International Journal of Public Sector Management

Making Local Authority Managers More Businesslike

Ziggi Alexander Neil McEwen
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To cite this document:
Ziggi Alexander Neil McEwen, (1992),"Making Local Authority Managers More Businesslike",
International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 5 Iss 1 pp.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09513559210008750
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 Making Local Authority Local
Authority
Managers More Businesslike Managers
Ziggi Alexander
Birmingham City Council, UK, and
Neil McEwen 39
KPMG and Kinsley Lord Ltd, UK

Since 1987, the energies, resources, skills and political focus of the vast majority
of local authorities in the UK have been dedicated to the reorganization of
selected services, an unparalleled situation set in motion by the introduction
of compulsory competitive tendering legislation. For Birmingham City Council,
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the largest authority in England and Wales, with 51,000 employees operating
from 1,000 service units, the advent of this new legislation was at first accepted
under protest. Rapidly, however, the organization seized on the myriad
opportunities this offered to improve and enhance all aspects of its £1.5 billion
business.
Every part of the organization has been involved in the change process. For
example, under the political leadership of Councillor Bill Gray, Chairman of the
Personnel and Equal Opportunities Committee, the organization's central
Training and Development, Employee Services and Equal Opportunities functions
formulated strategies for supporting planned organizational change. In the initial
stages, the Authority's efforts were concentrated on those departments listed
in the schedules but there was an almost immediate recognition of the fact that
the necessary changes could not be cosmetic, as some of the substantive issues
underlying the legislation — value for money, efficiency, effectiveness and greater
accountability — called for radical reassessment of the cultural, structural and
political organization of the City Council, and a modern infrastructure and new
policies to meet the challenges of the 1990s.
The whole organization, members, the chief executive, chief officers and
employees would have to implement major changes if the City Council was to
continue effective local government into the next decade, and retain and further
develop its successful record of meeting the service needs of its 1,000,000
citizens, customers and clients. The strategy for planned organizational change
necessitated thorough reviews of the totality of practice in the City Council
at both operational and corporate levels. The areas of review included:
• working methods
• employee levels
• management structures
• accountability and information systems
International Journal of Public
• communication networks Sector Management, Vol. 5 No. 1.
1992. pp. 39-44. © MCB
• appointment arrangements University Press. 0951-3558
 IJPSM • recruitment
5,1 • retention and employee development policies
• pay and conditions and
• member/officer roles.
It was clear that the education, training and development of all employees and
40 members was a key element in achieving the strategic objectives of the City
Council.
The main factors informing this change process were:
• commercial awareness
• marketing of services, products and expertise
• customer focus (learning from service users)
• strategic thinking
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• cost centre accounting

• financial awareness (including income generation)
• performance management
• efficient management of assets
• improved communications systems
• value for money
• human resources issues.
In 1988, as part of the overall strategy, and in addition to managing the change
process, elected members undertook a self-assessment exercise to determine
their own training needs. Concurrently, the City Council conducted its own
needs analysis across all departments. Proposed reforms in the Education system
and in local government housing management were particularly pertinent to
this study. The information was supplemented by a commissioned skills audit
of a sample of senior DSO managers.
These diagnostic exercises revealed a number of important issues. For
example, it was discovered that, for the most part, many of the necessary skills
for a more commercial approach already existed within the organization. Further,
a large proportion of managers considered the new situation to be a challenge
which they hoped would result in greater responsibility, innovation and risk taking
in their jobs. In fact, in preparation for what many perceived to be a very different
future, they had looked to other sectors of the organization which had experience
of tendering for work, operating practice accounts and highly developed customer
care practices for advice and information, in order to begin to assess the potential
impact of the "new order" on their own services and employees. Others looked
to the private sector for models of best practice. However, the majority had
already identified improved communication within and between the political and
officer structures as providing the greatest opportunity for success.
 The need to design training for both client and contractor functions was seen Local
to be critical to success. It was also evident by the range of concerns expressed Authority
about overhead levels, and the one organization versus the federal concept, Managers
that being fit for competition was deemed to be a useful framework for many
services not yet subject to compulsory competition, particularly central services.

The City Council's Response

In Birmingham City Council, the Personnel function is a devolved responsibility 41
of individual Chief Officers and the centre's role in supporting departments is
mainly focused on strategic issues. The City Council, through the Directorate
of Management and Personnel, set about examining the range of organizational
issues summarized above and the training solutions which might be most effective
within a two-year implementation plan. At the same time, service Chief Officers
took on board the departmentally specific elements of the training needs
identified.
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There was an agreed commitment to train both client and contractor functions
as a priority but the need to provide departmentally specific and corporate
training opportunities for other sectors of the organization was accepted readily.
It was correctly assessed that most of the training could be designed and
delivered using in-house resources and expertise. The overall training programme
was ambitious, not only with respect to the quantity of events being scheduled,
but also because it was understood that the quality of the training activities
would be a critical factor in the future success of the in-house teams. However,
in four areas it was agreed that it would benefit the Authority to commission
external consultant support:
• Business planning
• Marketing
• Negotiation skills
• Customer care (internal).
The specification contained a number of conditions, including a requirement
that the training of approximately 200 managers and supervisors should be
completed within four months of the award of the contract. A further vital issue
was grasped by Birmingham City Council in awarding the contract, namely the
need to demonstrate cost-effectiveness and achieve long-term goals from the
consultancy as well as the achievement of the short-term task.
Specifically the City Council wished to use the consultancy to enhance the
training skills of its in-house team and work with consultants who had the
knowledge, expertise and the consulting skills to change role as the consultancy
progressed. The Authority awarded the contract to KPMG Peat Marwick
Management Consultants.
The Design and Development of the Training Programmes
The critical success factor in the contract between KPMG Peat Marwick
Management Consultants and the City Council was the establishment of a
relationship and a style of working which not only developed the content and
 IJPSM process of the training courses but also sought to modify the relationship between
5,1 consultant and client as the training programme progressed.
Given the context in which the courses were being delivered, that of:
• radical changes to the ways in which the City Council's departments
conducted their work
• the need to develop completely new knowledge and skills
42 • uncertainty and anxiety over the future
• the necessity to respond quickly and positively to the speed of change,
it was essential that the courses were seen to be relevant and useful to the
participants because the training itself had to be part of the process of attitudinal
change. The perceived failure of the courses would have a "knock-on" effect
on the capability of managers to adjust to the contextual factors listed above.
Therefore the courses were designed to give participants confidence in what
they were capable of achieving in the future. Specifically the courses were to
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be practical and experiential, involving mixed groups of managers at different

