It’s been a difficult few weeks for council chief executives. Without naming names we’ve seen at least two chiefs depart after a breakdown in their relationship with their leader, one exit stage left because of a failure in one of his services and yet another become embroiled in an embarrassing row over their salary offer. And these are the high profile cases that hit the headlines. Underneath there are certainly more.

None of this makes it any easier to recruit people for these top jobs. A chief officer in London can certainly be scraping a salary edging into six figures without anything like the aggro and loneliness a chief executive faces plus the prospect of career and reputation intact. Once an ambitious chief officer puts their head in the noose for the top job, managing the potential risk to their own brand becomes a serious issue.

The chief executive is supposed to sniff out the smoulderings of a bushfire well before it bursts into flames and douse it. Failure to do so among his or her often huge and complex organisation could threaten their job, livelihood and reputation with all their failings paraded before the world. Private sector chiefs can also be tripped up by similar problems but such incidents are generally kept out of the public domain, even in plcs, and should they lead to departure these are invariably eased by gigantic pay-offs.

Furthermore, the private sector takes a more relaxed view of failure regarding it as an inevitable part of the risk-taking business of running companies and managers therefore are often head-hunted for new jobs soon after. In the case of council chief executives failure is not an option. Cabinets and leaders want squeaky-clean candidates because they operate in goldfish bowls.

Failed relationships between leaders and chief executives are a perennial part of the landcape. But when they lead to the departure of the officer – rarely the leader – it is the former’s reputation which can suffer. Potential employers are nervous about perceived ‘difficult’ chief executives even if the fault behind a previous breakdown was with the leader and the local government chattering classes know it only too clearly. But local oliticians can be very insular when it comes to the wider local government world beyond their doorsteps.

As for the ongoing issue of salaries, this too is another potential minefield. If a council leadership chooses to increase its package to an incoming chief executive by £70,000 then it is fully entitled to do so, there being no statutory banding for salaries. But as sure as eggs it can expect a blizzard of local newspaper headlines, hardly a great start for a chief executive and not entirely helpful for the council either, especially as it will be constantly pleading budget constraints. I

n fact the chief executive salary issue generally, like it or not, threatens to become a reputation management issue for local government. The fact that levels are decided by market forces against a backdrop of skill shortages and relentlessly rising demands from central government appears not to cut much ice with a sceptical public  - even taking into account that in its view chief executives ought to be on slightly more than the minimum wage.

The irony is that recent events will only make it even more difficult to recruit chief executives, make ambitious chief officers think twice about risking their careers and reputations by applying for the top job and therefore push salary levels up still further.

We all know that if a commission were set up to look at the best way of delivering locally-based public services it would not end up recommending the current patchwork quilt of overlapping and even competitive authorities.

And I don’t just mean districts and counties, but also the bodies covering health, police, further education, fire and rescue, parishes, sundry quangos, in fact the whole nine yards.

A commission would in all likelihood propose a cross-boundary organisation, or at least a kind of federated structure with all the various public sector bodies within it, sharing back office costs, not a million miles away perhaps from the idea of Public Service Boards once proposed by Kent CC.

Now Hampshire has come up with a new model which it calls the senate (see the story here).

The aim is the same, to get all the various bodies providing public services around the table in a given area, in this case the county. Apart from councils it will include at its inaugural meeting the chairs of the police authority, fire, PCT, the LSP, and the parishes. County leader Ken Thornber, chairman of the County Councils Network as well as the Innovation Forum, sees it as an alternative to further council reorganisation which he plainly believes remains an option whatever ministers say.

But in theory it will also promote more joined-up working across services. He cites an example of how the county has pledged to plug a funding gap to maintain a non-emergency police number. We already have the example of councils stepping in to fund local post offices which face the chop. It is by no means fanciful to envisage postal services being provided from county or town halls, though the latter tend to be more high street-based and therefore more accessible to the public.

Such activity is a prime example of councils taking their community leadership role seriously. Hopefully initiatives like Hampshire’s senate will prove successful, despite the cultural obstacles that constantly knobble all attempts at cross-boundary working.

There are few English-speaking papers in Estonia where I spent a spring vacation last week so I spent the time devoid of UK news other than what could be gleaned from the hotel room channels.

After my week of blissful ignorance what struck me immediately on my return and a chance to catch up with the British nationals was the sheer relentlessness of their doom-and-gloom coverage. Predictions of a huge recession with house prices crashing, mortgage approvals slumping and banks wobbling were standard daily fare.

But added to this cocktail of self-fulfilling gloom were grim stories of British society’s decline into anarchy, mostly concerning public services. Town centres were awash with binge-drinkers and out-of-control teenagers, the new licensing regime having apparently miserably failed even though analysis shows otherwise. The teachers’ union conference was an opportunity for more coverage of our apparently disintegrating schools with 10% of teachers saying they have been attacked by violent pupils.

The sad saga of the missing girl in Yorkshire was a chance for more outpourings of coverage about sink estates and ‘chaotic’ families, the face of ‘forgotten Britain.’

