Civil servants based in Darlington, Sheffield and Leeds will work with local public service providers and users on the government’s missions in a new scheme to “rewire the state from the ground up”.
The thematic campuses will become “testbeds” for the government’s growth, opportunity and health missions, with government officials working “at speed” alongside council staff and frontline public servants, such as NHS workers and teachers, to solve key issues in their local areas.
These “solutions and ways of working can then be scaled up across other parts of the UK to accelerate delivery of the missions nationally”, the Cabinet Office said in a press release announcing the new scheme.
Darlington will drive the growth mission, with Sheffield focusing on opportunity and Leeds on the health mission.
The pilot programme – named the "community mission challenge" – will see civil servants “leave their desks behind and work on the ground with communities to rapidly test ideas to deliver the growth, opportunity and health missions”, the Cabinet Office said.
“Rather than writing policy papers, teams will be asked to get into communities to work with those using local services and workers on the front line to develop new ideas to deliver on the missions.”
Speaking at Re:State's Reimagining Whitehall conference this afternoon, Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould said she hoped the teams working at the chosen locations "will feel like some of the most exciting and dynamic places to work in the civil service, really on the front line of mission delivery, because those missions are not just the government's.
"They're missions to the country. They belong to everyone, and there's very much an open invitation to everyone in this room, civil servants, non-civil servants, to be part of making this happen on the ground. And I'm really, really excited to see what communities will create when we give them the power to lead us in change," she said.
The minister said the initiative was driven by wanting to push the Places for Growth agenda, enabling the civil service to test new ideas and ways of working, rather than just have officials who happen to be located in different regions but work as if in they were based in Whitehall.
"We want to develop this approach locally and then scale it so we're getting behind people creating change that they can really see and feel in their cities, in their towns and their villages," she added.
In a statement announcing the move, Gould said ministers wanted "a civil service that is connected to the British people, backing their ideas and working alongside communities to deliver the missions".
Explaining the reasoning behind the choice of Darlington, Sheffield and Leeds, the Cabinet Office said the campuses are “key locations drawing together staff from different departments with different skills and expertise”.
The department said the scheme will mean local communities and public service providers “will have a greater impact on shaping national policy, in the next phase of the government’s plan to transform public services and deliver the Plan for Change”.
The leaders of Darlington, Sheffield and Leeds’ local authorities all expressed delight and pride at their being selected.
Leeds City Council’s leader, James Lewis, said the scheme would benefit from the city’s “well-established neighbourhood networks run by the voluntary and community sector and large anchor organisations working in partnership with the local authority, and a wealth of frontline expertise”.
He added: “As a city, we have a hard-won reputation for innovation, especially within the health and social care sector, so we are perfectly suited to focus on the health mission which has been entrusted to the city.”
Sheffield City Council leader Tom Hunt said the local authority has shown the benefits of combining local expertise with local, regional and national government through its "trailblazing Family Hubs and in the Pathways to Work Programme". He said the council would take part in the scheme alongside the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority and its member councils in Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster.
The government also outlined more details for its new secondment scheme between central and local government.
The scheme is being developed in partnership with the Local Government Association and will begin this autumn in Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Darlington, with officials in both central and local government able to participate.
The Cabinet Office said the scheme “aims to harness the invaluable skills and experience that frontline workers and those embedded in their local areas can use to inform national policy – and enable central government to share learnings and perspectives with local areas”.
As part of the scheme, youth workers, social workers and other experts from across local government will be asked to help shape national policy.