Top tips for chief executives

The role of chief executive in local government is unique – being the management leader of large and complex organisations that make a tangible difference to the lives of people locally. Chief executives rarely act alone. They conduct their role with other professional leaders, other service managers and, of course, with their council’s elected members. Management is a team activity conducted by individuals daily – the chief executive’s personal actions speak for the organisation.

New and aspiring chief executives may have moved into their current roles after starting and sustaining their careers in one or other professional discipline or sometimes from outside the sector completely. They will have experience of ‘being accountable’ to a board or scrutiny of some sort, whether or not this accountability was to elected members. Chief executives, however, have primary responsibilities for ensuring that governance is effective and that assurance is valid and reliable.

To be successful, councils require the best quality advice so that they can choose the right policy direction. They then need their managers to implement these policies effectively and efficiently, and honest and regular performance reporting about the success or otherwise of their activities and functions. Chief executives are responsible for arranging advice, shaping implementation and reporting on its outcomes. This means that chief executives are central to governance and assurance.

The comparatively few instances of service and financial failures in local government, have highlighted weaknesses in management and governance. These can be weaknesses in setting strategic direction or in ensuring that operational management is appropriately in control of services, projects or finances. Systems of governance and managerial accountability as well as processes of corporate internal controls are core to the chief executive’s responsibilities.

The role of the chief executive in ensuring good governance and assurance practice in the council is paramount – but to date, there has been little guidance to support chief executives in this role.

These top tips are designed to support chief executives to keep at ‘front of mind’ the key elements of good governance and assurance. They have been identified through discussions with serving and former chief executives, as part of the mapping and development of the improvement and assurance framework for local government and of the local government chief executives’ development framework.

How do your staff – and elected members – know that you prioritise good governance? This includes helping people appreciate that governance is a tool for achieving (the right) things, not just for stopping things, and a means of overseeing empowered, measured risk-taking innovation.

Could they talk about examples where you’ve ‘done the right thing’? Do they see appropriate behaviours and practices reinforced and encouraged? Do you set the standard as to the right behaviour in serving the public?

Do the council’s report writers receive appropriate training on how best to advise elected members – both in writing and orally? Do you – and your directors – actively engage with report writers demonstrating best practice and eliminating poor practice?

Conversely, what you tolerate will become the standard, whether it be, for example, flexing deadlines for publication of reports, use of discourteous language or high numbers of procurement waivers.

Professional curiosity is an important part of the chief executive’s skillset: encouraging the creative imagination of members and officers; continually searching for better ways to operate and serve the public; exercising appreciative inquiry (Read more about appreciative inquiry in the Performance management guide for local authority officers, page 12); discovering ways of asking questions that help people to operate better; and being clear about the framework of assumptions that lie underneath political and professional approaches.

The chief executive is often required to advise on ‘what should be done’, how and in what order. This usually requires stepping back and considering the range of possible options with others. It also requires excellent practical judgement in evaluating options. In the public sector, in addition to financial and service considerations, this judgement is almost always based on various ethical principles of fairness, equity and justice. Market and commercial considerations may sometimes be highly relevant, but the curiosity that’s required is based on public ethics, seeking better public value and improved public good.

It’s the chief executive’s role to lead effective and efficient teams across the council – but while responsibilities are delegated, accountability remains with the chief executive. It’s a question of getting the balance right – just enough oversight to enable you to have confidence in the practice of your teams without disempowering them or getting stuck in the weeds.

In addition to informal means of oversight, there’s no substitute for formal mechanisms of internal governance, for example:

• Corporate, directorate and team meetings, with minutes and action trackers
• Robust and regular review of performance, finance and risk information by corporate, directorate and service team meetings
• using industry standard tools and approaches (see, for example, Programme Management Office guidance Local Partnerships)
• Individual performance management through appraisals, linked to corporate, directorate and team objectives
• Performance reviews at team, service and functional levels.

Are these approaches happening consistently throughout your council? Do you, and your management colleagues, have adequate ‘grip’ and oversight of key risk areas such as health and safety, cyber security and safeguarding?

There’s a big distance between adopting a risk management strategy and ensuring that a robust understanding of risk informs the council’s activities in a meaningful way.

Managerial grip and control is often commensurate with risk (to the public as well as to the service or the council as an organisation). Are there mature discussions about the differences between political and professional ‘risk appetite’ and the extent to which it varies across the council?

The roles of chief executive, s151 officer and monitoring officer all have distinct legal roles and responsibilities – which together maintain the organisation’s corporate health and effectiveness. The three senior officers in the corporate ‘Golden Triangle’ should regularly act together so that their impact can be greater than the sum of its parts. 

These three officers work closely with the council’s senior management group to make sure that when things happen, they happen lawfully, prudently and with legal propriety. No one role has all of the necessary information or understanding, each depends to some extent on the others, including on other senior managers.

Statutory officer colleagues also have personal duties under the law and professional ethical codes in relation to their behaviour and actions. Support them in fulfilling these roles for the public good.

The three roles should be meeting regularly – both formally and informally – to discuss issues of concern relating to governance and to agree actions – both proactive and reactive - when required. Such meetings should include relevant colleagues – such as the Head of Internal Audit, and other statutory officers – when appropriate. 

Close coordination is required – but the three post holders must be able to constructively challenge each other and guard against collusion or ‘Groupthink’.

