Do councils face an identity crisis?

07th November 2017

Zurich Municipal’s 2017 Senior Managers’ Risk Report, which examines changing attitudes about the role of the public sector in an era of austerity and commercialisation, has suggested that councils are facing an identity crisis.

While last year’s report illustrated the regional challenges and varying ambitions and appetites of local authority CEOs across the UK, the main shift in 2017 has been towards assessing the fundamental role of councils, the report’s authors say. There is growing discussion, and in some cases alarm, among council managers about how ethical and commercial priorities fit together within the climate of entrepreneurialism and growing public sector commercialisation.

These discussions are far from being resolved, the report says, adding that most local authorities are between cultures as they consider “jumping out of the frying pan (of austerity) and into the fire (of commercialisation).”

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