Here, local governments (many with fewer than 10,000 persons) maintain significant authority over matters of land use and planning, economic development and even taxation. In the early to mid 1990s a number of civic leaders from public and private sectors argued that this type of jurisdictional fragmentation was severely hindering the region’s economic prospects. It was limiting opportunities for economic restructuring away from industrial manufacturing and government administration towards newly emerging and high-paying sectors of the economy. Further, local municipalities were caught in a vicious cycle of competition over job creation and business expansion, often undermining each other’s efforts through policies designed to lure tax-paying companies to their jurisdiction. Related to our innovation curve (see Section 2), local governments in the Capital District could be described as largely stuck or cautious. Concentrating exclusively on municipal fiscal issues, such as building the local tax base, there was limited room or political will to be adventurous and collaborate for the betterment of the region at large. Innovation: building new relationships For the business community, the fragmentation of local government power contributed to a dire situation where influence and resources were overly dispersed. This stymied efforts to coordinate long-term change. In order to attract world-class enterprises, business leaders argued that the Capital District needed to act like a world-class region and at a minimum, this should include:

• The development of high quality transportation infrastructure that would better connect the area to New York City.

• Major investment in the research capacity of the region’s educational facilities. Alain Kaloyeros, Vice President at the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have been particularly vocal and effective advocates for state-led investments in nano-tech and bio-tech research at the region’s major universities.

• Creation of a new regional identity based within the Capital District - or ‘Tech Valley’ - serving as a hub for technology companies and innovation

Local politicians from across the 70 local authorities bought into and supported the Tech Valley concept. It coincided with state-level objectives for economic restructuring and job creation in the lagging upstate New York area. At the forefront of the local political effort was New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who served as a conduit to other politicians, including the governor, who had control of major government expenditures. The advocacy of Senator Bruno and others resulted in significant steps being

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taken towards implementing the regional vision. By the early 2000s major airport and train station improvement projects had been completed and significant investment had been allocated to expand the universities’ research agenda. Further, a co-ordinated local-state programme resulted in the attraction of AMD (microprocessors) to a newly developed science park – the Luther Forest Technology Park. Lesson-drawing Again speaking to our innovation curve, for municipalities in the Capital District, being adventurous has meant taking a wider view of the governance of the region. For many, this is signified through a collaborative spirit embodied in the Tech Valley concept (as well as a number of emerging regional efforts such as the Tech Valley Civic Forum and the Local Government Council). Participation in these efforts demonstrates the salience and acceptance of the regional partnership concept and a dramatic shift in the nature of local governing. The more outgoing approach to civic leadership in the Capital District in recent years is not that different from the strategies adopted by city regions in other parts of the US. However, the example is noteworthy as it shows that leadership spanning private and public interests can overcome the extreme fragmentation of power among small localities. In this instance, various universities played an important role in stimulating new thinking and bringing different stakeholders together. Recalling our model of civic innovation, there was a a strong feedback loop between the universities and business community (the community realm) and the elected leadership (the political). Here, the emerging sense of mutual benefit and partnership, built over several years, relates not only to the relationship between community and political, but also between the various stakeholders and elements within each realm. In the United Kingdom, the recent establishment of Multi-Area Agreements (MAA) has been put forward as a way to address a similar type of local government fragmentation (albeit perhaps not to the extreme of the Capital District case). For example, the MAA in South Hampshire covers eleven local councils including the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth and Hampshire County and is intended to provide a coordinating mechanism towards implementing the economic growth initiatives outlined in the South Hampshire Sub-Regional Strategy (part of the draft South East Plan). This cameo brings forward a number of questions related to civic leadership and public service innovation in the United Kingdom. Pointers for the UK:

1. Clearly UK universities and authorities already partner in a range of activities. However, in the Capital District, universities played an active and important leadership role. Could universities here play a greater

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part in public service innovation and if so, how might such a collaborative arrangement be structured?

2. In New York and much of the USA, significant power and authority rests with local government. What lessons can be learnt in the UK as devolution and decentralisation models are put forward which may strengthen local authorities? Can we stay ‘ahead of the curve’ and minimize the types of municipal competition which seemed to stymie economic restructuring and growth in this case?

Source: Buser, M (2008) ‘Governance shifts and the city-region: trends and debates in metropolitan regionalism.’ Paper presented at the Political Studies Association annual conference, Swansea (April 2008). 5.2 The civic leadership response to climate change in Malmo, Sweden Context and the problem In the 1960s the successful industrial town of Malmo, Sweden had enormous shipyards that could rival any in the world. However, in the early 1990s the bottom dropped out of the local economy and the docks and associated traditional industries vanished. Anders Rubin, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Urban Environment, explains that the city faced a major crisis: ‘The disappearance of traditional industries was so fast and so complete that we had nothing to be defensive about. We simply had to come up with a new approach. And we decided that the way forward was to create a modern city that was at the very top when it comes to environmental issues’. A decade or so later and Malmo is lauded as one of the most far sighted cities in Europe for sustainable development. In a remarkable turn around the city has reinvented itself as an eco-friendly, multi-cultural city. While Malmo’s fall from economic grace mirrors the decline of many UK industrial cities, it was probably more dramatic and sudden than many. In the three-year period from 1992 to 1994 the city lost a third of its jobs. Now, in 2009, UK local authorities are required to respond to a drastic dip in the economic fortunes of the country. Thus, in March, the number of unemployed in the UK rose to above 2 million and most, if not all, local authorities and their partners are having to respond to rapid and unwelcome economic shifts. The fact that Malmo’s economic troubles in the early 1990s were equally, if not more, grim means that their experience in relation to local leadership and innovation is likely to be of real interest to UK policy makers. Innovation: building new relationships In 1994 the newly elected political leaders of the city were faced with a formidable challenge. In effect, the long-established economic structure of the city had collapsed. Ilmar Reepalu, Leader of the City, and his colleagues decided to redefine the core purpose of the city and backed their radical vision

