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

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 It’s an approach that relies on basic number crunching, zooming out on maps and adopting outdated models of local government service delivery.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

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

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

The Government’s devolution aims have been summed up so far in headlines focusing on mayoral powers and the consolidation of councils. But this week’s white paper in fact reveals an urgent demand for reform and renewal.

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

By Olly Swann

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

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

By Samantha Jury-Dada

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

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

By Samantha Jury-Dada

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

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

By Chris Twigg, Chief Executive

Growing a business to respond to a growing market need is both a privilege and a test. ICC was set up more than a decade ago to support the public sector, and in the years since, we have worked hard with clients to build local government organisations fit for a century in which people’s lives have changed dramatically.

By Lucy Webb and Roland Karthaus

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

by Evie John, Managing Director

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

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