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Mary Taylor, Housing Policy and Practice Unit, University of Stirling
Anne Douglas, Douglas Consultancy |
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| Scottish local government was reorganised with effect from April 1996. 29 new authorities replaced a system of District and Regional councils to join the 3 islands councils in having unitary status. There was no blueprint for the structure of authorities and many different approaches have been taken in organising the housing function. This research was commissioned to document these structures in relation to housing and, if possible, to classify the approaches taken. |
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| Main Findings |
- Decision-making about structures was necessarily rapid in the run up to reorganisation; initial decisions emphasised operational continuity of services. Considerable departmental restructuring has affected housing since then, especially at management levels, and half of all respondents anticipate further changes before the next local elections in 1999.
- There is not a consistent pattern of organisational structure; this reflects considerable diversity in councils' circumstances.
- While all authorities have a department dealing with housing matters, few locate all aspects of the housing function within one department. In most authorities a variety of departments contribute to fulfilling the authority's housing function.
- Most councils have a housing committee, with or without a matching departmental structure. Committee structures have not changed significantly since they were first established in the shadow year during 1995/6.
- The 4 city authorities and some densely populated urban authorities tend to have more traditional corporate structures with the widest range of housing functions carried out by the housing department.
- Approximately one third of the new unitary authorities have joint departments, most commonly but not exclusively with social work. The first authorities to select such an arrangement at reorganisation had relatively small single District predecessors whereas authorities adopting this arrangement more recently are ones which had multiple District predecessors.
- A small number of councils have chosen radically different structures involving a small management team and no more than 6 committees.
- Housing management services are commonly delivered by area teams based in local offices, and by specialists in financial, technical and personal services, rather than generically.
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| Housing in the Corporate Context |
| There is considerable variety in the organisational structures of local authorities; the units are often still known as departments, though less so than in the past. One council has fewer than 5 corporate directorates encompassing and co-ordinating a number of services. Elsewhere, the largest council has 22 departments. The largest number of councils have between 6 and 10 posts in the Management team, representing a considerable reduction from predecessor arrangements. |
| Housing functions are carried out by a number of different 'departments', whether in support of, or exercising primary functional responsibility. Housing is inextricably connected with many different functions and services in Scottish councils. This is reflected in financial arrangements where other departments recharge the ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account to varying degrees for services rendered. However there is little use of Service Level Agreements or of other formal agreements governing the cost or quality of such internal service trading. On the whole senior housing personnel are not satisfied with the mechanisms for controlling costs or quality of services received from other departments. |
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| Main Housing Departments |
| All authorities have a department with responsibility for housing but not all such departments have 'housing' in the title. In almost half of all councils, housing is a joint function with another service or it is part of a wider corporate directorate. The majority of respondents viewed their department as strategic, comprehensive, decentralised and to a lesser extent generic and stand-alone. |
| Comprehensive? The evidence in this study suggests that while the housing service may be comprehensive, housing departments are not. Other 'departments' are commonly involved in exercising the housing functions of local authorities. Those functions consistently reserved to housing departments are aspects of housing management focusing particularly on tenant relations, but not always including repair or technical matters, nor always including financial aspects of housing management. |
| Decentralised? Many respondents saw their structure as decentralised though more in relation to housing management than to enabling functions. In housing management the basis of service delivery is clearly geographical and there is evidence of considerable physical decentralisation. With some notable exceptions political and managerial decentralisation are less evident. There is only limited local discretion over policy, procedures and financial arrangements, reinforcing the picture of decentralisation arrangements emphasising local service delivery with the centre retaining a high degree of control. |
| Generic? The term 'generic' working is much used but rather loosely with many different local interpretations. There is limited evidence of its application in its 'pure' housing textbook form, either as an ideal, as formal policy or in practice. More common is the traditional splitting of roles between property and people aspects of housing management. Housing staff are only occasionally responsible for non-housing work, these most commonly being general council enquiries, registration, council tax benefit administration, and other aspects of revenues work. |
| Primary focus? Many senior housing personnel see their authority's housing role as strategic first and provider second, though this perspective is not always shared by other staff in the same authority. Those who see themselves first and foremost as providers are more inclined to see their structure as being socially-oriented. A minority of respondents see their structure as technically or property-oriented in the terms suggested by reorganisation guidance. |
| The majority of housing staff work in housing management rather than in strategic or enabling activities; this reflects the considerable stock holdings of authorities. The titles of jobs with the main tenant contact vary considerably as do the gradings attached to these posts. Gradings are slightly higher for post titles indicating technical content than for the more common posts entitled Housing Officer or Housing Assistant. |