levels from all the client and contractor departments, although contractors and
clients were to be trained separately. The courses would concentrate on
developing the participants' knowledge and skills in the key factors listed earlier
which inform the change process.
With the exception of a negotiating skills course, which was a pure "skills
development" programme, all the other courses sought to place the key
objectives within a wider framework. Therefore the courses were more than:
• How to write a business plan
• How to develop a marketing strategy
• What do we mean by customer care?
Each course was designed to enable the participants to develop the thought
processes, techniques and attitudes which put the actual task into a context.
Thus, to take the example of the business-planning course, before constructing
a business plan, it was essential to explore for each area of the City Council's
activity (e.g. refuse collection, groundcare, leisure provision) the following issues:
• What are the current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
to the service?
• What are the critical success factors, "do wells", for that service in
relation to the competition?
• Who are the competition and on what basis do they compete, i.e. cost,
quality or some combination of both?
• What strategic alternatives are available?
• What strategy will they adopt?
• How will they express that strategy in their business plan and how will
they cost it out?
• On what basis can judgement be made on the quality of the business plan?
Having answered these questions, the participants were then able to tackle a
 case study, created for the course, which involved group co-operation in the Local
writing of a plan. A similar process was undertaken for the Marketing Strategy Authority
and Customer Care courses and each course then went on to demand of the Managers
participants the simple question: "OK, so you have written your Business
Plan/Marketirig Strategy/Customer Care programme. Now how are you going
to implement it successfully?"
Thus the programmes developed creative problem-solving techniques, group
brainstorming and Force Field Analysis, to enable each participant to go away 43
from the course with a Personal Action Plan. This plan, created and reviewed
with the help of other participants, involved each person in considerations and
decisions on key objectives and actions to implement strategies and tactics for
change in their own departments.
Further, a follow-up process was instituted through the Directorate of
Management and Personnel, which enabled all the participants to meet some
three months after the end of the course, to report on the progress of their
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action plan and enlist the help of the group, consultants and in-house trainers
in modifying and developing the plan in the light of time and circumstance.

The Client/Consultant Relationship

As stated earlier, Birmingham City Council and KPMG Peat Marwick
Management Consultants were concerned not only with the production of
successful training programmes for the clients and contractors but also with
the transfer of knowledge and skills from the consultants to the in-house trainers.
The key feature in the design, development and delivery of the programmes
was that of "joint" involvement. It was vital that the training should be a
management development experience, not only for those involved in client and
contractor functions but also for the in-house trainers who were entering
uncharted waters in the areas of commercial business-planning and marketing
strategies.
Therefore it was agreed that the consulting contract would entail a progressive
disengagement of the KPMG Peat Marwick Consultants in order to transfer
the ownership of the courses to the in-house training team. The role played
by the consultants went through a series of significant changes as the course
programme progressed. Initially the role was that of the consultant as an outside
"expert", possessing knowledge and skills in the operation of commercial
business but through the transfer of the knowledge and skills the role changed
to that of co-tutor, to guide and facilitator and thence to adviser. The sequence
of role change in relation to the course progression through time can be seen
in Figure 1.
Conclusions
The evidence so far is that the training programmes have been successful. To
date some 200 managers have been through the programmes and have rated
the experience highly, although the real proof of success will be in the number
of contracts which are awarded to the City Council's own employees, the
efficiency and effectiveness with which the contracts are monitored and
administered, and the satisfaction of customers.
 IJPSM
5,1

44
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Both Birmingham City Council and KPMG Peat Marwick Management

Consultants feel that the training model which has been adopted is one which
local authorities and other clients of consultants should adopt in the future.
The key lesson is one of the necessity of joint involvement, of developing not
only the knowledge and skills of the course participants but also the training
skills of the client, so that the client has ownership of the programme and its
future development. To do this requires considerable forethought and careful
planning and timing, together with an open relationship between the client and
consultants.
Both parties gain a great deal from the relationship. For the client, the benefit
lies in the development of in-house skills and ownership of the programme.
From the consultant's point of view, the satisfaction lies in the ability to be
involved in and influence the whole process of change, and being able to
participate in not just the initiation but also the implementation of new ideas,
methods and means of service delivery.