Training the next generation of local government managers

Several factors are converging to give local government a prominence it has lack for decades. As governments in market oriented democracies struggle with demands for improved services and greater efficiency as well as public disengagement from political processes, local government is emerging as a strategically located but under-utilised institution at the interface between government and community. In particular locality-based approaches to the ‘wicked problems’ of public management increasingly identify local government as the steward of the community resilience and local knowledge required to address the pressing issues of our times. For this to happen, however, local government itself needs to change developing a new type of leadership capable of accessing a new type of knowledge. In this paper we look at the management challenges facing local government and suggest the competencies and skills which will be required to meet them.