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of a modern eco city with innovative approaches to management, including the introduction of an entirely new decentralised way of running local services. In 1996, Malmo City was divided into ten geographical areas, each run by a City District Department. In common with similar efforts to introduce decentralised management in many local authorities in the UK, the aim was twofold: to develop and strengthen local democracy and to improve public service responsiveness. It needs to be remembered that, in Sweden, the local authorities are far more powerful than their UK counterparts. For example, in addition to the functions of a UK unitary authority Swedish local authorities run a range of local health services. The decentralised City Districts in Malmo have major functions: pre-school and schooling; health and medical care; individual and family care; and leisure and culture. The model enables local service managers to respond to the differential needs of different areas within city and it also encourages citizen participation at the local level. The devolution to districts is complemented by local community empowerment approaches at neighbourhood level. Ekostaden Augustenborg – the Augustenborg Eco Neighbourhood – provides an inspiring example. Built in 1948 to 1952 this post war housing estate was high quality when it was built. However, like many British council housing estates, in the 1970s it started to look out of date and took on an abandoned feel. The area was subject to regular flooding and became unattractive as a place to live. In the period since 1998, as part of the new political strategy outlined above, the area has been transformed into an attractive, sustainable neighbourhood. Examples of local innovation in Augustenborg include:

• The creation of more than 10,000 square metres of green roofs that are an important part of the storm water management process

• Construction of more than 400 square metres of solar collectors to produce hot water – with excess production fed into the district heating system

• Redesigned spaces and walkways creating communal gardens and play areas

• The recycling or reuse of 70% of waste – with the rest being used for energy generation

• A community-based car pool using ethanol hybrid cars Lesson-drawing In terms of the innovation curve we introduced in Section 2) the City of Malmo has adopted such an imaginative approach to innovation in recent years that it has moved into the ‘outstanding’ category. Several factors explain this achievement. First, there has been very bold political leadership by senior councillors. Local authorities in Sweden are not constrained by a highly centralised performance management regime of the kind that has been developed in England with the result that locally elected figures have considerable room to innovate. Local

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politicians in Malmo have taken full advantage of the political space available to them. Second, the council has decentralised its services in a radical way to the very local level in order to improve responsiveness and build community involvement. The decentralised system enables city government to gain a comprehensive view of the needs of the population in a given district and gives citizens enhanced influence over conditions in their area. It can be claimed that the model supports and encourages actors in all three of the realms of civic leadership we introduced in Section 3): local political leaders, local managers, and local community activists, residents and businesses. Decentralisation frees the political leaders to concentrate on strategic concerns. Anders Rubin put it this way: ‘I am not interested in driving the car of city administration. Other people should drive the car. My job is to work with my colleagues on creating the map so that we can ensure that the car goes the right way’. Pointers for the UK:

1. Have we created an over centralised power system in the UK with the result that really bold local political leadership is stifled? Swedish local authorities have far more power than UK local authorities and this provides significant political space for local leaders to take risks and try out new approaches. Do we need a radical shift in the balance of power between local and central government?

2. Should UK local authorities be more daring in devolving powers to districts and neighbourhoods within their jurisdiction? Even the bolder forms of neighbourhood management in UK local government appear cautious when compared with Malmo. Would a much more adventurous approach to area-based decision-making by UK public service providers create new spaces for social innovation?

Source: Hambleton R. (2008) From rust-belt to eco-city, Municipal Journal, 19 June pp 16-17 and, in longer form, at: www.idea.gov/international Interviews by the author in Malmo in 2008. 5.3 Urban leadership and community involvement in Enschede, Netherlands Context and the Problem In the Dutch city of Enschede a major explosion at a fireworks factory in 2000 – a dreadful event that devastated the area – met with a creative response from the city council. A combination of innovative civic leadership and community collaboration lay at the heart of an effort to rebuild the Roombeek area of the city. The project demonstrates that leadership approaches and

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behaviours are influenced not only by formal and informal institutional structures, but also by local political culture and expectations. In the Netherlands, local government is uniform and all municipalities essentially have the same decision making structure. Decisions tend to be centralised with the members elected to the executive board (aldermen). Furthermore, municipal decision-making often tends to be rather departmentalised and collective leadership can often outweigh prospects for area-based or cross-cutting initiatives. Each alderman is designated a specific portfolio, and relates to officers in the department responsible for this portfolio. However, due to the complex nature of the Roombeek rebuilding project, a special ‘project alderman’ was established with institutionalised responsibilities and special executive powers that cut across the departmentalised arrangements of municipal government typical of Dutch cities. Innovation: building new relationships In the Roombeek case, a key aspect of the success of the initiative lies in the leadership style of the project alderman – Roelof Bleeker – combined with the special powers he was granted. He served as both a visionary leader, giving direction to the rebuilding process, but also as a consensus facilitator during the redevelopment planning process which enabled him to engage with a wide range of interested stakeholders, particularly those directly affected by the fireworks tragedy, but also with other executives and public officials. The extensive public participation process – which was taken seriously by civic leaders and politicians – resulted in a high level of project legitimacy. Furthermore, the leadership role was important in preventing and diffusing potential conflicts that emerged between developers and community participants by refining the participation arena and process. Lesson drawing The Enschede example highlights the potential for political leadership to call upon personal capacities to overcome institutionalised arrangements of responsibility. Clearly, in the Netherlands formal competences and national laws are essential for setting the rules. However, as demonstrated in the Roombeek project, local leaders (and councils) have an important voice in determining their role. Here, the typical Dutch ‘collective form’ of leadership has been moulded into one in which a single leader was able to emerge with a wider scope than would be generally expected. Thanks to his position as a ‘project alderman’, Alderman Bleeker was able to develop a leadership style that combined a high level of personal enthusiasm with a strong commitment to public involvement and dialogue which matched local expectations and political culture. This case helps us to reflect on how institutional arrangements in local government may help drive development at the sub-local level. In particular, it shows a model where political and managerial leadership come together in one role. It is often difficult for local project managers of area-based

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regeneration programmes to have influence over decisions within the council. The Rombeek case resonates with the experience of Neighbourhood Management Pathfinders in the UK which work across the leadership realms to find innovative approaches to addressing multiple deprivation and vulnerability in a particular neighbourhood. A Neighbourhood Manager works with public agencies, local councillors and local residents and nurtures dialogue between them. Pointers for the UK

1. In what circumstances would it be useful to give an executive councillor the powers of a project manager?

2. What might be an appropriate leadership style for a leader who has been granted additional powers and/or wishes to work across political, managerial and community boundaries?