In democratic local government, it is for elected representatives of the public to make the ultimate decisions, not the appointed public officials. The chief executive is the head of paid service responsible for the managerial leadership of staff and for advising the council on the best ways to organise its many functions. The chief executive will also arrange for members to receive appropriate professional advice in the general conduct of the council’s day to day business. In this way, councils are organisations that are led by members and managed by officers.  You – and your officers – need to be politically astute, but not political.

The vast majority of chief executives will have come into post after years of experience of working with elected members and will have developed good political awareness and understanding. (The Local Government Chief Executives’ Development Framework provides the foundations for chief executive training and includes a theme on politics and the political interface.) Does your council have a culture of cooperation, openness respect and trust between members and officers?

The chief executive role will require you to deploy advice giving skills at an enhanced level. Do all of your staff know and understand from your actions and behaviour that elected members determine the council’s policies, and that staff are required to implement these policies regardless of any personal views they may have about them, with a commitment to the council as a whole and not to any individual political group(s)?

The provision of objective, impartial, good quality advice to members is a core skill for all officers. Do all staff writing reports for member decision have the necessary report-writing skills? Do senior officers have the skills to ‘land’ difficult messages effectively and to all members? While there may be times when you need to ‘speak truth to power’, this duty must be exercised with great care as there is often more than one version of the truth. Be very clear when this is called for, what you need to achieve and what is the right time and place for that conversation.

You may also be required to act as returning officer in elections locally. Maintaining the electoral register and ensuring the secrecy, confidentiality, security, integrity and accessibility of elections are paramount tasks that need to be conducted with the highest standards of objectivity and impartiality.

Working closely with the monitoring officer, the chief executive will need to use their ‘antennae’ in relation to the council’s political environment, considering, for example:

• Do members have the information, training and support from officers they need to perform their roles?
   
• Does the council’s political leadership have confidence that the council plan and budget will be delivered – and/or understand any constraints on delivery? 
   
• Are there ways that the chief executive and council officers can actively support everyday democracy at local level?
   
• Could timely conversations nip in the bud any inappropriate member or officer behaviours before they escalate or become embedded?

The improvement and assurance framework identifies multiple routes through which councils are accountable for their work. The chief executive should ensure that it is easy for the residents, businesses and the media to hold the council to account through a culture of openness and transparency. This includes a focus on the accessibility of information which enables the public to understand how the council is performing. Promote a culture of openness: information should be in the public domain unless there is a clear reason in the public interest for it not to be.

All organisations speak well of themselves publicly. Councils are the primary advocates of their locality, their local businesses and communities. They will therefore need to accentuate the positive, bringing hope and ambition for change and talking up their achievements in order to build confidence for both public and private action locally.

They also need to have a street level, honest and evidence-based understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing their communities and businesses.

They also need an honest and rounded, evidence base of their own organisational performance, so as to give assurance to elected members and others of the continuous improvement of their functions and services. 

No council is perfect, and the best councils will have a good – and openly shared - understanding of their areas for development.  As well as encouraging and enabling that self-awareness in the council, the chief executive should have that self-awareness about their own strengths and areas for development. 

There are many opportunities to enhance your council’s levels of self-awareness, all of which should be employed regularly:

• Considering how to hear independent voices – this might be at audit or scrutiny committees, or equally at the senior management team. Whose perspectives are not being considered as part of the council’s decision-making? Any independent person should of course be engaged for a limited term to ensure they remain independent. 
   
• Using the annual review of the effectiveness of the council’s controls and compilation of the Annual Governance Statement as a tool for honest reflection across the council and action planning for improvement
   
• Fully engaging with regional and national opportunities for peer support, review and challenge
   
• Develop a network of people you can call to get honest advice and constructive challenge and support.

A learning organisation has been described as an organisation where people continuously learn and enhance their capabilities to create. For more information about learning organisations see The learning organization: principles, theory and practice by infed.org). While the literature focuses on the factors which enable employees to ‘go the extra mile’, learning from recent council failures identifies some basic ‘hygiene’ factors which can impact on a council’s ability to continue to improve.

The rules and procedures under which the council operates are, of course, set out in each council’s constitution. While the monitoring officer will advise on points of detail and interpretation, the chief executive should have a good understanding of its provisions, not least in relation to delegations and powers reserved to the chief executive.  

‘Positional authority’ confers chief executives with considerable informal powers, which you can use to support good governance and assurance – for example attending audit committee to assist the committee to achieve its oversight role. Be aware of this power differential between yourself and others. Some may act in a particular way, simply because they think it’s how you want them to act.  Make them know that while you may have a very important role, you’re no more important than anyone else. Your role is to enthuse, empower and energise others in their work for the council. 

To do this, you will work closely with the council’s Leader or directly elected Mayor. It is your role to support the Leader or Mayor to achieve their goals and aims while you also serve the whole council. Some aspects of institutional leadership will inevitably be shared between you, especially in relation to partnership working locally. It is the leader or Mayor’s role to determine this, your role is to complement them in ways that improve the council’s overall effectiveness. 

More narrowly, chief executives should also consider their duty to provide regular management reports as appropriate to their council. This would enable them to fulfil the role description and duties of the head of paid service, as set out in s4 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989:

By providing such reports, you may, for example, assert the role of the head of paid service in creating appropriate structures to coordinate the council’s functions, or ensuring the appointment and management of staff to meet statutory requirements.

• Draft improvement and assurance framework for local government (LGA)
• Delivering good governance in local government framework (CIPFA/ SOLACE)
• Governance risk and resilience framework (CfGS/ Localis)
• Developing an assurance framework in a local authority (CIPFA)