Continuous Improvement Practice in Local Government

Insights from Australia and New Zealand

Matthew Pepper, Oriana Milani Price, Arun Elias

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367820534
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000536874
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Local government plays a critical role in the provision of governance, infrastructure, and services for local communities. Over the past 30 years this sector has undergone significant reforms because of various superordinate governments policy changes. Continuous improvement and quality programs have been a common tactical response undertaken by various local government organisations to remain sustainable and to continue to deliver value to their local communities. These tactical responses have had varying levels of success.

This book seeks to go beyond a tactical focus and uncover the kinds of continuous improvement practices that are enacted in various local government contexts. A focus on practices enables practitioners and researchers alike to gain insights that to go beyond approaches which privilege the application of CI tools over the contextualisation of CI programs. Contextualisation affords the insightful deployment of programs that are specific to the needs and dynamics of local communities and operations.

The cases presented share insights on aspects of CI including: embedding performance measurement; harnessing learning; contextualising CI activities to support the ongoing sustainability of these practices. Researchers and practitioners alike can draw benefit from the grounded industry base experiences and insights shared in the book.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003011675-1

Sector overview

As a sector, local governments in Australia and New Zealand represent significant public expenditure and employment (as seen in Figure 1.1). There are 560 local governments in Australia, accounting for approximately 5% of public expenditure ($38 billion in 2018–19) and approximately 10% of national public sector employment (Commonwealth of Australia, 2017). In New Zealand, there are over 78 local government organisations that make up approximately 3.4% of public expenditure (NZ$9.7 billion in 2018), employing approximately 30,000 people (Local Councils NZ 2011). There is significant variance in how local governments operate within and between Australia and New Zealand. These differences include political oversight, governance relationships and financial resourcing. The size, geographic coverage and scope of the work of local government organisations also varies widely both within and between these two countries. Despite such differences, there is a commonality in purpose and shared aspects of historical evolution among local government organisations in both countries.

Figure 1.1 Characteristics of Australia and New Zealand local government adapted from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2020), Australian Local Government Association (2019), New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (2018), and Stats NZ (2020).

Image source. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA.

Local government plays a critical role in the provision of governance, infrastructure, and services for local communities. Governance includes local democracy via the election of local representatives and a mayor to provide input in local policy development, implementation and decision making. Infrastructure work includes the construction and maintenance of public roads and drainage, amenities, community buildings, parks and open spaces. Service may include waste management, local ordinance enforcement, development assessments and consent, public health inspections, environmental protection and community events and activities. In larger local government organisations water and sewage services may also be part of the services provided. The local grass-root community emphasis is a key feature that distinguishes local government from other levels of government in both Australia and New Zealand.

Over the past three decades, local councils have adapted operational models in response to various programs initiated by state governments in Australia and the federal government in New Zealand. The programs have aimed at encouraging local councils to become more accountable to their local communities. In recent history, these programs have included a New Public Management (NPM) agenda of reform aimed at improving efficiencies and achieving economies of scale. As early as 1984, in New Zealand, there have been examples of forced amalgamations which has resulted in the current structuring of local government into 13 regional councils and 74 territorial authorities. Though occurring later, similar but not as extensive reforms also occurred in Australia as recently as 2015. These forced amalgamations aimed at a reduction of about 25% of underperforming councils local government as part of the ‘Fit For the Future Initiative’ (see for example Glanville and Stuart, 2017).

In this context of change, continuous improvement (CI) and quality management (QM) programs have been a constant feature in the local government landscape. Both CI and QM in various forms (e.g., ABEF, NZBEF ISO9000, Lean, Six Sigma, Service Reviews, Service Quality, CouncilMARK™) continue to be understood as means of (1) providing guidance in the implementation of policy changes, (2) the achievement of strategic priorities and (3) operational improvement within local government organisations. The role of CI and QM as a response to legislative changes was recognised by researchers in Europe as early as 1999 (Donnelly, 1999). Similarly, in the Australian and New Zealand contexts, this was also reinforced by other researchers (see for example Houston & Katavic, 2006; Allen & Eppel, 2020; Alshumrani, Munir & Baird, 2018; Johnsson, et al., 2021). It is therefore timely to capture and discuss the evolution, various applications and experiences of CI and QM in the localised contexts of Australia and New Zealand. The overarching aim of the book is to discover these contextualisations of CI and QM that have occurred in practice.

Structure and flow of the book

This book seeks to contribute to current discourse about the practices of CI in local governments (LG) within Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). We consider current research in this context to draw out insights into the practices and future research in this discipline. The book brings together theoretical and practical insights drawing from extensive industry-based applied research. Several case studies are presented, reflecting on the application of various journeys in CI in the local government context to bring together the theory-practice nexus. The benefits of this book are designed for both academic and practical applications. Researchers and higher-degree students will gain value from some of the key themes within this discipline, and practitioners will be able to use this book as a tool to provide practical guidance and tools on how to navigate the implementation of CI in their organisations.