Phew! After a couple of days of this I was ready to return to Estonia, in comparison a model of social stability give or take the odd vodka-swilling street drinker, teachers’ wages of £400 a month and a legacy of Stalinist housing estates that make our own 1960s offerings village high streets in comparison.

In fact last Wednesday, a day after my return I took a train from London to Liverpool which left and arrived on time despite the previous night’s high winds and where I found a city festooned with cranes and all the hallmarks of a boom.

Without wishing to deny the UK has some seriously challenging social issues, my point is that the relentless negativity in the national press only encourages cynicism of all institutions of governance, a sense of powerlessness among the public and its disengagement from the democratic process.

It is a real challenge for the public sector and local authorities in particular as they grapple with static budgets and rising expectations.

 The past as they say is another country and nowhere this week was it more striking than when Lord Heseltine strode the platform at the Conservative conference in Blackpool.

His presence conjured up images of a lost world two decades ago when the Internet, Facebook, e-mail, laptops, DVDs, YouTube, broadband and digital cameras were science fiction and people still bought astronomically expensive CDs in record shops. More importantly for Lord Heseltine’s audience it was also the time when the Conservatives were the natural party of government with a third election win in a row under their belt. Predictions then that come 2007 they would have been out of power for a decade, onto their fourth leader in the same period and facing the prospect of a further five years in opposition would have been as fanciful as predicting the invention of the Ipod.

But in one area change has been much less marked and it was this that Lord Heseltine addressed with his customary passion. For, as delegates could plainly see walking around Blackpool, the lack of urban regeneration continues to remain a challenge. The UK may be the world’s fourth largest economy and the City of London awash with 25-year old millionaires but run-down, decrepit, under-invested coldspots with poor housing, low skills and social problems continue to blight the country.

Lord Heseltine, facing similar challenges a quarter of a century ago as environment secretary, steamed ahead with urban development corporations to create the necessary urban infrastructure in areas where heavy industry had vanished. Today’s problem areas are more localised, more socially-based, more to do with lack of skills, low ambition, poor education, in other words, more people-orientated.

Lord Heseltine, in a thoughtful and heavyweight speech which only served to underline the paucity of debate during the rest of the conference, recognises the shift in our urban challenges. He realises that ‘simple, national solutions’ are no longer the answer to ‘complex and infinitely varied local challenges.’  His answer is strengthened local autonomy to tackle local issues and his comments must resonate across all parties.

The death of Raymond Barre, the former Prime MInister of France, last weekend again highlights how central and local politics there are entwined in a way they never are in the UK.

Barre went on, after being PM in the late 1970s, to stand unsuccessfully as a presidential candidate and embark on a successful career in municipal politics as mayor of Lyons in 1995. Indeed President Chirac chose Lyons as host town for the G7 in 1997 as a favour for his former colleague.

Moving from national to local politics is perfectly accepted in France. Pierre Mauroy, another ex-Prime Minister serving under President Mitterand, returned to local politics as mayor of Lille in northern France. Indeed he is still active although no longer mayor there, and I actually met him at a conference in Lyon last year where he was extolling the virtues of his city.

 I can't imagine Tony Blair gave more than a nano-second to the idea that he might become leader of a major British city. Sorting out the Middle East is much more to his taste. And nor is he alone. British national politicians generally do not go back into local politics from whence many came. Nor indeed do national figures although former 1980s T & G union leader Moss Evans unusually became a district councillor in Norfolk after retiring.

Local government has more than met its Gershon targets, but the next set will be tougher. Plainly, ministers have decided there are more pips to be squeezed.

Local government is on a hiding to nothing with the efficiency agenda. If it does too well, then the assumption is the targets were too lax and need to be raised. If they fail to deliver savings, then they are lambasted for being inefficient. As always, the truth is in between. Some councils are extremely efficient. Others are quite inefficient. But most senior managers across all councils know that, given members¹ support, they could identify further savings in their organisations without cutting frontline services.

The problem is, who wants to admit they could be more efficient if it only means further cuts in government grants?

This sensitivity is reflected in the report produced by the Regional Centres of Excellence (see page 9). Naturally, the RCEs want to show how well they have done by saving some £1.2bn across 400 projects over the next five years. They also suggest that councils could do a lot more, if only they were more savvy when negotiating with private suppliers. One region estimates it could save a further £90m a year on its external contracts.

We know there¹s more. Resistance to cross-boundary working remains an obstacle to sharing overheads, while near-shoring the use of call centres and back-office suppliers outside a client council¹s boundaries is still taboo in certain quarters. Don¹t even mention off-shoring. Poor procurement skills, naivity about market rates and lack of commercial sense are also problems for many authorities. Private companies are having a field day with naïve council negotiators.

But, stating there are squillions more to be saved hardly helps the LGA with its lobbying campaign for a better grant settlement from the Treasury. If anything, it will only convince Treasury mandarins as if they needed convincing that there is plenty of fat still on the bone, and councils should just get on and shed it.

