Learning to manage within limited resources - less is more?

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The idea of a stabilised, even universal template to provide an encyclopaedic explanation, a compendium of accumulated wisdom, systematically (by its appeal to systems) underrates the capacities of many actors to generate newness.

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This article sets out the main conclusions of a research project into how UK local authorities are managing within limited resources (MLR). Frameworks are developed to aid authorities to plan their approaches to MLR and to situate what they have already done and what they plan to do within a wider portfolio of tactics and strategies. An evaluation is made of how well local government is learning its way through to getting “more from less” and of what local authority support agencies need to do to help authorities to accelerate their learning. Finally, the authors argue that existing learning systems like benchmarking and quality management, while developing rapidly in local government at the time of the research, need further, significant refinement if the costs and benefits of resource management strategies are to be systematically evaluated.

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