With this book, we aim to address several gaps within current publications. First, our focus on the application and practice of CI in local government in Australia and New Zealand addresses an area of work that is currently underrepresented in the research in this discipline. Second, we seek to translate theoretical concepts into approaches that can be applied in practice, thus bringing to the fore the theory-practice nexus. This is achieved using case studies to provide theoretically informed narratives of how approaches have been applied by practitioners in the implementation of CI in their organisations. We draw attention to the importance and benefits of academic-industry collaboration in the CI discipline for its sustainability.

Part one of this book introduces the context of CI in local government in Australia and New Zealand. Chapter 2 presents the current landscape of continuous improvement in the local government context in Australia and New Zealand. The chapter provides an orientation to the legislative and funding structures that both enable and constrain the service provision roles of local government in both countries. By drawing on extant literature, this chapter considers the ways in which local government has adopted QM and CI at different points in time. The chapter then proposes a multi-frame integrative approach as a way of contextualising quality and CI implementations. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between learning and CI. It identifies the ways in which learning may be used as a foundation to support the implementation of CI projects and build an organisation’s capability to adapt to a changing environment.

In part two of the book, we introduce three case studies. Chapter 4 introduces the first case study which explores the application of stakeholder analysis as an approach within a local government in New Zealand. The chapter provides a brief overview of stakeholder theory and associated concepts, followed by a discussion of the four phases of a stakeholder analysis framework. The chapter illustrates how the framework is being applied in managing stakeholders of a continuous improvement project in a regional council context.

The second case study is presented in Chapter 5 and discusses the journey of an Australian local government organisation in the design, development and implementation of a performance management framework. It considers the critical relationship between strategic priorities, service delivery, operations and performance measurement. The chapter provides an approach that may be adopted in developing a strategic suite of measures to facilitate operational management, strategic prioritisation and communication of organisational performance to internal and external stakeholders.

Chapter 6 presents the third case study, an analysis of the critical success factors associated with CI implementations. Ten critical success factors are identified from an examination of the literature. These are then validated for relevance for New Zealand local government organisations by drawing on findings from research conducted with CI practitioners in this context.

Finally in Chapter 7, the fourth case study is presented. It discusses the work and challenges faced by CI practitioners in the local government context of both countries. It presents insights into the multifaced work of CI practitioners as they engage their organisations in both strategic and operational CI work. The chapter also considers the use of consultants as a part of local government CI deployments.

In part three of the book, we draw on the lessons learned from each of the four case studies and present our conclusion in Chapter 8. In this chapter, we draw on the key themes and learnings from the author’s engagement with local government in both countries. Finally, the Appendix of this book provides templates and tools used in the case study work which may be adapted and adopted by practitioners and researchers for working and researching in local government.

In exploring the chapters of this book, readers may choose to focus on the case studies as guides to ‘on the ground’ applications of theoretical concepts, drawing on various tools to implement similar programs in their own organisations. Alternatively, for researchers, the case studies may provide some insights into the complexities of researching in the local government context and serve as a tool for future research endeavours. Readers may also choose to explore the various chapters as a way of introduction to CI work in the local government context.

Regardless of the approach adopted by readers, we hope that the key message is clear; a contextualised approach is necessary for the implementation of CI and QM. With this book, we endeavour to provide some insight on ways of contextualising proposed frameworks to an organisation’s needs and culture. Contextualisation may be achieved by taking into account the nature of the services provided, community needs, fiscal constraints, organisational culture and capacity, as well as the emerging and changing legislative and policy context. Adapting a chosen framework and implementation strategy to support localised organisational conditions may be the most important decision in a sustainable CI initiative.

This book is the result of a joint international research project organised by the authors in 2018–19. This project was partly funded by financial and in-kind contributions by the Faculty of Business and Law, University of Wollongong, Australia and the Wellington School of Business and Government, Victoria University New Zealand. This book acknowledges the contributions of the local government partners who engaged in and supported this research project.

References

• Allen, B. and Eppel, E. 2020. Ho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Landscape of continuous improvement in local government
• 3 Embedding CI in LG through knowledge sharing
• 4 Case study #1 Stakeholder analysis for continuous improvement — A New Zealand perspective
• 5 Case study #2 in the Australian context – Developing a performance measurement framework in a council undergoing growth
• 6 Case study #3 Critical success factors
• 7 Case study #4 – Understanding the work of CI practitioners
• 8 Conclusion
• Appendix
• Index