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| Committee Structures and the Role of Councillors |
| Committee structures were selected gradually in the first half of the shadow year. Most councils have a dedicated housing committee even where the housing department is joint. The most traditional structures with large numbers of committees are in the cities and urban areas. The smallest numbers of committees are in areas of medium population density, commonly with single District predecessors. Some councils opted for committees cutting across departmental boundaries in an effort to improve co-ordination. The smallest council has no committees: all decisions are taken by the whole council. |
| Since April 1996, a minority of councils have reviewed their committee structures and fewer have revised them; there is, however, some evidence of change in the committee responsibilities of particular councillors. |
| Members' roles are under pressure to change to a more strategic perspective in view of the wide range of functions for which they are now responsible and the reduction in councillor numbers since reorganisation. There is limited evidence of actual change of perspective. Continuing involvement in operational decision-making is associated especially with councillors with a District council background. Decision-making by a small political executive is present in a significant number of councils though it is seldom formalised. |
| Policy harmonisation and policy documentation are areas receiving attention even in councils with only one District council predecessor. Harmonisation work is focused as much on systems and staffing as on policy, and has absorbed very significant amounts of staff time since reorganisation. Progress in harmonisation has varied considerably from council to council. No one topic emerged consistently as receiving priority for attention. The more difficult and more sensitive issues were not necessarily the first to be tackled. |
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| Rationale and Process in Structure Decisions |
| In the shadow year before reorganisation corporate structure decisions were made quickly and have faced subsequent incremental change. Key factors in decision-making have changed over the three years since the April 1995 elections. Speed and continuity of service delivery, Compulsory Competitive Tendering and decentralisation figured largely in initial decision-making in the shadow year. However, wider financial pressures on authorities have influenced more recent decision-making about structures particularly regarding management level savings and the creation of joint departments at Directorate level. Housing is often expected to 'share the pain' even though pressure is mainly on council General Funds. |
| Decision-making about structures has tended to be concentrated among senior officials, with limited involvement of councillors and little consultation of other interested parties. Structure review mechanisms vary considerably with the emphasis on ad hoc and departmental working groups. |
| Virtually all departments have already undergone restructuring since the first year of operation, or face restructuring in 1998/9. The level most significantly affected by change, especially recently, is middle management in housing management; three out of four councils have restructured at this level. |
| About half of respondents expected changes of some sort in the year or more running up to the next local government elections. One quarter of all respondents already knew of major changes in the pipeline, commonly at the level of middle management or above. |
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| Patterns? |
| A number of councils appear to have moved away from traditional bureaucratic forms of organisation but not consistently towards any alternative models. There is considerable diversity in the organisational arrangements made by councils for housing. There are few obvious or consistent groupings based on scale of population, tenure profile, type of predecessors, political control, or settlement pattern. |
| There is some evidence to support a tentative classification of authorities into the four approaches (first put forward by the Local Government Management Board) of Direct Service Provision, Community Governance, the Commercial Approach and the Neighbourhood Approach, with some authorities falling into more than one category. More work would be required on functions other than housing to test the validity of such a classification. |
| Grouping councils by the name of the main housing department confirms that in half of all councils, the housing function is located in a department joining housing with other functions. Such connections are most common with social work but exist also with property, technical or financial functions. Interestingly, people in departments with a joint title do not necessarily see their department as joint in structure. |
| It is possible to group councils according to a variety of criteria, related to their legacy or their chosen structure but no one set of criteria is particularly meaningful. Instead, it is both possible (because of the small number of councils) and desirable (because of their diversity) to consider each council individually. |
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| About the Study |
| The researchers gathered available documentary evidence about reorganisation and the rationale for structure choices. The main source of information was a telephone interview between December 1997 and March 1998 with a senior manager responsible for housing in each of the 32 authorities, including the islands councils although they were not affected by local government reform. Group views were also obtained from Chief Executives and councillors. The information collected from the interviews was confirmed with each authority in the spring of 1998. The data have been used to generate the analysis of the all-Scotland picture and to create profiles of each council, valid at March 1998, although these may date quickly due to the current pace of organisational change within authorities. |
| "Local Authority Structures for Housing After Reorganisation", the research report summarised in this Research Findings is available priced £8.00. Cheques should be made payable to The Stationery Office and addressed to: The Stationery Office Bookshop, 71 Lothian Road, Edinburgh EH3 9AZ Telephone: 0131-228 4181, or Fax: 0131-622 7017 This Research Findings may be photocopied, or further copies may be obtained from: The Scottish Office Central Research Unit, 2J, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh EH6 6QQ Telephone: 0131-244 7560 |