As the PPMA marks its 50th year, we’ve been reflecting on what it will take for our sector to thrive in the decade ahead. To inform that reflection, we brought together our past presidents to gather insight from deep experience in public service and consider the changes we can make now.
A sector facing sustained change in the form of Local Government Reorganisation must be clear-headed about how it meets multiple, competing demands from citizens, employees, unions and politicians.
With this in mind, our conversation focused on one framing question: if we were building a fearless public sector organisation from scratch – one that could serve, survive and evolve in today’s world – what would we demand from every level of it?
Before sharing the answers, there is one uncomfortable truth we have to accept: that as a sector we have spent years confusing motion with progress.
We have reorganised ourselves into exhaustion while the needs of our communities have shifted beyond recognition. We have pursued efficiency targets while losing sight of effectiveness. And through it all, the people we rely on to deliver public services have too often been treated as costs to be managed rather than the foundation upon which everything depends.
Meaningfully moving on from the status quo requires a different approach: practical, people-centred and unafraid of complexity. Here are five organising ideas that we believe will help the sector, and every organisation within it, to thrive through future change.
1. Stop mistaking reorganisation for innovation
We have become addicted to structural change because it looks and feels like progress. New operating models, fresh org charts and different reporting lines can create the theatre of transformation while leaving the work itself untouched.
Real innovation is not the act of moving boxes on a diagram; it is the disciplined, sometimes uncomfortable shift in how we listen to communities, how we design with them rather than for them, and how we trust our people to take decisions close to the point of service.
Every reorganisation carries an opportunity cost. While teams are being reshuffled and boundaries redrawn, we are not building capability, developing leaders or creating the conditions for people to do their best work. The choice is not between structure and culture, but about sequence and substance. Start with outcomes for residents and staff, build the behaviours that enable those outcomes, and only then consider whether structures help or hinder that ambition.
The organisations that make the most progress are those that treat reorganisation as a tool of last resort, not a reflex.
2. Champion leadership excellence as the core of great public services
Too many promotions reward subject expertise over leadership potential. Public services demand both, but one without the other stalls performance. Great services are built by leaders who can set direction amid uncertainty, hold space for disagreement without losing momentum and create environments where others can thrive. These are not “soft” skills; they are the hard edge of delivery.
For HR directors, this is a call to place leadership at the centre of the people strategy. Define the leadership behaviours that matter in your place and be explicit about recruiting, developing and rewarding against them. Provide honest feedback that stretches judgement as much as competence. Create cross-functional stretch opportunities and acting-up arrangements so people can practise leadership before they are given the badge. Celebrate the leaders who model curiosity, kindness and courage – the characteristics that keep organisations learning when the pressure is on.
When leadership is treated as a craft, not a perk, performance moves.
3. Be honest that politicians and councillors shape culture -and therefore performance
Culture is not accidental; it is impacted by politics. Elected members shape it through every priority, every public statement and every interaction with officers.
When optics trump learning, perfection is demanded over progress, or control is valued above empowerment, fear takes root – and fear quietly strangles innovation.
HR has a unique role in helping political and professional leadership steward culture as intentionally as they steward budgets. That begins with constructive candour about the behaviours that build trust and those that erode it. It continues with visible, shared commitments to how we work: protocols that protect psychological safety when services test new approaches; scrutiny that supports improvement rather than punishment; and public recognition of teams who take calculated risks to improve outcomes.
The most successful organisations are those where political leaders accept responsibility for the climate they create, not just the targets they set.
4. Create new ways to harness middle management and the frontline
Change lives or dies in the middle of an organisation. Middle managers are the nervous system of public services, translating strategy into practice and coping with the unpredictable, human moments where policies meet reality. Yet they are often overloaded with implementation and under-resourced for leadership.
At the same time, frontline colleagues hold expertise and relationships that no consultant can replicate, but we rarely build systems that truly learn from that wisdom.
If we want momentum, we must unlock this tier. Redefine the manager’s role as leader of people and improvement, not merely process owner. Give teams clear guardrails and the autonomy to test, learn and adapt within them. Make it easy to combine simple data with narrative insight so local teams can see patterns early and change course quickly.
Move beyond token consultation by involving frontline voice in shaping policy from the outset, with feedback loops that show how their insight has altered the design. When we do this well, the effect is cumulative: small, credible gains that compound into sustained improvement.
5. Accept that public services deal in complexity and stop apologising for it
Public services exist precisely because the work is complex. Human need is non-linear, demands are competing and trade-offs are constant. Comparing ourselves with private-sector metrics that ignore this reality leads to the wrong conversations and, ultimately, the wrong designs. Complexity is not failure; it is the field we play on.
The task is to operationalise complexity rather than wish it away. That begins with measures that match our purpose: quantitative indicators complemented by qualitative insight from staff and residents, so we understand both what changed and how it was experienced. It continues with disciplined learning -pilots with clear hypotheses, rapid feedback loops and the courage to stop what does not work.
And it depends on better storytelling: explaining the choices we face, the trade-offs we make and the impact those choices have on people’s lives. When we communicate complexity well, we build legitimacy for the adaptations that real-world delivery demands.
A call for HR to be fearless
There is a mirror we must hold up to ourselves in HR. We have sometimes enabled the very problems we critique. We have defaulted to policing policy when leadership was needed. We have prized process when outcomes should have guided us. We have asked for permission when the moment required conviction.
The activism our sector needs now is different. It is disciplined and data-literate, but never loses sight of human dignity. It simplifies bureaucracy that saps energy and obscures accountability. And it tells a fuller story about value -one that makes the case for investment in people not as a cost, but as the platform for everything else.
Fearless public services will not emerge from another rebrand of “transformation” or an efficiency programme shaved at the margins. They will grow where leaders at every level – political, professional and managerial – create the conditions for people to succeed.
If we start with these five truths – pursue substance over structure, put leadership at the core, partner with politicians on culture, unleash the middle and the frontline, and design for complexity rather than despite it – we can turn change into progress.
The question is no longer whether change is coming. It is whether we will choose the kind of activism that builds services worthy of the people we serve.
A decade of disruption has left public services in constant motion but uncertain progress. With Local Government Reorganisation on the horizon, now is the moment for HR to lead differently: championing leadership, unlocking frontline wisdom, and building organisations fit for the future.
Local Government HR Strategy
“As the PPMA marks 50 years, we’ve asked a bold question: if we were building a fearless public sector from scratch, what would it take to thrive in a world of constant change? In this piece, we share five organising ideas that challenge old assumptions, put people at the centre, and set out a new role for HR in shaping the future of public services.”
Pam is the President of the PPMA, the professional organisation for HR and OD practitioners in the public sector, which currently celebrating its 50th year. Pam has extensive experience in local government HR. She is currently a Commissioner at Birmingham City Council and was the HR Director at Essex County Council.
