Consultation and Research: Where’s the boundary?

That’s twice I’ve come across the phrase “Decide Announce Defend” (DAD) as an mnemonic that describes the bad old days of planning when plans were made without public participation and then defended with all their/our might! The world’s changed. People are empowered in all areas of life and they like it.  They may not vote, or take part in your latest consultation excercise but they want the opportunity. So now we consult a lot but what are we doing with the results?  How do we sort the wheat from the chaff? How do we avoid capture by the squeeky wheel? Is the lack of representativeness of the voices heard in consultation a problem? Those who say no argue that its the process that counts. “We need to strengthen our democratic institutions by allowing voices to be heard” they say.  I say, yes but…..if its policy analysis you are doing, you need more than that.  You need to be able to objectively assess the pros and cons of different policy options; how many people will be affected and how will they react? You simply cant get this information from consultation unless it is scientifically designed and analysed by people who know what they are doing.  Consultation has its place but its only part of the solution. If we rely on consultation alone, we’ll ignore it when it suits us and we’ll be back to “Decide Announce Defend”.  Indeed, in the face of better informed communities and better opportunities to have a say, there even more need for soundly researched strategies that can be used in a dialogue with the community. Consultation becomes a series of steps, fisrtly hearing concerns, then discussion options and finally evaluating options.  The develoment of options can draw on the consultation but the analysis must be based on scientific research principals. The audiences for the different stages of consultation may differ and the squeeky wheel hopefully will be put in its place.

Managing Culture Change

The public debate about the Auckland Supercity is about governance and efficiency. But to make it work requires an immense effort to align the cultures of different councils and create one unified organisation where the focus is on the residents not on internal issues. Organisational culture is like a brand, the term “employer brand” is gaining currency in HR circles. Like brands, organisational culture includes both tangible and intangible elements with the intangible being the most complex but also the most important. You can design all the right IT systems and workstations but if the organisation’s heart is in the wrong place it wont work. Organisations have personalities the same as brands do. Market researchers have become trained to use different breeds of dogs as representative of different personalities. While this may sound bizarre, have a look at these two dogs and think about which one you would want you children to play with?

Old English Sheepdog	Staffordshire Terrier
Calm and accepting. Gets bitten often (but doesn’t realise).	Aggressive and independent. Bites!

 

So what kind of cultures do we have at the moment?  Here’s a little game you can play at the office:

Council	Breed?	Interpretation?
Auckland City
North Shore City
Rodney District
Waitakere City
Manukau City
Papakura District
Franklin District
ARC
IDEAL FOR THE SUPERCITY?

 

We had a go but chickened out from publishing it!  We did agree that the traditional Sheepdog (the Kiwi kind) would be a good ideal to strive for. It’s hard working but seems to enjoy its work, it is intelligent, learns quickly, follows instructions and doesn’t carry any extra weight.

Now, how do we create this from what we have at the moment? Over to you Laila Harre!

Life without growth?

As a young impressionable economics undergraduate I recall being intriged by E.J Misham’s 1969 classic “The Cost of Economic Growth”. Misham wrote about the environmental impacts of resource depletion as more recent writers who talk about the survival of our civilisation  depending on reduced consumption and greater concern for the environment (e.g. Ronald Wright’s “A short history of progress”). Published research by my old employer Research International, back in 1989, showed that changing behaviour (like paying more for environmentally friendly detergents) would only happen when consumers felt personally threatened by the trends. If we look around us now we can see a big  increase in environmentally friendly products but is it enogh?

I often wonder what would life without growth be like? Would it be the panacea of living off the land, recycling everything, less stress, more time to be friendly to neighbours? or would it be like one long recession?  Higher unemployment, no new technology, endless repeats on telly, make the car last for 20 years instead of 10!  Maybe there’s a middle path? But to keep on the middle path, can capitalism survive?  Is state control the only alternative? Certainly, some of the Green Party talk suggests much greater state intervention to achieve the outcomes they want.

The answer must be that we create markets for environmentally friendly products and services, that we factor in resource use into our spending decisions. However, the problems we are having with the Emissions Trading Scheme are symptomatic of the difficulties.  Somehow we need to change our concepts of progress; replace the GDP measures of progess with a Happiness Index or the GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) that we have heard so much about? My thinking, based on the Research International study, is that we are going to have to endure a lot more pain before these changes take place. Sad really isnt it!

