The Rise of the Resilient Local Authority?

Abstract

Abstract:The term resilience is increasingly being utilised within the study of public policy to depict how individuals, communities and organisations can adapt, cope, and 'bounce back' when faced with external shocks such as climate change, economic recession and cuts in public expenditure. In focussing on the local dimensions of the resilience debate, this article argues that the term can provide useful insights into how the challenges facing local authorities in the UK can be reformulated and reinterpreted. The article also distinguishes between resilience as 'recovery' and resilience as 'transformation', with the latter's focus on 'bouncing forward' from external shocks seen as offering a more radical framework within which the opportunities for local innovation and creativity can be assessed and explained. While also acknowledging some of the weaknesses of the resilience debate, the dangers of conceptual 'stretching', and the extent of local vulnerabilities, the articles highlights a range of examples where local authorities -and cruciallylocal communities, have enhanced their adaptive capacity, within existing powers and responsibilities. From this viewpoint, some of the barriers to the development of resilient local government are not insurmountable, and can be overcome by 'digging deep' to draw upon existing resources and capabilities, promoting a strategic approach to risk, exhibiting greater ambition and imagination, and creating space for local communities to develop their own resilience.

Conceptualizing community resilience to natural hazards – the emBRACE framework

“…The notion of resilience is meanwhile an integral element at the international policy level to both the Hyogo Framework for Action and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (United Nations Of-fice for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2015Reduction, , 2007 as well as to national and local discourses on disaster risk reduction, e.g. in the UK National Community Resilience Programme (National Acadamies, 2012) or on the level of local authorities in the UK (Jacobs and Malpas, 2017;Shaw, 2012).…”

Managing for local resilience: towards a strategic approach

“…The concept of resilience is also increasingly being used in public policy and management debates to both capture the challenges facing public sector organisations in an era of austerity, (Harrow, 2009), and to emphasise the need for new approaches to management and public sector leadership (Shaw, 2011;Grint, the case for change becomes desperately obvious' (Hamel and Valikangas, 2003, p 2). One account neatly summarises the distinctiveness of the resilience agenda (when compared to conventional policy approaches), as a contrast between the former's focus on 'flexibility, diversity and adaptive learning as key responses to realworld dynamics', and the latter's emphasis on 'optimality, efficiency, stability, risk management and control' (STEP, 2008, pp 1-2).…”

Community resilience: a policy tool for local government?

“…Within this context, local authorities in England have shown increasing interest in the potential for community resilience to support efforts to act creatively and reinvent institutional repertoires in a bid, not merely to implement austerity, but to buffer local people and places against the shocks and disruptions associated with austerity (Lowndes and McCaughie, 2013;Shaw, 2012a;Steiner and Markantoni, 2013). The concept of resilience emerged from the physical and natural sciences.…”

“…Reflecting on these developments, some have forecast a bleak future for local government, involving a major reduction or the complete disappearance of services, with councils becoming residual players within communities that are expected to assume responsibility for their own welfare (Levitas, 2012;Taylor-Gooby, 2013). Others have been more up-beat, pointing to the adaptive capacity of local government and its potential to 'weather the storm' through innovation and creativity, taking advantage of the possibilities of localism (John, 2014;Lowndes and McCaughie, 2013;Shaw, 2012a).…”