Source: Coenen F., Denters B. and Klok, P. (2006) ‘Between vision and consensus: urban leadership and community involvement in the Dutch cases’ in Heinelt H., Sweeting D. and Getimis P (eds) Legitimacy and Urban Governance. Abingdon: Routledge 5.4 Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil Context and the problem Constitutional reforms as part of the democratisation process in Brazil in the 1980s led to the reform of municipal law and the inclusion of popular participation in district budget forums. It was in Porto Alegre that a particularly innovative combination of organised, large scale public participation to deliberate over public spending originated. This became known internationally as ‘Participatory Budgeting’ (PB) and is now world famous. This initiative illustrates rather well the way that activists from the three realms of civic leadership we introduced in Section 3) - political, managerial and community leadership – were able to work together to make innovative use of the opportunity opened up by constitutional reform. The roots of PB go back to the wave of social unrest in the late 1970s, with strikes in many parts of Brazil. This resulted in the emergence of new political groupings, including the Workers’ Party, Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). When the PT came to power in Porto Alegre in the late 1980s, it looked to community leadership in the social movements which had brought them to power to design a process that would give citizens a formal role in decision-making over public affairs. Previous administrations had been top-down in style and perceived the movements of the poor as a threatening force rather than as potential collaborators. This had led them to become ‘stuck’ in terms of the innovation curve we set out in Section 2). The new political leadership in Porto Alegre believed that social order could only be restored if citizens had a fuller role in decision-making in society. In the first few years, deliberative forums were created within the 16 different neighbourhoods of the city. From

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1994 onwards, major city-wide strategic and capital investment decisions were also included in PB, but through a different, city-wide process. Innovation: building new relationships The Workers Party was founded in 1982, and had strong connections with unions, neighbourhood associations and Christian Base Communities. Political and community leadership came together in 1988 in an alliance which gave the Workers Party the mandate to push through the radical redistributive and participatory project of participatory budgeting. When the PB process began, there was a strong consensus among political, managerial and community leaders that the city’s infrastructure needed to be prioritised - particularly transport, drinking water, and sewage treatment. The process gave citizens the opportunity to express their clear preferences through deliberative forums, and this in turn gave the political leaders of Porto Alegre the mandate to argue for more resources to tackle these issues. They made a powerful and convincing case and won more resources from national and state level. The city was also able to get agreement to raise more local resources - particularly a local value added tax (tributação sobre a circulação de mercadorias) – again because they had a clear message from citizens that improving the infrastructure should be their urgent priority. Lesson-drawing The Porto Alegre example highlights what can be achieved when civic leadership is built across the political, managerial and community realms, to work collaboratively in a shared project to address the extremes of poverty and inequality in the city. In the elections for mayor of the City Council in 2000, only the PT candidate supported PB, but by the 2004 elections, all four candidates had signed up to PB and committed themselves to its continuation, which is an important indication of how the people of Porto Alegre had taken ownership of the initiative as belonging to the place rather than to a political party agenda. This suggests that working across political/community/managerial boundaries can bring about transformations in the way state and non-state stakeholders relate to each other, and in their attitudes towards local development. It should be noted that PB began in Porto Alegre as a social struggle and has evolved through a number of stages, with relationships changing through these stages. It is also informative to note that the process was supported and nurtured by key civil society organisations which provided advice and training to participants. PB continues today in Brazil, though in a reduced form, but in Porto Alegre it has evolved into a different form. The Workers Party lost the local elections in 2004 and a coalition of opposition parties under the leadership of Mayor José Fogaça was elected. The new government was under pressure to reduce the PB budget and has also tried to mobilise new resources by bringing in the private sector. They changed PB into what is still nominally a participatory approach - the Solidarity Local Governance Programme - but this addresses poverty through social programmes and

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contracts, rather than direct citizen participation to deliberate over distribution of the municipal budget.

This case helps us reflect particularly on the challenges of engaging community leaders in sustained ways that can draw on their knowledge of the local reality and on their skills to catalyse local development. In England, for example, there are 18 ‘Empowering Authorities’ that are being supported to strengthen the work that they have begun in the area of community empowerment.

Pointers for the UK:

1. What can we learn from Porto Alegre about scaling up deliberative processes from community-level to higher tiers of government?

2. A survey carried out across the 16 districts of Porto Alegre found that 31% of the population had participated in PB. Can we aspire to these levels of participation around decision-making about local development in the UK?

3. PB is being piloted across the UK but the models being introduced appear to be more modest in ambition than the pioneering approaches to PB developed in Brazil. Are ‘community kitties’ and other forms of devolved funding a poor relation of PB in Brazil? Or are they a step towards greater decentralisation and subsidiarity in our local authorities, and towards a strengthened role for local councillors?

Source Interviews with Assis Brasil Olegario Filho and Andre Passos Cordeiro of the City of Porto Alegre http://governanceinternational.org/english/interview13.html Pearce, J. et al (2008) ‘Here, the People Decide?’: New Forms of Participation in the City. Research Briefing. Bradford: International Centre for Participation Studies. January 2008. 5.5 The planning and participatory budgeting programme in Medellin, Colombia Context and the problem Medellin is the second largest city in Colombia, and has in recent years ranked as one of the cities with the highest homicide rates in the world. The city is highly segregated with poverty concentrated in the north and east. The industrial crisis in the 1970s led to the shut down of key companies and a rise in unemployment, and also the fragmentation of social movements and unions. The community response to growing unemployment, violence and poverty tended to focus on solving immediate livelihood demands and did not engage with formal politics. Many citizens scrape a living in the informal economy which is largely controlled by criminal groups and mafias and consolidates violence in the city. Local politicians were perceived as either disconnected from ‘real life’ or part of the problem of itself, and the resulting lack of trust in the local political and managerial leadership led to the stagnation of innovation.