Systemic and other risks of the Auckland Super City

Government proposals will mean Weaker not Stronger Local Democracy in Auckland

The government has called for submissions about the role and functions of local boards in the new governance structures in Auckland.  It sees the role of local boards as vital to the functioning of local democracy but doesn’t appear to want them to have any powers other than the right to be consulted. Currently the seven territorial local authorities in Auckland have much greater autonomy and powers than the proposed local boards. There is a risk that this reduces local democracy. Such an outcome could, in turn, undermine local decision-making and reduce social cohesion. You can’t take away the power and strengthen communities at the same time. At least local boards must have the capacity to make effective decisions for their areas and communities and an expectation that they will be implemented.

The possible justification for the proposed structure is service efficiency.  This can be delivered by aligning local and regional interests, on the one hand, and ensuring the appropriate agencies are used to deliver services on the other, as provided for in the government’s proposal. However, it is important both in the interests of good decision-making and in the interests of the city’s and its communities’ development that we do not overlook social issues. Social exclusion has a way of creeping up on us and destroying the gains from efficiency anyway; witness the reaction to Margaret Thatcher’s “efficiency” reforms of the late 1970’s and the street riots that followed in 1981 in London and Liverpool.

Is there a Danger in Making the Auckland Council Too Big?

With the collapse of the world’s financial markets, questions are being raised about organisations or systems that become too big and too important to fail.  The bailing out of the US and UK banks is one example, another is the difficulty a monolithic General Motors had in adjusting to the new realities of the global car market:

Concerns about dependency on large organisations are receiving increased scrutiny under the heading of “Systemic Risk”.  Some commentators[1] suggest that we should have limits on the size and power of organisations to avoid over-dependence on one organisation. Increasing efficiency from economies of scale is the argument for ever larger organisations, but we need to consider the point at which diseconomies set in, and the amplified risks that come from their failure.

Governments, as the biggest monopolies in most states are also subject to systemic risks, the same as private organisations. The risk lies not just in their possible failure – usually a prelude to a coup d’état – but more often in the magnitude of the mistakes that they can make.  If they don’t work we can’t abolish them, we just have to pay to fix up their mistakes!  At the moment, commentators are becoming increasingly concerned at the amount of debt governments have decided to shoulder in response to the threat of global recession.  Closer to home, the principle of government failure was illustrated by the impact of Think Big projects.  Benefits turned to costs as the assumptions about world energy prices underlying this bold but risky programme of public spending proved unfounded. 

In local government, the principle of “subsidiarity” is one antidote to this risk.  This is the principle that decisions (and power to make these decisions) should be taken at the level closest to the people and organisations affected wherever possible. This spreads the risk of failure, and reduces the consequences when it does occur.  It should enhance efficiency by ensuring that outcomes are well targeted. It empowers local communities to make their own decisions, and strengthens social cohesion through local participation.

As a starting point, this places the onus of proof on the larger organisation to back its case for managing powers and functions at a higher level.  The question of decision-making delegation and sharing may be an appropriate starting point for the new council as it deliberates on how it will implement a governance regime that is an improvement on those of its predecessors.

There is a risk that the reforms underway assume an opposite starting point: start with large, centralised decision powers unless smaller, devolved arrangements can be proven to present no encumbrances to the top down structure proposed.  Yet, the more centralised decision-making becomes, the greater the risk of systemic failure.

Think of the proposed transport CCO for example. It looks attractive to have all the transport functions under one umbrella but what if it’s just too complex to manage? Or becomes captured by vested interests? The current structure may be unwieldy but we need to build checks and balances into a new one, especially if it is to be all-encompassing, as a sensible, risk avoidance measure.

In conclusion, considerations of risk, effective decision-making, social equity, and community development mean that we should think hard about the benefits of subsidiary in determining the range of powers and responsibilities assigned to the local boards and the scope of activities delegated to the new Community Controlled Organisations and adopted by the Auckland Council under the new structure for Auckland’s governance.

www.npr.co.nz

 

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[1]e.g.  Duncan Watts “Six Degrees” from Harvard Business Review.