Place-based leadership and radical public innovation: Lessons from mayoral governance experimentation in Bristol, UK

Cities across the world are breaking new ground in relation to public innovation. The reasons why civic leaders are being pressed to come up with game changing strategies are diverse.  They include fiscal cutbacks by central... [ view full abstract ]

Cities across the world are breaking new ground in relation to public innovation. The reasons why civic leaders are being pressed to come up with game changing strategies are diverse.  They include fiscal cutbacks by central governments in many countries (drastic in some cases), rising public expectations relating to what the state should be doing to tackle social and economic inequality, increasing anxiety about the impacts of climate change, and growing recognition of the need to create imaginative approaches that tackle the causes rather than the symptoms of current urban ills.  A consequence is that urban experimentation is on the rise.  Despite this fact understanding relating to how urban experimentation works – in particular, about how place-based leadership can stimulate successful public innovation - remains thin on the ground.  This paper aims to enhance understanding of the relationship between place-based leadership and radical, progressive public innovation.  It addresses this challenge by examining, in some detail, the bold innovations in urban governance that have taken place in Bristol, UK in 2012-18.  The paper explores two related questions: 1) Does the institutional design of the governance arrangements of a city make a difference to the performance of place-based leadership? And 2) Does the leadership style of the individual exercising city leadership in a city make a difference to social, economic and environmental priorities?  The paper, which is based on a five-year longitudinal study of place-based leadership in Bristol (known as the Bristol Civic Leadership Project), draws on surveys of citizens and civic leaders, on interviews and on participant observation.  It is divided into four parts.  An opening section explains how the decision of Bristol voters, in a referendum held in May 2012, to introduce a directly elected mayor model of governance into the city, represented a startling departure from a ‘business as usual’ approach in UK urban politics.  Of the ten referenda held in the big cities in England on the same day Bristol was the only city to say ‘yes’ to the introduction of mayoral model.  A second section provides data on public ‘before’ and ‘after’ perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of the directly elected mayor model.  The results are striking and reveal important differences between different socio-economic groups in the city.  A third section discusses the different styles of leadership of the first two directly elected mayors in the history of Bristol: Mayor George Ferguson (2012-2016) and Mayor Marvin Rees (elected in May 2016).  A final section draws out a number of lessons relating to the nature of place-based leadership in changing times.  The evidence from this case study suggests that place should be given much more prominence in public policy and public management studies, that the institutional design of urban governance can make a big difference to governmental performance, and that the individuals exercising civic leadership in a place can have a major impact on local civic endeavour.