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In 2004, for the first time, an independent candidate was elected Mayor of Medellin, breaking the long-term control of the two traditional political parties. Mayor Fajardo emerged as part of a movement against violence that generated an alliance between groups that would not otherwise have found common ground. The mayoral candidate had strong connections with social organisations and in particular with the NGO community, which in Medellin has a long history of working for participatory rights and democratic practices. Innovation: building new relationships When Sergio Fajardo won the election, he brought with him the support of a range of civil groups that had been mobilising and working for citizen rights and security for years. This collaboration enabled Fajardo to introduce some bold participatory initiatives such as the participatory budget in 2005. This ‘Planning and Participatory Budgeting Programme’ drew on the Porto Alegre experience we described in the previous section. But it was also underpinned by the years of work around citizenship and participation that the civil society organisations of Medellin had carried out over a long period. Their work had helped create awareness of citizenship and enabled a debate about resources and their distribution. Civil society organisations in Medellin play an important community leadership role in the participatory innovations of the municipal administration, helping to shift the municipality away from the traditional clientelist political practices that had drained politics of so much legitimacy. The IPC (Popular Training Institute) which has 25 years’ experience of working with communities in Medellín played a key role in this initiative. It is interesting to note that the IPC describes one of its own aims as creating ‘spaces of articulation of social movements and grassroots activists with the representative state’. Related to our innovation curve introduced in Section 2, local government in Medellín prior to the election of Mayor Fajardo could be described as stuck in clientelist practices of the past. These practices concentrated decision-making power in the hands of a few powerful ‘vertical’ leaders leaving limited room or political will to collaborate for improvements of the region at large and the majority of its citizens. Consultation Councils were set up in each of the ‘comunas’, where local community leaders come together to deliberate, prioritise and allocate resources for initiatives and projects that will take place during the next budget period. The budget allocation for each area is based on the data about the local population, their Human Development Index and the amount invested there in previous budgets. This means that the city council allocates most money to the poorest comunas. The Consultation Councils are now also producing local development plans for their areas, with investment plans for infrastructure, education, citizen training and employment generation. It is also interesting to note that the Programme has also set up Planning, Management and Participatory Budgeting Groups by Zone. This is an agency that works with groups of council officers from different public agencies,

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seeking to build a shared approach to interactions with citizens and local development. There has been a focused effort in this initiative to involve local officers in the innovation and to help them to understand the importance of participation at the community level. Lesson drawing The Medellin example suggests that civic leadership can take steps to overcome critical levels of violence and mistrust in politics, and can persuade residents to take part in municipal development processes. At their best these innovations can breathe new life into political processes in the city. Here the default mode of governance – clientelism – was replaced by a more collaborative mode of co-governance through the Consultation Councils. The participation of political, managerial and community leadership in the process has had an impact on the cultures and practices of the three ‘realms of civic leadership’ we introduced in Section 3) and there has been some success in building trust in local politics. The levels of violence in Medellin are far worse than in the UK but nevertheless the recent experience of the city may be encouraging to those councils in the UK that are now faced with growing social tensions arising from socio-economic restructuring and, in some areas, the rapid arrival of newcomers from other countries. It suggests that leadership that cuts across our three realms of civic leadership can make a difference. Pointers for the UK:

1. What can the Medellín case teach us about working in localities where there are high levels of mistrust and social unrest? Could neighbourhood management innovations in England be expanded and strengthened to work on local budget allocation and on building citizenship and social cohesion?

2. What is the ‘default’ mode of governance in the UK? In England? Can we bring about ‘culture change’ in local authorities through the kind of initiative that the Medellín case demonstrates?

Source Pearce, J. (2007) Violence, Power and Participation: Building Citizenship in Contexts of Chronic Violence. IDS Working Paper No 274 Pearce, J. et al (2008) ‘Here, the People Decide?’: New Forms of Participation in the City. Research Briefing. Bradford: International Centre for Participation Studies. January 2008. 6) Implications and opportunities In this final section we draw out the main implications of the analysis presented in this Scoping Study. We have examined three related themes: civic leadership, public service innovation and international learning. While there is a growing body of experience and literature in relation to each theme,

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we believe that understanding of the interplay between these themes could be improved significantly. The failure to link research, development and action in these three arenas could, we believe, be holding back efforts to reform public services. We hope that this Scoping Study will, by bringing an international perspective to the conversation, encourage fresh thinking about the nature of civic leadership and public service innovation in the UK. Taking stock Our analysis in Sections 2) to 4) suggests that:

• While much useful work is now being undertaken in relation to ‘public service innovation’ in the UK, there have been limited attempts to strengthen the important role of civic leadership in fostering (or discouraging) innovation. The path breaking work on innovation, being pioneered by organisations like the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA), the Whitehall Innovation Hub, and the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), has rightly drawn attention to the role of service users and front line staff in promoting innovation and public service transformation. But the role of civic leaders has been neglected. (Section 2)

• Likewise we can see that the topic of ‘leadership’ is now receiving

much more attention than it has done in the past. Again, a number of UK public sector institutions have been charged with the task of improving public service leadership and important progress has been made. For example, high quality leadership development programmes are now provided for elected politicians and for officials in local government, central government, the health service, the police service, in higher education, in ‘arms length’ public agencies and in the third sector. It would seem, however, that comparatively little work, with the notable exception of the activities of the Whitehall Innovation Hub, is focussing on the role of leaders and leadership in creating conditions that promote public service innovation. There is of course a danger of focusing too much on elite leaders and creating a cadre of leaders. It will be important to develop the capacity to identify and nurture leadership at all levels and across boundaries. (Section 3).

• Learning from the experience of civic leadership and public service

innovation in other countries is highly valued by those who engage in it. The problem is that they are rare creatures within the UK governance system. International learning, as an approach to public service research and development, has been (and is being) grossly neglected by both scholars and practitioners. It would be wrong to suggest that international exchange relating to locality leadership and public service innovation is not taking place at all. Organisations like the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) and the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) pay a good deal of attention to international developments. And some regions, notably Local Government Yorkshire and Humber (LGYH), have engaged in

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focussed lesson-drawing visits to localities in other countries. But serious efforts to learn from the practice and achievements of civic leaders and innovators in other countries are very much on the margins of UK academic and policy debates. (Section 4)

Lesson drawing from practice in other countries In Section 5) we suggested that effective leadership is inspirational and collaborative. Successful civic (or place-based) leadership is likely to involve leadership behaviour that spans the boundaries of our three realms of civic leadership – the political, the managerial and community. This is easy to say and less easy to do. In the five cameos we presented – drawn from practical experience with local leadership and innovation in the USA, Sweden, The Netherlands, Brazil and Colombia – we explored what ‘leadership across boundaries’ might look like in practice. In all the examples we presented it is clear that successful public service innovation depends on building new relationships between different stakeholders. This is, in itself, an important insight – the third sector organisation, the government department, the local authority that thinks it can promote successful innovation by embarking on internal culture change might well be able to do useful work. But our analysis suggests that it is working with others who are outside your organisation, outside your realm of experience, is crucial to the delivery of bold and successful innovations. More specifically, we have suggested that attention should be focused on the innovation zones – the areas of overlap between the different realms of leadership sketched out in Figure 4. If this argument holds the implications for public, private and third sector leadership training and development programmes are profound. The ‘silos’ of leadership training and development will need to be challenged just as much as the departmental ‘silos’ within public and third sector organisations. In a similar vein, as we have already mentioned, innovation is likely to emerge through dialogue between the realms, and it is important to create spaces and opportunities for informal as well as formal dialogue. The cameos in Section 5) illuminate in a vivid way the fact that leadership and public service innovation are closely intertwined – in all five examples we can see that civic (or place-based) leadership made an important difference. Civic leaders shaped the context within which innovatory behaviour could take place. The nature of the problems addressed by local leaders in each of the five cameos varies significantly – in scale (from sub-regional to neighbourhood) and in substance (from economic development through to climate change through to community safety). The cameos suggest that ‘place matters’ and that those seeking to draw lessons for ‘other places’ will need, therefore, to work hard to understand the local political culture. Transferring ideas from one country to another without understanding the local context, the dynamics of country-specific power systems and, indeed, the nature of local politics, is a recipe for failure in cross-national policy exchange. But this does not mean that localities in different parts of the world cannot learn from each other – quite the reverse.