Somehow, there needs to be a middle way in which councils which make genuine efficiency savings should be encouraged, not penalised.

A straw poll among delegates at last week’s LGA conference was that the venue, Birmingham, was a success. The convention centre, despite being 15 years old, appeared spankingly new and pristine in condition. The restaurants around the restored canal area of Brindley Place were sophisticated and cosmopolitan, the hotels well-appointed and all delegates required from eateries to fringe events were in easy walking distance.

It was the first time the association has opted for Birmingham for its annual event and only the second time it has met in a conurbation, the first being Manchester. Yet it is a sign of the renaissance of English cities. For who would have thought a decade ago that a major annual conference would take place in a Midlands or Northern industrial city?

There was a time 10-15 years ago when the local government calender was dominated by events in Blackpool, Eastbourne, Scarborough, Southport as well as the old survivors, Bournemouth and Harrogate. Now Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Liverpool and Cardiff are the new kids on the conference block Just as the flocked wallpaper and threadbare carpets of the seaside town hotels, the Grands, Palaces and Royals, are losing their charm among increasingly demanding delegates up spout the state-of-the-art international chains, the Jurys, Novotels, Hyatts and Holiday Inns, from the debris of urban industrial wasteland.

It is a regeneration triumph but as we celebrate their renaissance let us not forget that smaller towns and resorts continue to struggle, often in the shadow of the conurbations. The recent casino row showed us how desperate some of our towns have become if their only salavation is the roulette table.

A report this week from the IPPR’s centre for cities talked of ‘two-track cities’ with towns like Burnley or Leicester registering virtually no employment growth while Sunderland and Middlesbrough continue to post double-figure jobless rates. Milton Keynes as one of the designated growth areas may be thriving but nearby Northampton struggles with declining industry and low incomes.

Local government has had three secretaries of state in three years and for each the LGA conference has been a baptism of fire, though of course delegates are far too well-behaved to trash a newcomer.

But this year's incarnation, Hazel Blears, is different. Firstly, one hopes that after  Miliband and Kelly, Ms Blears is here to stay a while. More than a year would be nice.

Secondly, Ms Blears is highly unusual in having not just been a councillor but also a council officer and by all accounts the experience has not scarred her. She sees the sector wth its warts and all, but also how it fits into the bigger picture and how local government is about delivery on the ground in the way that Whitehall is most definitely not. The LGA audience is unlikely to faze her.

Her appointment has been received by local government's chattering classes with enthusiasm. Indeed there are few other high profile politicians who could have been so better suited to the post.

In her first few days it is inevitable she has been keeping her powder dry, making no comment whatsoever on reorganisation for example, although in an interview with The MJ she signalled her early priorities. In particular these are widening public involvement with public service delivery and making the age and ethnic mix of councillors more representative of the public they serve, or less of the ‘male, pale and stale.'

On the latter the Councillors has been consulting widely on finding ways of boosting more public involvement in local politics. It is due to report in November and Ms Blears told The MJ this week that she expected it to be radical.

Indeed the commission must be radical if it is to make any impact. It is already clear that the current system of using low-paid, time-poor volunteers to run multi-million pound organisations is a prime cause of the unbalanced member profile. An entirely new system using full-time paid cabinets, co-opted members of the public (a la Brown's ‘government of all the talents'), remuneration to ward councillors paid via their employers and fewer back-benchers must be considered. Over to you Hazel.

As anyone who has seen Andrew Marr’s recent History of Modern Britain on BBC will realise, the last decade has been unique in post-war British history for its economic prosperity.

Mr Marr, hosting by the way The MJ Achievement Awards gala evening this week at London’s Hilton Hotel – I couldn’t resist the plug - , reminded us in his final programme that we really had ‘never had it so good.’ In the 15 years from 1977 to 1992 there were three recessions. There has been none in the last 15 years. A generation has grown up never knowing anything but economic prosperity. And the prime cause is Britain’s enthusiastic embrace of the global economy.

So Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister at a particularly opportune time. Britain in particular has benefited from the huge increase in the global economy with London overtaking New York as the financial and multicultural centre of the western world. Cheap goods from China and immigrant workers from eastern Europe have helped keep price and wage inflation low.

But while the upside of globalism is good news for city traders and hirers of Polish plumbers there is a looming downside and it is local government which has to address it. Unskilled immigrant labour may fill labour shortages and keep wage inflation down but there is f a cost in terms of social housing, welfare benefits, language training and education which is often unrecognised by the Government – as Slough and the London boroughs can testify.

An equal challenge is reducing the so-called ‘underclass’, the persistent minority of low achievers, mainly white working class, who leave school at 16 with no skills or prospects in an economy whose unskilled jobs have been exported to China or India.

There are many challenges for the new PM but these two must be at the top of his pile. And in this arena, in skills, education and training, welfare, social cohesion, regional economic development, local government is his key ally. To paraphrase a former PM, just give local authorities the resources and the powers, Mr Brown, and let them do the job for you.