Leadership and service improvement: Dual elites or dynamic dependency?

Abstract

Effective local leadership is at the heart of the Government's ‘modernisation agenda’. Official pronouncements suggest a fairly straightforward division of roles between elected members who, it is argued, are responsible for community leadership, and officers who should provide corporate leadership of the local authority organisation. In practice, however, executive members frequently find themselves involved in decisions relating to the management and delivery of services. Where the leadership responsibilities of councillors and officers coincide, the compatibility of their different perspectives assumes critical importance. Large scale surveys of officers' and members' perceptions, conducted in 2001, 2002 and 2003, suggest that whereas the views of leading members are in tune with those of corporate officers, there are significant differences between their views and those of chief officers and service managers. There is therefore potential for confusion and conflict between the roles of senior managers and leading members, which may have important implications both for officer–member relations and the improvement agenda.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the large numbers of local authority officers and elected members who responded to our surveys. We are also indebted to our colleagues in the Best Value evaluation team for their contribution to research design.

Notes

This article draws on data collected for, and funded by, ODPM as part of its long-term evaluation of Best Value. The findings reported here are not however, part of the evaluation and the views expressed are those of the authors alone.