A summary of the speech delivered by David Henshaw, chief executive officer of the City of Liverpool, to the Communities in Control conference 2004.
David Henshaw, chief executive officer of the City of Liverpool, gave an inspiring address to the Communities in Control conference about the transformation of the City from a lost and badly-run city to one which is now a model for many in management, organisation and customer/ratepayer relations.
Mr Henshaw – who became Sir David after being knighted when he returned home following the conference - has overseen the many changes in his position as CEO, and shared some of the experiences that he and Liverpool Council have learned during the transformation.
Liverpool has 90 councillors and an annual turnover equivalent to $2.5 billion Australian dollars.
Mr Henshaw firstly talked of Liverpool's proud history, but also how that history – as well as economic downturn, job losses and some questionable governance by a previous "extreme council" – became a millstone around the City's neck, with residents and the council looking to the past for direction, not to the future.
He said what he and the new council elected in the late 1990's inherited was a situation where "(residents) paid the highest taxes and you got the worst services," little wonder the city was depopulating rapidly."
Mr Henshaw also found powerlessness – both in the council and among the Liverpool public – and a council focussed away from good customer service: "There was an endemic powerlessness within the place. If you went in there and you had to try and do something, the first thing you did was put the reason on the file why you couldn't do it and why you'd given it to somebody else. It was a blame culture. If something went wrong, who was to blame?" he said.
"Now there are other things that were wrong with the city council. We had a series of silos. The big job in town was to defend your territory, advance your territory and the management team every week or defend it. This was a silo based culture of organization, which was beyond belief and had to change, and was very much inwardly focused on what we were doing. The customers – who?"
The council took action, creating Liverpool Direct – a central call centre getting 50,000 calls a week where customers speak to one person with access to a whole range of the council's services – and a growing number of one-stop shops where the public can access a range of services all in one place. It also saw those council workers "in the field" given better technology and made more efficient – with the call centre operators now not just answering calls, but "becoming champions for the customer within the organization, chasing their mates and colleagues up".
Also, the council itself made a conscious effort to improve in other areas. Mr Henshaw likened improving teamwork and relationships with other groups to dancing – and called on delegates to overcome prejudices because there are people who are trying to engage in positive ways: "When we dance, I'm leading. And that's how local government has seen its role for a very long time. Now community, you lead me ... did you spot anything there? The local government didn't know what to do," he said.
"That's true and I think one of the issues for us in the relationships between local government and communities is about trying to understand each other better, and actually think differently about how we behave with each other and work together. Sometimes you have to spin the community around, you have to jive, and you have to waltz, quickstep, and the rest.
"Many of you, rightly or wrongly, and I do the same in my world, will go into a meeting in a community organization and the prejudice is there in the room. Think differently about your behaviours; think differently about how you deal with me. Because behind the uniform there are many of us trying desperately to engage with you but we don't know how to dance. And we need help."
Mr Henshaw said the changes made have seen Liverpool drop from the highest taking municipality in England to 98th. More than £100 million and 4500 were taken from the system – "All (took) voluntary severance or early retirement, but it had to happen because we were massively over-peopled for our business," he said.
This good work – partnerships with community, communication and leadership – culminated in Liverpool winning the bid as European Capital of Culture in 2008.
Mr Henshaw also reminded delegates of the responsibility of leadership: "The point I'm trying to make is that behind us in every position of leadership that we have, and all of us in this room are leaders, all of us in what we do, all of us cast a shadow. A shadow of leadership," he said.
"And that shadow casts a large shadow across the organization, family, community group, whatever you're in you cast that shadow. If in that shadow you are casting something that is inappropriate, if for example I shout at everybody, I'm saying to the rest of the organization and the group I'm in, 'It's okay to shout'."