Tom Dowling on Pride of Place, public trust and the future of local government

Tom is the former County Manager and Chief Executive of both Meath County Council and Carlow County Council, bringing decades of experience in local government leadership. Since leaving local government, Tom has become an EMCC-accredited Executive Leadership Coach and Mentor, helping senior leaders across the public and private sectors to develop their leadership skills and achieve their career ambitions. He is also a trusted adviser, facilitator and guest speaker, with particular expertise in coaching professionals for career progression and preparing candidates for senior leadership interviews. Tom has been very heavily involved in the Pride of Place competition across the Island of Ireland.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube here.

Timestamps

00:50 Lessons learned over decades in the sector
02:30 The power of language and transparency in creating trust
03:59 Challenging the word no: finding a reason to say yes
05:42 Creating and delivering Pride of Place
09:40 Why Pride of Place has an All-Island approach
12:13 Rebalancing the relationship between chief execs and councillors
15:58 The need for risk in local government
19:08 The changes needed in Ireland local government
21:10 Building trust in a period of mistrust
22:58 Optimism for the future of Irish local government
24:33 Local government as a career for all

Given your decades of experience working in local government in Ireland, what are the big lessons you’ve learned from working in the sector?

I’ve learned lessons from the first day I went into local government, and the early lessons were about treating people with respect and dignity. The minute I went into local government, I realised the impact you could make on your whole community, on your whole county, on your whole city.

Throughout my career, the most important lessons I learned were about respect for everybody, dignity for everybody, inclusiveness, involving people and communicating effectively. And by communicating effectively, I mean communicating in a manner that people understand, in a language that people understand. So if I’m talking to the community or business people or engineers, I will speak in a simple language, and I insist on that. I learned that lesson years and years ago from a very fine boss of mine. I saw the way he handled situations like that, and I took that away. I tell people who are going for interviews to make sure they talk to the whole board. That’s what you have to do.

One of the difficulties for people in local government is that there is a local government language, and it’s very statutory and heavy as a consequence. How do you bridge that kind of formal statutory language with the need to communicate it to a wider audience?

That’s a really good point. Lots of us like to go into that language, but we should only use it amongst ourselves. So if I’m talking to you, I need to talk to you so you clearly understand whether we’re saying yes or no, and why. If we go into the Council Chamber, it’s a completely different type of context. But I have to make sure that every single counsellor there knows what we are trying to do, and we should be transparent, we should be honest, we should be straight up and say it can or can’t be done. And I think it’s great when people trust what you’re saying. So that’s why I do it. 

But I also tell people it should be authentic. Too many people, not just in local government, in the political world and everywhere, they’re trained to speak a certain language, which becomes very boring after a while. I don’t think that works. We’re all different. We all have different styles. That’s my belief anyway.

You worked in local government in Ireland at a time when resources were very severely restricted. What lessons do you have from having to say no to things?

I learned big lessons during that time. One was, you don’t always have to say no. Lots of people use the word “no” to avoid doing something. But I was always saying, hold on, this can be done, we can work in partnership, whether it’s the business community or the residential community, we can put something towards that. We don’t have to say no just to say no. 

I gave a talk in a council once, and some people said well we have no money here, we never had any money at this council, and I said, “How did that road get built? How did your office get extended? How did you get paid every week, every fortnight?” 

We learn to manage, we learn to get things done. So I never took that as a reason for not doing something. It is the time when you prepare plans, get everything ready for the day, so that when something comes along, you can be “shovel-ready”.

But really, be ready to rock and roll when the time comes. So, I don’t like the word “no” if it’s possible to say “yes”. It’s as simple as that.

Getting Pride of Place up and running across the Island is an extraordinary achievement by any standards. Where did that idea come from, and how did you take it forward from a concept to a hugely successful delivery?

Thank you for bringing that up. One reason was that the local authorities were sometimes placing things in an area people didn’t like. So we were seen as the villain, despite having a wonderful library service that sometimes people didn’t realise was run and funded by the local authorities, with heroes in our fire service who sometimes people thought were a different organisation. 

I wanted them to see the good. But I also wanted them to see that we were partners.  In my first emails to the chief executives, I said, “This is a real opportunity for us to participate, work with our community, support our community, putting forward the best of that community as they demonstrate pride in their place.” 

And all our judges, who are very experienced, want to see only the good things. The instructions they get every year are to find the good. What’s also unique about ours is that every year, I would meet with the liaison from all the councils and ask, “Are we doing the right thing? How did the event run? What would you like to see in the awards this year?” So it’s actually working with the group as well. 

I learned a lot about this because I watched communities and I watched councils wanting to support their community. The idea of someone like me going out to meet a small group in the middle of nowhere sometimes wasn’t that well-liked. But they had to see we were real people doing a real job, trying to make a difference in their lives. 