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International learning and exchange As Councillor Richard Kemp indicates in his Preface to this study, local authorities sometimes take the view that learning from abroad is a luxury that can be dispensed with, particularly during a recession. This is short sighted and parochial. Thousands of local authorities, third sector organisations and social enterprises across the world are constantly breaking new ground in relation to the development of policies and practices designed to enhance the quality of life and the quality of local services. It is misguided to take the view that we can learn nothing from them. Indeed, it is also misguided to believe that UK practitioners can contribute nothing to the international debate about local leadership and public service innovation. The sceptics are right, however, to point to examples of poor practice in international dialogue and exchange. Future efforts relating to international learning must avoid the dangers of ‘policy tourism’ and ‘improvement tourism’ – that is, the hasty introduction of a policy or innovation from another country in advance of any thoughtful evaluation of the local applicability of the approach being imported. The superficial approach, involving the mere copying of practice in another country, is to be avoided at all costs. Replicating or copying fails to acknowledge the importance of ‘place’ and can result in the introduction of entirely inappropriate models and approaches. Effective international exchange involves learning, not duplication. This Scoping Study suggests that it is important to focus more attention on the discovery process agencies might use as they engage in international learning. We stressed in Section 4) that there is no such thing as ‘best practice’. National cultures and local histories vary dramatically – not surprisingly local voters in different countries have different ideas and priorities. It follows that the international learning task is not to search for a mythical ‘best’ approach. Rather the aim should be to discover ‘relevant’ practice – that is, insights and approaches that can help agencies respond to the concerns and challenges that face them in their ‘place’. Acceptance of this argument suggests that international exchange should give focussed attention to the processes that brought about change in the foreign locality being examined. Naturally the outcomes will excite interest – who benefited in what way will be of great interest to policy makers. But, if international insights are to drive successful innovation in the UK, we need to understand, in relation to specific innovations in other countries, how change was brought about in relation to a given innovation. What support did higher levels of government give to local leaders? How did local leaders behave? What skills are required? How was collaboration across agencies developed? What organisational forms seem to work well? How was the process of innovation steered and managed? How were citizens and service users involved? What powers and resources did local leaders have? How were they held to account? What obstacles did innovators encounter and how did they surmount them? These are the kinds of questions that UK policy makers

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in central and local government and in third sector organisations are likely to be interested in. Concepts and the language of innovation We have suggested that the words ‘leadership’ and ‘innovation’ are now widely used in debates about public service reform in the UK. But it is not clear that they are well understood. In some settings the words are being used too loosely with the result that effective approaches to lesson drawing are frustrated. In this Scoping Study we have offered some new conceptual frameworks to demystify these words. We hope that these concepts will prove useful to those interested to pursue international learning in relation to civic leadership and public service innovation. Important concepts include:

• The innovation curve. We have suggested that agencies are unlikely to be at the same starting line when it comes to their capacity to innovate. And we have suggested that it is possible to envisage four categories of preparedness: 1) stuck, 2) cautious, 3) adventurous, and 4) outstanding (see Figure 3). Leaders, managers and innovators would do well to consider where they think their organisation (or ‘place’) stands on the innovation curve, and where it hopes to progress to in the next few years. Understanding the emotional as well as practical aspects of the current situation will enable interventions to be well tuned.

• Outstanding organisations are international. We have suggested

that, in relation to local government at least, there has been good progress in recent years in relation to public service improvement. Many local authorities can now be classified as ‘adventurous’. But, in a rapidly globalising world, ‘adventurous’ is not enough. Cutting edge councils will benchmark their performance against the most respected local authorities in the world. It follows that the outstanding local authorities of the future will be international in outlook – they will not see international learning as an attractive ‘add on’, it will be central to their ethos of public service innovation.

• Civic leadership – understanding the three realms. We have

presented a new conceptual framework for thinking about and developing the leadership capacity of particular places. This approach to civic leadership – which we also describe as ‘place-based’ leadership - distinguishes three overlapping realms of leadership. All three realms are important and all need to be nurtured. This has implications for leadership development programmes at local, regional and national levels. For much of the time we are investing in a ‘silo’ approach to leadership analysis and development. A consequence is that break-through practice linking leaders in the different realms of leadership together is sorely under developed.

• Dispersed leadership and local democracy. This study shows that

inspirational leadership can stem from any of our three realms of civic

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leadership. And it is not just those in senior positions within public and third sector organisations who carry important leadership roles, rather there is leadership at the grassroots and the street level that could be better supported, encouraged and listened to. Our civic leadership conceptual framework highlights this – see Figures 5, 6 and 7 – and it also emphasises the value of the dynamic interplay between those operating in different realms. Our analysis suggests that effective ‘place-based’ leadership involves actors from the different realms building new kinds of relationship, and that successful innovation often involves the empowerment of local communities in intriguing new ways. It follows that the public service innovation agenda is enmeshed in important ways with the revitalising local democracy agenda.

• International lesson drawing. There are major opportunities for

improving the process of international lesson drawing in relation to civic leadership and public service innovation. In a rapidly globalising world it is important for governments, professionals and third sector organisations to pay much more attention to international trends and developments. We have criticised the practice of ‘policy tourism’ and we have also suggested that there is no such thing as ‘best practice’. Successful cross-national lesson drawing is more sophisticated – it needs to focus on ‘relevant practice’, which is practice that is relevant to the needs of the locality seeking new insights.

