Beyond the ‘what’: How local governments are pioneering mission-led approaches

It’s been a year since Labour came into power, bringing with them a commitment to a different way of ‘doing’ government centred around five missions for national renewal. 

One year on, and the policy community is reflecting on what it takes for missions to genuinely transform how government works across and beyond Whitehall. But away from the attention on national policy and delivery, across local government there is growing energy and momentum around missions.

This month, New Local and Inner Circle Consulting launched a new project to look more deeply into how local governments (councils and strategic authorities) understand and approach mission-led governing.

Missions and local government

This growing energy and momentum around mission-led local government cannot simply be understood as a response to the five national missions.

Councils and strategic authorities have long recognised the need to work alongside citizens, public sector partners, VCSE organisations, and businesses to make progress against complex social, economic and environmental challenges. There is a long history of practices and traditions around whole-place working, and recently some councils and strategic authorities have explicitly been using the language and theory of mission-led governing.

Mission-led governing resonates with many principles and approaches that are at the core of local government, including place-based strategy and policymaking, local economic development, convening networks like anchor institutions, and commissioning and procurement practices. The ideas and practices underpinning missions also connect with movements like New Municipalism; innovation in areas such as data and digital and deliberative and participatory approaches; the development of municipal wealth funds; and public service reform ideas such as the renewed interest in Total Place principles.

How to amplify, deepen and enable mission-led approaches in local government

The purpose of this project is to identify how local governments are using mission-aligned approaches to secure impact. The project will seek to identify actions needed across policy and practice to amplify, deepen and enable mission-led approaches in local government.

We will bring together councils and strategic authorities already exploring missions to identify learning and insights about the ‘how’ of mission-led governing. We will also look at the role of national government in enabling mission-led approaches in local government, considering how missions could provide a framework to reshape the relationships between policymaking and delivery and the dynamics across local, regional and national governments.

We will draw on academic work and international case studies to help challenge and deepen existing practice. There is a rich body of academic work on missions (including the pioneering work of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and the Mission Oriented Policy Hub). International examples include the city of Valencia and the Blekinge Region in Sweden with their climate resilience missions, or Bogota’s Care Block model that demonstrates how mission-orientated approaches can support places to make progress and have impact against complex challenges. 

The questions we’re curious to explore

As we begin this project, here are some of the questions that we are interested to explore with councils and strategic authorities:

• Setting and shaping missions: How are councils and strategic authorities using missions, or adjacent approaches in practice? How are they setting the missions and determining the challenges that are a best fit for a mission-led approach?
• Building partnerships: How are councils and strategic authorities working with partners (including communities, VCSE organisations, other public sector organisations, and businesses) to build consensus and shared ownership around long-term goals or missions?
• Leading change: How does it look and feel as a council or strategic authority to work in a mission-orientated way? How do senior leaders understand their role and the roles of their teams in mission-led governance? What is the role of political leadership in developing and championing missions? How in practice is a long-term view balanced against the reality of political cycles?
• Creating infrastructure: How are local areas developing governance, capabilities and collaborative infrastructure to support place-wide action on missions?
• Driving innovation: How is mission-led governing supporting and enabling innovative practice and surfacing unexpected solutions?
• Measuring impact: How are local areas developing approaches to accountability, learning and impact to support progress on missions?

How you can join the conversation

We want to hear from councils and strategic authorities who are experimenting with mission-led approaches, whether you’re using that specific language or drawing on complementary ideas and traditions. Your practical experience of what works – and what doesn’t – will help shape a more nuanced and effective understanding of mission-led governing.

If you have reflections on these questions and would like to participate in the project we would love to hear from you – please contact Grace Pollard, Head of Policy and Insights at New Local, on gpollard@newlocal.org.uk.

Image Credit: Alex Shute on Unsplash

Join our mailing list