Every single day, I see communities in this country working away. I see people looking after vulnerable people. I see people caring for their environment, their culture, their heritage. So when people stand up to give a presentation in their own community, they are bursting with pride. They’re sticking their chests out. They have never, in their life, looked back at all their achievements. It could be going back 30, 40, 50 years, but they would have built playgrounds, would have built community centres, would have sent sick children abroad for treatment, they would have maintained the hedgerows, the sideways, they would have looked after graveyards, you name it, they were doing it, but nobody ever acknowledged it before.

When I moved around different counties, sometimes people didn’t believe in us or believe in themselves. I was up in a tiny village yesterday in Armagh and when I say tiny, I mean tiny beyond belief. They’ve had difficulties over the years, but you should see the passion and belief of what a few young ladies started to do for their community and to bring it together, developing the park, developing community gardens. And the councils would turn up as well and they were hearing first hand, and they were seeing that we were not against them, we were supporting them as well – we’re in this with you, we want to solve the problem. 

So we work together. We look for money together. We look for a way of solving the problem. And that’s my view. It’s together you do.

But sometimes people forget.

You need the councillors on board with you. If you have no elected representative with you, you’re going nowhere. 

But look, I’m thrilled with the success of Pride of Place. The number of chief executives who have made contact with me and said the difference this has made to our relationship with the communities. It’s fantastic. You even get the area engineers out doing jobs they hadn’t done for years. Things like that really make it good.

You mentioned how community development can change perceptions of councils. What inspired you to take an all-island approach to Pride of Place?

Sometimes you can’t do things until you reach a certain position. Chief Executives have a wider influence on not just the county they’re involved in. I was on the All-Island Forum of chief executives; there was a certain number of people on it from the north and the south of Ireland, and I put that forward as something we should do. The first year we had seven councils involved, and now with all 31 in the South this year, most of the North is in as well. By bringing the North and South together, it really gave meaning to the whole thing. 

With the Irish Government accepting the Local Democracy Taskforce’s recommendations, what lessons from your 40 years of experience could help rebalance the relationship between Chief Executives and elected councillors?

First of all, I wouldn’t have had a chance to read that, but I have always had views on things like this, and I would make submissions when I was in my job. 

Elected representatives have a huge democratic role. You can’t do anything as a chief executive, a director or a member without it being part of an adoptive strategy and an adoptive budget, the development plan, you name it. So all those plans and strategies have to be agreed upon. 

The main thing we should do when we adopt them, support them and keep supporting them, because that’s what democracy is about – you make the decision, then you go with it. 

The real thing that’s coming out for me and something I genuinely believe in, is our towns and our larger towns all need some serious governance, where there’s a pure interest in and responsibility for making their town better. I believe if there’s a great town doing great work and wants to do more, they should be, and if you get the council on board, they should be allowed to find a way to fund it. 

I’ve seen examples in Ennis years ago, with the information age town, that was a joint bid with Navan Town Council and the Chamber of Commerce, and we joined a couple of agencies with us. That’s where they had to pay the way, that’s where the council made a contribution, but only if they paid the way. They learned a lesson, and subsequently, there were other joint initiatives. 

In Navan, the theatre, which at the time was £14m, the town councillors agreed to increase parking charges and rates, and that created a fund to make sure the government contribution matched the town’s.

So if you have a really good town council that wants to make a difference to their town and their place, you should be able to. 

But you have to show that this means something. Because not everybody understands you when you talk about this for the first time. Sometimes there’s this mistrust. But I think if you tell the truth, if you bring a budget to the councillors, that budget should be your best bet and not with hidden room to manoeuvre. If the councillors want to change that, they decide to reduce something, take it out, or put something else in – that’s it. There’s certain things you can’t deal with. 

So in answer to your question, I think there’s extraordinary transparency in recent years. Whether it’s the work of the ombudsman or freedom of information, there is governance. 

And the biggest, most important thing you can do as a leader, as a chief executive, is ensure your governance is right, your procurement is right, you manage your risks, you have a paper trail for any major decisions you make and health and safety, of course. So if the paperwork is right, then that makes the difference.

Since you’ve retired, you’ve become an executive coach. Do you have any lessons from working with private-sector senior managers that might be transferable to the role of chief executives within local government, or chairs of councils?

The biggest lesson I learnt is that local government staff and leaders are absolutely fantastic. I don’t think anybody can understand the extent and range of functions and the difficulties they have in bringing something through a democratic system and convincing a lot of people and all the rights for appeals and so on. 

The other lesson I learned is that you can’t be risk-averse. If you are a chief executive of a local authority, you have to take a risk in the interest of your community. You have to make it better.

