Suffolk: The Lives we Lead, the Leaders we Need

The Leadership Centre  for Local Government (now Local Government Leadership) worked with Improvement East and local government in Suffolk to help realise the strategic goals set out in the Suffolk Strategic Partnership namely its aspirations for Suffolk’s economy, learning and skills, environment, and communities.

By supporting the public sector in Suffolk as it works towards an improved leadership capacity, this challenging and exciting piece of work set out to:

- Develop different and stronger relationships across public, private and third sector partners to accelerate improvement
- Improve the social capital in Suffolk by making more connections across and between different networks and communities
- Improve community engagement and empowerment
- Identify innovations in service delivery that can be shared within and across sectors
- Improve the capacity to lead in new ways and respond effectively to current and future challenges
- Build a sense of aspiration and optimism for the future in Suffolk

To deliver these outcomes, The Lives we Lead, the Leaders we Need is made up of four strands:

- Leadership Collaborative – establishing a network of 22 leaders from delivery organisations across Suffolk, building leadership capability and developing strong relationships based on mutual trust
- Community Clusters – bringing leaders and the community together to focus on real issues; strengthening local bonds and enabling the design of services to take into account the perspectives of those that really matter – the people of Suffolk
- Cluster Support – developing the partnership working skills of a core group of managers who support Suffolk’s leaders; this group provides essential research and practical support to the Community Clusters, shaping and grounding ideas to deliver real action plans for change
- Conversations that Matter – engaging with the wider cross-Suffolk community to inform and shape ideas generated by the Community Clusters

Underpinning the whole programme were the Leadership Centre’s core beliefs about how to do this kind of work. It’s an iterative approach that builds in continual feedback and learning. It’s learning by doing, and by ‘doing’ with, in and for the community. It’s innovative, but will create new relationships, networks and ways of working that are sustainable.

For an example of what happens on The Lives we Lead, The Leaders we Need, see this report from Kent’s Social Innovation Lab.