• Engaged scholarship. UK universities, often supported by funding

from one of the research councils, have contributed to the field of comparative government and public policy. Some of this work has connected in a fruitful way to policy debates about public service improvement and innovation. Academics can bring a fresh eye to the challenges governments face and can help to develop the evidence base underpinning public policy. However, universities can be criticised for neglecting the scholarship of application. The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) has skewed research effort away from the idea of engaging with practice in the co-production of knowledge. This idea of ‘engaged scholarship’ is well established in, for example, the USA and this has assisted the development of innovative practices at all levels of American government – local community, city, state and federal. There would seem to be abundant opportunities for developing engaged scholarship in the UK in relation to civic leadership and public service innovation. But the flows of research funding – as shaped by the higher education funding councils and the research councils - will need to be reshaped significantly if the public policy needs of the country are to benefit from the substantial intellectual resources of our universities.

Pointers for the UK In Section 5) we presented five cameos of civic leadership and public service innovation in five other countries. At the end of each cameo we identified ‘pointers for the UK’. In the spirit of developing a learning approach these

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‘pointers’ are not presented as ‘conclusions’. Rather they identify questions that are worth asking in the UK context as a stimulus to fresh thinking. We do not repeat the pointers from each cameo in this final section. Instead we seek to identify some broader themes stemming from our analysis that would merit attention by colleagues working in the public sphere (whether inside or outside government) and by those responsible for future research and development relating to civic leadership and public service innovation (in government, in research councils, in universities, in foundations and elsewhere). In developing these suggestions we take account of the changing economic climate and of the need to achieve value for money in research and development work. 1) Settings for advancing civic leadership and public service innovation Steps can be taken at all levels of governance and professional networks, informally as well as formally, to promote discussion and idea development around the links between civic leadership and public service innovation. New settings may need to be created for these discussions, because they will need to bring together voices from the different realms of civic leadership, paying attention to power dynamics that might exclude non-elite and grassroots/street-level voices. These conversations could, for example, be promoted in the following arenas:

• National – through conferences, seminars and workshops hosted by, for example, central and local government working together, by the Local Authority Research Council Initiative (LARCI) and/or by third sector agencies

• Devolved and Regional – targeted on concerns identified, for example, by the devolved governments in the UK and the new Joint Regional Boards (JRBs) and/or Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs)

• Sub-regional – as part of the development of Multi-Area Agreements (MAAs) and/or the new Economic Prosperity Boards (EPBs)

• Local – as part of the work of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs). Some councils, for example, Barnsley, have a rich network of international contacts

• Local, regional and national autonomous spaces in civil society – community and voluntary sector leaders enlarge and strengthen their own spaces for dialogue, and invite in officers and political leaders

One important dimension for these conversations – at all the levels just outlined - is the ‘European’ dimension. It is clear that more can be done to enhance local performance by taking advantage of European links. For example:

• Do localities take full advantage of their European MPs? • As regions roll forward their RIEPs should they aim to be much more

outward focused paying more attention to European opportunities?

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• Are the various ‘European Offices’ in our systems of local governance concentrating too much attention on the Brussels bureaucracy when a broader approach to international learning might be needed?

• Are councils taking full advantage of the various European networks that already exist – for example, Eurocities and the Assembly of European Regions

• Can professional international networks provide a means of conducting research and exchange?

2) Leadership development programmes in the UK Bring together leaders of the existing leadership development programmes for councillors and public officials that bear on civic leadership and public service innovation to consider the ideas presented in this Scoping Study. These leaders should include figures from the Public Sector Leadership Alliance but should also include those concerned with leadership development in the community/voluntary sector. The thought leaders in the field should be invited to consider whether new leadership development programmes linking together the different realms of civic leadership should be created. And, if so, invite them to consider the approach and content of such new civic leadership development programmes. It would also be desirable to engage in discussions with the political parties and professional networks to explore their thinking on the potential for international learning in relation to public service reform. 3) Enhancing international thinking and practice Consider developing a range of initiatives designed to highlight the practical benefits of international learning and exchange. Strands in such an approach could include:

• Encouraging those who have engaged in fruitful international exchange to share their experiences (in workshops, print and on the web)

• Consider inviting carefully selected international speakers to contribute to the regular UK national conferences (relating to public service reform and local government)

• Support focussed bridge building with appropriate organisations in other countries concerned with civic leadership and public service innovation

• Celebrate successful international exchanges that have led to practical progress in the UK

• Promote ‘virtual’ visits where ‘e-visitors’ are shown around by the host local authority

• Establish within professional networks a framework for organised secondments to develop international experience and knowledge

4) Civic leadership – a Whitehall initiative on ‘place-based’ leadership

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Central government departments approach leadership development in a variety of ways and some – for example, DfID – have extensive international experience. Consider bringing together relevant officials from different Whitehall departments - for example, CLG, DIUS, HO, DfID and others – to share ideas on how to improve ‘place-based’ leadership. This could provide an opportunity to enhance collaboration around three closely related themes: community empowerment, civic leadership and public service innovation. 5) Bridging academe and governance LARCI is already taking action to build bridges between the worlds of academe and governance. For example, LARCI has a placement scheme providing academics with opportunities to apply work for a government organisation for a period of time. This approach can be built on. For example, LARCI and allied organisations could consider ways of recognising and celebrating scholarly work that results in a constructive impact on public policy. A range of measures could, perhaps, act as an incentive to academics to develop their policy oriented skills and make a more active contribution to the civic leadership and public service innovation agenda. For example:

• Research councils could identify well respected examples of engaged scholarship and celebrate them in relevant research council newsletters and websites and in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) process

• LARCI could offer annual prizes for the most impressive examples of researcher/practitioner collaboration

• Scholars could be seconded into governance organisations for time limited periods to enhance the innovatory capacity of government and third sector agencies

• Successful change managers in the systems of governance could be appointed as Visiting Practitioner Professors in universities across the country

6) Research and development to embed international learning There would seem to be significant opportunities for developing international research and development programmes to bring about significant advances in thinking and practice relating to civic leadership and public service innovation. These programmes can be taken forward at a number of levels:

• Research councils could consider whether they could give more attention to stimulating cross-national learning and exchange as they develop future calls for proposals. The international committees of each research council could be invited to suggest how they would like to promote more engaged scholarship.