I’ve watched the new group of Chief Executives. I think they’re wonderful. I think they’re all very well educated. They recognise and are prepared to learn more about working with people and working in partnership – I have to compliment them on this. Sometimes I think about the past, but they’re working under different circumstances, and theirs might be more difficult than the ones I had to work with.

So, in answer to your question, the only thing I will say is that they don’t know enough about the chief executives of these other organisations, or about local government. They wouldn’t be as strong at linking with their communities. That’s where I would be talking and helping them communicate properly, not trying to leverage things, but saying, “This is it.” 

Do you think local government chief executives are more willing to take risks and innovate than senior civil servants?

That is my experience, and I understand the senior civil servants’ problem as well. But I also believe that if you take a risk, you know you’re taking a risk, and you explain that risk, then you have to do it. Everything is a risk, whether you decide to focus on roads, housing, climate change, or whatever it is. These are all challenges as well. You’re absolutely right.

If there was one change you could bring about to how local government operates in Ireland at the moment, what would it be?

They need more access. Lots of local authorities are floundering for funding to get the right staff in the right place. There are loads and loads of initiatives and loads of incentives, but there’s matching funding to be obtained, and councils are having to make huge commitments that could cost a lot of money coming down the track.

The other change I’d make is I would allow the councils to just go and build the houses once there’s an overall design without too many approvals, because they have the property, they have the expertise, they have the ability, and that will seriously help with that. But that is the big problem of our day: housing. That’s a big perceived problem as well as being an actual problem, and you have to deal with the perceived ones and the actual ones. 

Also, if there isn’t a genuine grasp by central government on the climate change issues, local authorities can’t deal with it. But the public doesn’t see it as a problem, they’re saying, well, that’s a problem for another day. 

So they’re all issues local authorities have to deal with. But the thing is, local authorities always deal with them. They get the job done, and as you probably know, I’m a huge fan of everything that’s done in local government.

I’m a huge fan, by the way, of the training you did with all of us over the years as well, because you had a farsighted view of things and you were quite visionary in your approach. You saw the potential for local government to make a real difference on the ground, and that’s very important to recognise.

Drawing on your experience, what approaches can councils take to build and maintain public trust in an increasingly unstable political environment?

Well, as I said earlier, one of the reasons I started Pride of Place was to build trust between the councils and the communities. The councils had to buy into that. That’s part of it. But the way of sustaining it is that the chief executive, their management team and their staff have to actually understand that we’re lucky and fortunate to be in a democracy.

Over the years, despite this so-called mistrust, I have seen the overall wisdom of the councillors when they’re voting for the development plan, the annual budget, all these things. The combined wisdom has given us excellent results over the years. So there is a trust there, but sometimes there has to be the political cut and thrust – and that may appear as mistrust. Sometimes I’m tempted to suggest that some people are bringing the wrong messages to communities and the public, and that’s why I still have an obsession with the likes of our library and fire services and all the others that are trying to do things right in accordance with rules and regulations, not to strike it down. 

The other thing I will say is that trust will come when you don’t leave part of the city or county isolated. I think we’re as good as the work we do for the people who shout the least. 

I think you’re a naturally optimistic person, Tom. Do you remain optimistic about the role of local government in Ireland and indeed elsewhere?

I am the most optimistic person you’ve ever met in your life because I believe in people, I believe in the good of people, and I believe that once you capture that, society is going to be fantastic. I keep saying you just go to every corner of Ireland and see what people are doing for others, and I just wanted the councils to see that as well. We could not run this country without the work, and there are younger people coming up.

I did a podcast with a young girl recently in a community. They were interested in climate change and their environment. They were interested in everything. And I said, there are huge opportunities provided we manage the financial future of this country. There’s no question about it: with the expectations raised by the huge amount of money that appears to be coming into the country and into public office, people feel they’re all entitled to a cut of it. And they are, but it has to be spent wisely. But I am optimistic, and I am optimistic for the stability of the local authorities that really do get the work done at the end of the day.

Drawing on your nearly 50 years of experience, would you recommend a career in local government to young people starting out?

I have recommended to everybody that there is one small problem at the moment, which could be a big problem. The starting salary for a person coming in as a junior, at whatever level, if you know what I mean, in whatever technical grade or whatever it is, I think that’s an issue.

I talk about this to people every single day: you’re doing something that is easing the path of life for the public, no matter whether you’re in finance or whether you’re out meeting communities. And we’re broadening the range of jobs in the council as well. It’s not just that when I came in, there were engineers, planners and administrative people like me. And now, with all these other skills coming in, because I think the 2014 Local Government Reform Act was a fantastic act, which highlighted the fact that we can do anything that’s good for our community. And there are great opportunities for people.

I think we’re also making more of an effort to place people in the positions of their strength, rather than saying, “You’re that.” Give people the opportunity, the chance. So you can see the eternal optimism in all of this, and I hope, I hope to be around to share a little bit more of it.