As part of her regular Policy Insight update, Paula Claytonsmith – Director, Government and Policy at the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) – highlights research and insight to help councils and the private sector. In the third edition, Paula looks ahead to Strictly Highways 2022 with a focus on activities in the areas of innovation, skills, net zero and collaboration.
My last Policy Insight was in July, and it was inspired by the theme ‘innovation’ following the hugely successful Innovation Festival. This time, appropriately, this edition is written before next week’s Strictly Highways Conference in Blackpool. I appreciate not everyone can attend next week but the four themes of the conference are worthy of sharing policy or insights I have come across.
Innovation
With recent news currently focused on the mini budget and cost of living crisis, I came across this interesting article from the Kellogg School of Management titled “What Happens to Innovation During an Economic Crisis? The Great Depression in America hastened the end of the independent inventor-but, not all was lost. The study illustrates how economic crises can transform the landscape of innovation, forcing changes to unfold much more quickly than they would have in calm periods. “These are times when people are forced to rethink the way they’re organising their life, their business, or their activity” to quote the article.
This statement is as true in the wider local government sector and our sector too. Anecdotally, I sense innovation both within councils and the supply chain is gaining pace in the last few years. Innovation is not always about things or changes in the way it is done, it can be people too. Now bear with me, but this article from the US Naval Institute “Innovation: People Are More Important than Technology” is defence focused, however, I think the following is true, and looking across our sectors into what others are doing, serves to push boundaries.
“New technology is important, but it is not a silver bullet solution that can be added at random when an organisation confronts a challenge. Rather, it must be built into an organisation’s capabilities, resources, and processes by collaborative, charismatic leaders who can think strategically, critically, and creatively but also encourage, lead, and manage teams to adopt, integrate, and maintain technologies over time. Military leaders must move beyond using “innovation” merely as a buzzword and establish a better understanding of what innovation is and is not, the organisational characteristics and features of innovation, what it takes to lead innovative organisations, and the traits and skills of innovative leaders.”
Moving closer to home, innovation is not just about “things, services, people” but also policy. Within the Civil Service, there is the Policy Lab, not a physical Lab and they do not wear white coats. But they use a co-design approach and develop tools and techniques to help civil servants develop policy whilst collaborating across departments, external experts, and the public. Recently they shared a blog post about what can innovation bring to place-based policymaking and this shared the tools and techniques for developing policy using innovative approaches. They are well worth looking at if a policy is being developed within council members’ services.
Skills
At Strictly we will be hearing from several speakers sharing their experiences, what they are doing to build skills or how they have used skills to build collaboration to develop projects. Each will be bringing their perspective and for some, it will be an opportunity to share what they do with a larger audience than they would normally speak to.
Skills shortages are not just a concern for our industry. In July 2022 the NAO reported that the UK “faces a major challenge in ensuring it has a sufficiently skilled workforce”, with the head of the NAO, the Comptroller, and Auditor General, concluding that “There is a risk that, despite government’s greater activity and good intent, its approach may be no more successful than previous attempts to provide the country with the skills it needs.”
The NAO found that participation in government-funded further education and skills training has declined significantly, particularly in disadvantaged areas. The number of adult learners fell by 48% over the last decade, from 3.2 million in 2010/11 to 1.6 million in 2020/21. From 2015/16 to 2020/21, the number of participants aged 19 and over in England the NAO found that participation in government-funded further education and skills training has declined significantly, particularly in disadvantaged areas. The number of adult learners fell by 48% over the last decade, from 3.2 million in 2010/11 to 1.6 million in 2020/21. From 2015/16 to 2020/21, the number of participants aged 19 and over in England’s 20% most disadvantaged areas dropped by 39%, compared with a 29% drop overall.
Largely because of the drop in learners, there is a 46% fall in the Skills Index – the government’s measure of the impact of the further education system on productivity – from 2012/13 to 2020/21. Additionally, there has been a significant reduction in the size of the UK labour force following the COVID-19 pandemic and the related restrictions on economic activity. Labour shortages are affecting a wide range of sectors and may have important economic consequences.
The Public Accounts Select Committee has released a call for evidence for their inquiry “Developing workforce skills for a strong economy” with an evidence submission deadline of Monday the 10th of October 2022. The Committee will question senior officials at the Departments for Education. I would encourage people to contribute if appropriate.
Net Zero
Net Zero and activity towards decarbonisation are highlighting some interesting issues that I have not yet seen here (or missed?). For example, China’s heat wave is creating havoc for electric vehicle drivers. The country is a leader in EV adoption, but extreme weather is exposing weaknesses in its charging infrastructure. The impact is partly due to the way China creates energy however it is a reminder of unintended consequences that weather and climate change can have.
Meanwhile, in Reno, Nevada, the area appears to be the target of copper thieves who are cutting electric car charging cables and stealing them. Although small scale with only a few reports, one wonders if this might happen here, or not.
The government’s long-awaited, June released “Decarbonising Transport – A better, greener Britain” may not be on everyone’s reading list, but should be as it sets out the government’s commitments and the actions needed to decarbonise the entire transport system in the UK.
Themes in it will filter into various government policies. This is why the recently released Growth Plan 2022 and its list of infrastructure projects have raised some eyebrows but have also been welcomed by others. Pages 33 onwards lists those authorities interested in sites that may have the potential to accelerate growth and deliver housing in the way the Investment Zone programme expects. Additionally listed are infrastructure projects which will be accelerated as fast as possible, aiming to get the vast majority starting construction by the end of 2023 consent processes.
However, is noted that the list does not guarantee, where applicable, funding, planning consent, or approval for other regulatory or permitting processes and the list is non-exhaustive of all projects which may benefit from acceleration.
Collaboration
Back in July, I highlighted the Procurement Bill going through Parliament and the Government document “Transforming Public Procurement – Our transparency Ambition”. As always with Bills, they can be weighty to read for mere mortals however LGA’s response, if you missed it, does pick out useful areas that neatly summarise key issues for councils in the areas of; collaboration and contracts in the public sector, collaborative procurement and the single data platform proposed for local authorities.
Of interest in LGA’s response is the use of local suppliers when supporting local economies. You can read Lord True’s comments and proposal here.
We will continue to keep an eye on the procurement bill, not least because of work being led by Martin Duffy, LCRIG CEO on the Dynamic Purchasing System.
Other
I promise I am not obsessed with “dust” given that I have previously mentioned the NASA project “Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source.” But I do think it is another dimension of climate change and pollution rarely mentioned. After being installed on the exterior of the International Space Station, NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission has provided its first view of Earth. The milestone, called “first light,” took place at 7:51 p.m. PDT (10:51 p.m. EDT) on July 27 as the space station passed over Western Australia and this article talks about the process being undertaken to start analysing results.
Thanks for reading and I hope to see readers in Blackpool next week.
Paula Claytonsmith, Director, Government and Strategy, LCRIG