This article is written by Andrew Phillips, National Management Trainee, Brent Council

As a recent graduate into Local Government, I had a few preconceptions about what the job would be like.

The comments I got from friends revolved around stereotypes of bureaucracy, process and bin collections. I could not help but worry that these comments would hold a semblance of truth. Thankfully, that’s not been my experience at all after the first six months in the job — local government can and does make a difference.

I want more people to engage in a career in local government, and here are a few of the things I have learned along the way.

Go to your local council meetings

The new normal is for services to amalgamate — the extent to which surprised me. In order to attract young people and graduates — many of whom may also receive offers from the private sector — work needs to be varied and not one dimensional. Local Government is no longer regarded as the “job for life” it once was, and this ought to be factored into the nature of the work.

In my job, I get the opportunity to be on four separate six-month placements in different areas of the council, which means that I have an opportunity to experience sometimes vastly different management and leadership styles. It’s been a steep learning curve in discovering what works and what doesn’t in different departments, as I’ve been in both customer-facing roles as well as placements that are predominantly strategic in nature.

What I now associate with local government is a collective passion to serve, transformational leadership and a desire to enliven communities

Navigating the political sphere is a key skill and is tied to civic duty — the relationships between councillors and officers is one that is vital in forming a successful and well-run council, with open and clear communication. The officer/councillor relationship is crucial. I have enjoyed it, and it creates a feeling of being involved in a whole process and seeing a decision through from beginning to end. My advice to a new graduate would be to attend as many whole council meetings as possible in order to understand the whole democratic process as well as contextualising day to day work.

Towards a new model for public servants

The culture of local government and work is changing.

The modern public servant and potential leaders of the future need to be adaptable and possess transferable skills, as well as the “soft” skills that are a part of modern leadership. In order to cultivate a spirit of innovation, I have found it important to foster a culture where it’s ok to be wrong and to continually improve rather than to be risk-averse and always stick to tried and testing methods. It is not all about saying how you can fit into the workforce now, but about how can we change and adapt for the future, creating new visions and new roles. This is the attitude I’ve experienced during my first year of local government.

Without this innovation, everything will remain the same, and the role of a new graduate should not always be to adhere to the status quo but also to put forward and produce new ideas that can challenge that narrative. I have assumed that role in the initial stages of my career. The way people build relationships and positive outcomes is through transformational leadership rather than siloed working. The “soft skills” required for those roles are ones which generally don’t change, irrespective of department.

Local government is certainly never boring

This is not only a positive development for junior public servants, but also for the workforce — modern public servants must be adaptable, which means less and less siloed working and a strong grasp of how local government operates.

We don’t all agree what it means to be a modern public servant, but from my experience so far there are certainly steps which can be taken to develop future leaders. In terms of what that means for management, future leaders in local government will need to be versatile and able to move across different sectors. With different departments, it will be necessary to include knowledge of various sectors as opposed to a closed knowledge — evidently, that does not include the provision of specialised knowledge in sectors, for example in social care and children’s services. These skill-sets will need to remain, but partnership working is now the norm, not a competing approach.

Going forward

What I now associate with local government is a collective passion to serve, transformational leadership and a desire to enliven local communities. These values bind us together. The different ways of achieving these aims are key, and we should never be afraid to innovate.

Whether that be areas as disparate as bin collections, commissioning or Public Health initiatives the key process remains the same. I am yet to encounter a colleague who is not trying to do things for the better of residents. The main takeaway has been this: local government is certainly never boring. — Andrew Phillips

(Picture credit: Unsplash)

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