• Research foundations that have an interest in civic leadership and public service innovation could be encouraged to consider expanding the funds they make available for cross-national research and development

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• Central government departments could consider being more active in promoting cross-national comparative research on civic leadership and public service innovation

• The Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the Higher Education Funding Council as well as university Vice Chancellors should be invited to give far more attention to the encouragement of engaged scholarship

• Those responsible could consider whether some of the substantial funding currently allocated nationally to various forms of public service inspection should be redirected to support practical initiatives relating to international lesson drawing

• Each region could consider whether their regional research and development programme should include an international component, possibly including links with another region in the world experiencing similar challenges

• The local government agencies – the LGA, IDeA, SOLACE etc – could consider how to promote more active approaches to cross-national learning in their ongoing programmes

• Individual local authorities and third sector organisations could consider whether targeted pieces of international work would assist them with their public innovation activities.

• International professional networks, such as SOLACE, UDITE (The Federation of Local Authority Chief Executives) and ICMA (International City and County Managers Association)

In closing we would like to highlight the fact that this is a Scoping Study, not a research report. Our aim is to scan the broad field and offer suggestions and insights that we hope can assist a wide range of stakeholders to think new thoughts and develop constructive lines of action. We believe that the proposals outlined here could enhance the cost-effectiveness of government considerably. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the Local Authority Research Council Initiative (LARCI) and Communities and Local Government (CLG) for funding this Scoping Study. We are most grateful to the members of the Civic Leadership Steering Group (see Appendix 1) for taking the time and trouble to give us their insights and comments. We would also like to thank the following organisations for sponsoring the International Insights series in 2008 as this provided the launch pad for this Scoping Study: the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), the Local Government Association (LGA), the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE), the European Association of Chief Executives (UDITE), the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), the European Urban Research Association (EURA) and Municipal Journal (MJ).

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About the authors Professor Robin Hambleton Professor of City Leadership, Cities Research Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol. Joanna Howard, Research Fellow M Phil (Development Studies) and Research Fellow, Cities Research Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol. Michael Buser, Researcher MSc and PhD candidate, Cities Research Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol. Professor Marilyn Taylor Professor Emeritus, Cities Research Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol.

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Appendix 1 Members of the Civic Leadership Steering Group The Steering Group for the Civic Leadership and Public Service Innovation project has had a significant role in shaping the content of the Scoping Study and we are most grateful to them for their inputs and advice. The Steering Group comprises: Chair: Councillor Richard Kemp, International Portfolio Holder, Local Government Association Steering Group Members: Adrian Barker, Strategy Manager, Improvement and Development Agency Wendy Russell Barter, Co-Director, Local Government Research Unit, Communities and Local Government Byron Davies, President of UDITE and Chief Executive of Cardiff City Council Professor Bas Denters, University of Twente, The Netherlands Carole Hassan, Chief Executive, Local Government Yorkshire and Humber Ian Hughes, Local Government International, Local Government Association Alan Jones, Chair of the SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers) International Group and CEO Somerset County Council Su Maddock, Director, Whitehall Innovation Hub, National School of Government Victoria Morrisroe, Research Coordinator, Local Authority Research Council Initiative (LARCI) Maria O’Beirne, Manager, Lead Analyst, Strategic Analysis Unit, Communities and Local Government Matthew Scott, Director, Community Sector Coalition Kathryn Rossiter, Director of Development and Operations, SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers)

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Appendix 2 The international literature on civic leadership and public service innovation In this appendix we provide a guide to some of the published information relating to our broad theme of civic leadership and public service innovation. We include here some texts that seem to have been influential in other countries. No claim is made that this represents a comprehensive bibliography. Rather the aim is to identify some of the texts we have found to be particularly useful. We have organised this list of further sources under six headings. Not surprisingly these categories overlap. We hope, however, that introducing a structure of headings can make the literature more accessible. 1) Leadership and local politics: Includes some of the classic texts as well as material focussed on local government 2) Community leadership: Includes texts relating to leadership and local democracy 3) Public management: Includes material relating to public management reforms 4) Public service innovation: Includes some material relating to public service improvement as well as innovation 5) Comparative and international approaches: Includes some examples of comparative urban research 6) Urban governance: Mainly focussing on the shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’

1) Leadership and Politics

Adair, J. (2002) Inspiring Leadership. Learning from Great Leaders. London: Thorogood Publishing Ltd.

Berg, R. and Rao, N. (eds) (2005) Transforming Local Political Leadership. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave.

Blair T. (1998) Leading the Way. A new vision for local government. London: Institute for Public Policy Research.

Burns J.M. (1978) Leadership. New York: Harper and Row

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Conservative Party (2009) Control Shift: Returning Power to Local Communities. Policy Green Paper No. 9.

Gardner J.W. (1990) On leadership. New York: The Free Press

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. and McKee, A. (2002) The New Leaders. Transforming the Art of Leadership into the Science of Results. London: Times Warner.

Hambleton, R. (2007) “New Leadership for Democratic Urban Space”, pp. 163–176 in Hambleton, R. and Gross, J. S. (eds) Governing Cities in a Global Era. Urban Innovation, Competition and Democratic Reform. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave.

Hay Group (2008) Charisma and Collaboration: the politician as community leader [online] Available from www.thehaygroup.com [accessed 18.02.09]

Heifetz R. A. and Linsky M. (2002) Leadership on the Line. Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading. Boston: Harvard Business School Press

Leach, S. (2006) The Changing Role of Local Politics in Britain. Bristol: Policy Press pp. 51–54;

Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) (2005) Vibrant Local Leadership. London: ODPM.

Svara J. H. (ed.) (1994) Facilitative leadership in local government. Lessons from successful mayors and chairpersons. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

2) Community Leadership

Abers R. (1998) ‘Learning Democratic Practice: Distributing Government Resources through Popular Participation in Porto Alegre, Brazil’, in Douglass M. and Friedmann J. (eds), Cities for Citizens. Planning and the Rise of Civil Society in a Global Age. Chichester: John Wiley, pp. 39-65

Clarke M. and Stewart J. (1998) Community Governance, Community Leadership and the New Local Government. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Community Sector Coalition (2007) Strategic Plan. [online] Available from: www.communitysectorcoalition.org.uk [accessed 27 March 2009]

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Flores A. (2005) Local Democracy in Modern Mexico. A Study in Participatory Methods. Bury St. Edmunds: Arena Books

Kendall, J. (2005) The Voluntary Sector, London: Routledge

Purdue, D., Razzaque, K., Hambleton, R. and Stewart, M. (2000) Community Leadership in Area Regeneration. Bristol: Policy Press.

Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon and Schuster.

Sisk T. (ed.) (2001) Democracy at the Local Level. Stockholm, Sweden: International IDEA

Sullivan, H. and Sweeting, D. (2006) “Interpreting ‘community leadership’ in English local government”, Policy and Politics, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp.141–161.

