1200 words (13 minutes reading time) by Lancing Farrell

In his post on the Victorian local government enquiry, Colin Weatherby mentioned the Wigan Deal as an example of how councils can avoid the politics of sacrifice – i.e. being forced to give up what you have today – and instead move to the politics of transition – i.e. finding better ways in the future. It seems like a no brainer to me and I am sure every elected representative would agree that this would be better politics. Unfortunately, they are not necessarily getting to make the decision – or, if they are, they are being given limited options by their bureaucracy about the decision they can make.

Strategic versus operational decisions

As an aside, this has been a point of contention in Victoria where the Local Government Act restricts councillors to making ‘strategic decisions’, while the CEO and staff make ‘operational decisions’. The definition of each type of decision seems to be quite flexible. For anyone wanting to see how this plays out, watch the Mornington peninsula Shire Council meeting on the 28 May 2024 at the 4 hour and 25 minute mark. Fascinating.

In contrast, the Wigan Deal was created and implemented with the commitment and direction of both elected representatives and the organisational leaders.

The Wigan Deal

I am relying on two reports about The Deal – ‘A citizen-led approach to health and care:  Lessons from the Wigan Deal‘ by the Kings Fund in 2019 and the LGIU Briefing: What lessons can be learnt from the Wigan Deal? in 2019. There are other sources of information about the Wigan Deal. For example, the current CEO, Alison McKenzie-Folan, was interviewed in a ‘Truth about Local Government’ podcast, the Centre for Public Impact published a case study, and there is information on the Council’s website. I have used all of these sources.

The context for the Wigan Deal is relevant – austerity measures introduced by central government in 2010 were creating financial pressure, which required new approaches to delivering services. By 2012 Wigan had been part of several innovative efforts to improve health and wellbeing in the local community, which involved testing new approaches to providing services. They realised that it was better to allow people to take greater control over their own health and wellbeing, and that current ways of delivering services could sometimes disempower the people they were meant to help.

Wigan set out to put more power in the hands of the people receiving services. They realised that public services get better results by ‘working with’ people, instead of ‘doing to’ them. They started to draw on the strengths and assets of the community to improve outcomes. They describe this as an ‘asset-based’ approach, which required a fundamental change in the way services were delivered. These changes were required by elected representatives, organisational leaders, council staff at every level, the leaders and staff of service partners, and within the community.

As alluded to by Colin Weatherby, the logic behind the Wigan Deal draws heavily on Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) theory and practice. Those living in rural areas will understand ABCD instinctively because, in many towns, people still rely on their family, neighbours and local community when they need support. They don’t head straight to the council. This is not always the case in cities.

In the past when a person had a need they went to their neighborhood for assistance. But this has shifted today to the belief that the neighbor does not have the skills to help them, therefore we must go to a professional for assistance.

Source: What is Asset Based Community Development?, Collaborative for Neighborhood Transformation

ABCD says that most communities address problems with only a small amount of the total capacity available. Most of the community capacity is not used because it is not engaged in the problem solving process. This is the challenge and opportunity of approaches like the Wigan Deal. It says everyone in a community has something to offer. Someone just has to start the ball rolling to tap existing community organisations and networks (formal and informal) to ‘enlarge the pie’ of resources and capabilities through collaboration. The council is part of this, but not all of it, and it can take a leadership role as Wigan did.

The six assets typically accessed through ABCD, and frequently overlooked by councils in Victoria, are:

1. Individual resident capacities.
2. Local associations.
3. Neighborhood institutions – business, not-for-profit and government.
4. Physical assets – the land and everything on it and beneath it.
5. Exchange between neighbors – giving, sharing, trading, bartering, exchanging, buying and selling. 
6. Stories.

Reinventing Government

None of this is entirely new to local government or innovative for the public sector. It should be conventional thinking. In 1992 David Osborne and Ted Gaebler in ‘Reinventing Government‘ listed a set of alternative service delivery options in their Appendix A.  They listed 36 options and I have selected those relevant to ABCD:

• Volunteers – helping people provide services without payment.
• Catalysing Nongovernmental Efforts – organising networks of Not-for-Profit organisations.
• Convening Nongovernmental Leaders – facilitating meetings of Not-for-Profit leaders.
• Jawboning – talking up the benefits of collaboration.
• Voluntary Associations – encouraging their formation.
• Coproduction or Self-Help – helping people to help themselves.

You could go further, as Wigan has done and include:

• Grants – giving public funds to individuals or organisations for specific purposes.
• Procurement – buying from local companies.

When this list came out, what options do you think governments around the world picked instead? Here are a few options that became popular, many of which still have currency in local government:

• Deregulation – changing laws to enable competition.
• Contracting – commissioning private companies to provide services.
• Public-Private Partnerships – creating joint ventures between councils and private companies.
• Quasi-Public or Private Corporations – establishing council-owned enterprises.
• Vouchers – giving public funds to individuals for specific purposes.
• Demand Management – cutting down on demand through regulations and policy.
• Sale, Exchange or Use of Property – selling or leasing community assets to private companies of Not-for-Profits.

In the last 30 years these choices haven’t solved the problem. In fact, it can be argued they have made it worse because now some councils have lost control of assets required to deliver services, and/or they have lost the capability to deliver services themselves because of outsourcing. If a community ceases helping itself and starts to rely on its council, and then the council loses capability and the control of resources, the situation becomes much harder to fix. Unfortunately, some Victorian councils are still going down this path with contracting out, asset sales and public private partnerships heading their lists of things to do in response to the rate cap.

The Deal 2030

It seems that Wigan have largely avoided that fate with the creation of The Deal. There are now several deals, including The Deal for Your Street, The Deal for Children and Young People, and the Deal for Health and Wellness. The big deal – i.e. The Deal 2030 – has 4 key components:

1. Working with local people in an ‘asset-based’ way that seeks to recognise and nurture the strengths of individuals, families and communities and to build independence and self-reliance.
2. Creating a culture in which innovation is encouraged and frontline staff are permitted to make decisions for themselves and rethink how they work.
3. Empowering communities, including by investing in local voluntary sector organisations and community groups.
4. Creating the conditions for closer partnership working between agencies.

Despite the need to reduce their expenditure by 40% and their staff by 1000 over a 10-year period, Wigan has managed to maintain services. It is remarkable that the ABCD list is essentially Osborne and Gaebler’s list, and that it now forms the basis of the Wigan Deal.

At the heart of The Deal is the idea of a new relationship between public services and citizens. This relationship is different from what’s gone before and is the key to our success.

Source: The Deal 2030

What Wigan has done in helping people to help themselves to do what creates value for them, in ways that matter to them, seems to me to be fundamental to the role and purpose of local government.

For more information

The Wigan Deal, Centre for Public Impact, May 2019

Performance and Spending, Wigan Council website, 2024