By Kieran Birse

Local councils have been hit severely by high debt, low productivity and even lower morale. This isn’t a sudden occurrence, but a culmination of over a decade of budget cuts and a series of global catastrophes. A study found that 131 of the 151 upper tier councils in England are in a deficit with no clear funding plan and more recently it was discovered that some councils are spending more on debt than any other services. Spelthorne Council, as an example, spent £36 million servicing debt while spending £22.8 million on services like transport and social care.  With service cuts and strikes over pay and conditions still looming across the country, it may be time to take a different approach and re-organise local councils into self-managing teams, allowing for higher productivity, lower costs and increased job satisfaction.

This idea is not a radical one and is certainly not new. It is being used by many organisations across the world, including the UK, and has been implemented and studied in local governments in the United States - the findings of which saw a measurable increase in productivity and job satisfaction with a focus on how teamwork is key.

A report from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) found that 49% of UK workers dislike their manager and would even take a pay cut in order to work with someone better. They also found that almost four out of five of managers are ‘accidental managers’, not aspiring to a management career, and simply falling into it. These statistics spell out a dangerous combination that shows UK institutions are lacking in the basics of leadership and support for its frontline workers. Converting to a self-management structure, in theory, could produce that support structure among themselves by giving the frontline workers the trust to get the job done.

Valve, a video game producer worth over a billion dollars, has been manager-free since its founding in 1996. Their employee handbook states “Hierarchy is great for maintaining predictability and repeatability” which is arguably essential for organisations like the army, to control large groups of people. What we need in local government is the freedom to allow for innovation and creativity that Valve have apparently perfected.

For some, success has been found without the input of a ‘Chief’. Mayden, a successful health-tech company based in the UK, switched to a structure where “everyone would have an equal say in the life and direction of the company.". Incorporated in 2000, they are at the forefront of innovation in data analytics for the benefit of their numerous stakeholders. This company has no CEO and decisions are made in a democratic fashion.

This system also works for the old-school warehouse setting. The Morning Star Company is responsible for the majority of tomatoes and tomato-based products in California and is worth around $700million. The company was founded in the 1950s and boasts a no-management structure, citing ‘empowerment of the workers’ and ‘making the mission the boss’ as the recipe for success.

In other words - the self-managing system works.

Branches of local authority would need to build their own system to work for their style of operation. Public infrastructure maintenance, social housing, finance, waste management and social care could all be streamlined and future-proofed by ridding them of stagnant leadership, giving the front-line workers the freedom to make quicker decisions, with more effective crisis management and maximise productivity. This could lead to a vast reduction in wasted capital and unbelievable levels of innovation to secure the services for the future.

One of the most painful issues facing local councils is social care. Plagued with issues, normally being blamed on a lack of central government funding funding. A study by the RSA in 2019 found that funding is only a part of the problem, claiming that reorganising the sector into self-managing teams could ‘save social care’. Of the challenges identified, the study highlighted ‘the inability of bureaucratic, hierarchical organisational models to respond to complex needs’ showing that a valuable institution, again lacks the basics of leadership and support it needs to be effective. They reference the work of Fredrick Laloux, a pioneer in the theory of self-managing teams and Buurtzorg, a care organisation employing over 4000 nurses implementing Laloux’s theoriea. Buurtzorg highlight the following benefits:

• Flexibility of service provisions
• Increasing quality of work life
• Less absenteeism and reduced employee turnover
• Increased job satisfaction
• Organisational commitment

These benefits are everything the UK care sector is lacking. My wife was a social care worker throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and left the profession soon after. The physical demand, toxic workplace culture and lack of support or the correct tools to properly care for her clients eventually took its toll and she was unable to continue. This is not an isolated incident. A report from Skills for Care suggests that the turnover rate for carers in England was 29% for 2022 - the equivalent of 400,000 carers leaving the workforce. With the current social care vacancies sitting at 165,000, this has implications for the supply and demand for adult social care in the future. One of the founders of Buurtzorg, Jos de Blok, states their organisation overheads sit at 8% where the average for other such organisations are around 25%. Jos states the Buurtzorg owes this figure to their organisational model which has left them more room to pay higher wages alongside funding better care and innovation.

Innovation is the key to survival in most modern societies. It can allow you to stay a few steps ahead of the competition and ready for any disaster that comes your way. Public opinion is what drives fundamental change in democracy and the current levels of  satisfaction with the care sector are at an all-time-low. Change is coming. I do not propose that we sack every line-manager in the local council operations, but that we look objectively at what they can achieve. If they retire or leave, should they be replaced? Would their services be better used in other areas? Not all aspects of local authority may thrive without a single point of leadership - more research is needed to determine this. What is clear though, is that the state of the country is evolving, and we need to evolve alongside it or risk falling behind and leaving the most vulnerable in society to suffer for it.

About the author:

Kieran Birse is studying for a BA degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and is currently on DD103 – Investigating the Social World.