Taylor, M. (2003) Public Policy in the Community. Basingstoke, UK and New York: Palgrave.

Taylor, M. (2007) ‘Community participation in the real world: opportunities and pitfalls in new governance spaces’, Urban Studies, Vol. 44. No. 2.

Wainwright H. (2003) Reclaim the State. Experiments in Popular Democracy. London: Verso

3) Public Management

Agranoff R. and McGuire M. (2003) Collaborative Public Management: New Strategies for Local Governments. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press

Christensen T. and Laegreid P. (eds) (2001) New public management. Aldershot: Ashgate

Denhardt J.V. and Denhardt R.B. (2003) The New Public Service. Serving, not Steering. Armonk, New York

Haus M., Heinelt H. and Stewart M. (eds) (2005) Urban Governance and Democracy. Leadership and community involvement. Abingdon: Routledge

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Lewis D. (2001) The management of Non-governmental development organizations: an introduction. London. Routledge

Walsh K. (1995) Public services and market mechanisms. Competition, contracting and the new public management. London: Macmillan

4) Public Service Innovation

Burton M. (ed) (2008) Innovation through people. London: SOLACE Foundation Imprint, July

De Groot, L. and Rogers, P. (eds) (2008) Getting so much better all the time. London: SOLACE Foundation Imprint, March.

Doz Y and Kosenen, M (2008) Fast Strategy. How strategic agility will help you stay ahead of the game. The Wharton School Publishing.

Grace C. and Martin S. (2008) Getting better all the time? London: IDeA.

Halkett, R. (2007) Hidden Innovation. London: NESTA

Hartley, J (2006) Innovation and Improvement in local government www.ipeg.org.uk

Maddock, S (2008) Creating the conditions for public service innovation National School of Government www.nationalschool.gov.uk

Mulgan. G (2007) Ready or Not, Taking innovation in the public sector seriously. NESTA.

Parker S., (ed), (2009) More than good ideas: the power of innovation in local government. London: The Beacon Scheme; NESTA; IDeA.

Thomas, E., (ed) (2008) Innovation by design in public services. London: SOLACE Foundation Imprint, November.

5) Comparative and International Approaches

Denters, B. and Rose, L.E., eds, (2005) Comparing Local Governance: trends and developments. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.

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DiGaetano A. and Klemanski J.S. (1999) Power and City Governance. Comparative Perspectives on Urban Development. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

DiGaetano A. & Strom E. (2003) ‘Comparative Urban Governance, an Integrated Approach’, Urban Affairs Review, Vol. 38, pp. 356-95

Dolowitz, D. and Marsh, D. (2000) ‘Learning From Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy Making’, Governance, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 5-24 Hambleton R. and Sweeting D. (2004) ‘US-style leadership for English local government?’, Public Administration Review, Vol. 64, No. 4, pp. 474-488 Heinelt H., Sweeting D., and Getimis P. (eds) (2006) Legitimacy and Urban Governance. A cross-national comparative study. Abingdon: Routledge. Mossberger, K. And Wolman, H. (2003) Policy transfer as a form of prospective policy evaluation: Challenges and Recommendations, Public Administration Review, Vol. 63, No. 4, pp. 428-440 Rose, R. (2005) Learning from Comparative Public Policy: A practical guide, Routledge, Oxon. Savitch, H. V. and Kantor, P. (2002) Cities in the International Marketplace: The Political Economy of Urban Development in North America and Western Europe. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. UCLG (2008) Decentralization and local democracy in the world: first global report by United Cities and Local Governments.

6) Urban Governance

Hambleton R and Gross J.S. eds, (2007) Governing Cities in a Global Era. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Heinelt, H. and Kubler D. (eds) (2005) Metropolitan Governance. Capacity, democracy and the dynamics of place. London and New York: Palgrave

Howard, J and Miller C. (2008) Managing tensions: leadership and NGOs in situated new governance spaces. Paper presented at the VI ISTR Conference, Barcelona (9-12th July 2008)

Kettl D.F. (2002) The Transformation of Governance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press

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Pierre J. (2000) (ed) Debating Governance: Authority, Steering and Democracy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press

Appendix 3 International advisors A large number of scholars and practitioners in other countries provided inputs to this Scoping Study. Without their assistance it would have been impossible to execute this study. Here we acknowledge and thank those colleagues who offered specific inputs to this study. Australia

• Professor Colin Fudge, Pro Vice Chancellor, RMIT University, Melbourne

• Professor Bruce Wilson, Dean, School of Global Studies, Social Science & Planning RMIT University, Melbourne

Austria

• Professor Jens Dangschat, Vienna University of Technology Brazil

• Professor Carlos Vainer, Instituto de Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano e Regional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Canada

• Dr. Richard Stren, Professor Emeritus and Associate, Cities Centre, University of Toronto

Denmark

• Dr. Lars A. Engberg, Senior Researcher, Town, Housing and Property, Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg University

• Dr. Jacob Norvig Larsen, Senior Researcher, Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg University

France

• Patrice Aubertel, Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine, PUCA/METL • Anne Querrien, Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine, PUCA/METL

Germany

• Professor Hubert Heinelt, Technical University of Darmstadt Greece

• Professor Panos Getimis, University of Athens • Professor Nikos Hlepas, University of Athens

Italy

• Professor Sandro Balducci, Politecnico di Milano Mexico

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• Arturo Flores, National Autonomous University of Mexico New Zealand

• Dr. Christine Cheyne, Associate Professor, Resource and Environmental Planning Programme, Massey University

Norway

• Dr. Jan Erling Klausen, Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research

Poland

• Professor Pawel Swianiewicz, University of Warsaw Spain

• Professor Ines Sanchez de Madariaga,, Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid

Sweden

• Trevor Graham, Strategic Development, City of Malmo • Christer Larsson, Director of City Planning, City of Malmo

The Netherlands

• Professor Bas Denters, Faculty of Public Administration, University of Twente

• Dr. Pieter-Jan Klok, Faculty of Public Administration, University of Twente

Turkey

• Ulas Bayraktar, IEP-Paris/University of Mersin United Kingdom

• Andrew Holder, AHA Consultancy • Professor Jenny Pearce, Director of the International Centre for

Participation Studies (ICPS) in the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford

USA

• Professor Jill Simone Gross, City University of New York • Dennis Judd, University of Illinois at Chicago