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Local Government Strategic Planning Process + Example

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Strategic planning in government can be challenging. You need to ensure stakeholder input is taken into account, your strategy is aligned across all city departments, capital projects are linked to multiple plans, and all involved are bought into the strategy.

The good news is, it can be done and the process may be easier than you think. The even better news is, we'll be sharing our local government strategic planning process for achieving this here.

We've worked with a number of local governments through the process of implementing strategy in their organization. During these implementation projects we're often asked about the best way to structure and create their strategic plan.

In order to shed some light on this recurring issue, we've decided to address this in our local government strategic planning guide.

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Local Government Strategic Planning Process

The local government strategic planning process should follow the steps below:

Environmental Scan

  • Writing Your City Strategic Plan
  • Strategy Roll-out to Divisions and Departments (We will touch on this in later articles)
  • Executing Strategic Plan (We will touch on this in later articles)

government strategic planning process infographic

While the above steps are a slightly simplified version of our local government strategic planning process, it should help give you an understanding of the phases in the strategy cycle as a basis - before you get caught up in the detail of the different things involved in each step.

We'll now look into the first two phases mentioned above and explain what it is, what the different components are, and how to go through each phase successfully to arrive at the next to create you government strategic plan.

When city/town managers and other executive leaders take on the task of strategic planning in government, an environmental scan should always be the first step. The environmental scan will require local governments to study and analyze the current and emerging forces that exist within their municipalities internal and external environment.

It provides city managers with comprehensive information on the current conditions of the city that may present potential opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses to take advantage of or mitigate. 

Internal Analysis

An internal analysis examines your organization’s internal environment in order to assess its resources, competencies, and competitive advantages. Performing an internal analysis allows you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your organization, as well as the opportunities and threats that face your organization.

This knowledge aids the strategic decision making of management while they carry out the strategy formulation and execution process. We've already created a guide to conducting an internal analysis in an earlier article, so check it out , and then come on back here to continue. As a quick overview, things you'll probably want to cover in your internal analysis will include:

  • A Strategy Analysis - to help you evaluate how well you performed against your current strategic plan, what you can do better, and where you should be focusing. 
  • Internal Stakeholder Analysis - allows you to gather insight into the concerns and views of all internal stakeholders of your city and the impact they may have. 
  • SWOT Analysis - will be beneficial in gaining a holistic view of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that face your city/town. 
  • VRIO Analysis - will help you identify any competitive advantages you have, and how to turn them into sustained competitive advantages. 

External Analysis

An external analysis is the process of researching and examining the external environment your organization operates in, in order to determine where opportunities and threats to your town/city lie.

Just like any organization, local governments are affected by factors outside of their immediate control that they must prepare for. For example, changing legislation and policies, demographic changes, or climate concerns. Things you'll probably want to cover in an external analysis will include:

  • A PESTLE analysis - to assist in identifying the different areas that may impact your city. 
  • An External Stakeholder Analysis - allows you to gather insight into the concerns and views of all external stakeholders of your local government and the impact they may have.

Local Government Strategic Plan Example

The actual creation of your cities strategic plan can now begin. Armed with the information and insights gathered during your environmental scan, you should now be well equipped to formulate great strategies to achieve your municipalities goals.

There is one more thing you will need to consider before actually writing your strategy - and that is the 'model' (design of strategic plan structure) that you will actually use. For the purpose of this article we're going to be using 'The Cascade Model' as we have found that this approach to strategic model is simply more effective when it comes to execution than any other model we've tried.

We've slightly adapted some of the terminology in the model to work in the context of local governments. So, with that being said.. 

What is the Cascade Model?

The Cascade Model is made up of 6 components. We've put together a diagram below of what the components of The Cascade Model look like in use for local government.

Cascade-model-for-government

Your vision statement defines  where you want to get to . Your Vision Statement is the anchor that stops you getting lost at sea. It will help to tunnel your strategy towards the outcomes that matter the most to your municipality.

Every single thing that you write into your plan from this point onward, will ultimately be helping you to get closer to your Vision. If your city needs a hand writing it's vision statement, check out this article for a complete guide.  

An example vision statement for a local government may be.. 'A safer, smarter, healthier city which allows all our citizens to thrive'

Values represent  how you'll behave as an organization as you work towards your vision. Think of Values as the 'enablers' to your Vision Statement. Don't be afraid to be honest about how you want the people in your local government organization to act and think through their day to day work contributing to the strategy. If you need a hand finding the core values of your city, check out this article for a complete guide . 

An examples of values held by a local government may include.. 'Diversity' 'Respect' 'Innovation' 'Trust'.

Focus Areas

Your focus areas are  the high level areas that you’ll be focusing your city's efforts around as you strive towards your vision. We usually suggest creating between 3 to 5 Focus Areas. Any fewer and they will probably be too vague. Any more, and well.....I for one certainly can't focus on more than 5 things at once! For a complete guide on creating key focus areas, check out this article!

Continuing on with our local government example, focus areas may include.. 'Safe & healthy community' 'Urban experience' 'Innovative infrastructure' ''Economic vibrancy and employment'. 

Strategic Objectives

Strategic Objectives represent  what your city actually want to accomplish  - they’re reasonably high level, but should still have a deadline attached. Your Strategic Objectives (also known as strategic goals) should align to one or more of your Focus Areas and should start to put some tangibility into what you think achieving your focus areas will look like. Typically you’ll have between 3-6 objectives for each focus area. Check out this article for a complete guide to creating awesome strategic objectives.

Borrowing from our example of focus areas above, if we were creating strategic objectives for the focus area 'Safe & Healthy Community', examples of strategic objectives may be

  • 'Improve neighborhood safety by 31st of December 2022'   
  • 'Increase housing security by 30th of June 2022'
  • 'Improve services to youth and vulnerable populations by 31st of December 2022'

Work plans describe  what you will do  to accomplish your objectives (or goals). They help convert the big picture into smaller, more manageable outcomes and tasks. It is at this point in your strategic planning process that you will start to scope out exactly what actions you will take in order to achieve certain objectives, and what skills, experience and resources will be needed. If you need a hand creating your work plans, check out this resource.

Taking our strategic objective from above 'Improve services to youth and vulnerable populations by 31st of December 2021' , an example of a work plan that would fall under this may be 'Fund an collaborate with a myriad of community organizations working in human and social services' 

KPI’s are  how you will measure progress towards your strategic objectives. KPI's are measurable values that show your organization’s progress towards achieving key business objectives. 

KPIs should be developed to contribute to achieving a specific goal or objective, and are how you will know if you have achieved your strategic objective or not. If you need a hand developing great KPIs, we've created a 4 step process for creating awesome KPIs.

An example of a KPI for the strategic objective ' Improve services to youth and vulnerable populations by 31st of December 2021' may be something like 'Decrease the unmet need for mental health services to 0% by 31st of December 2021'. 

Local Government Strategic Plan

Following the steps detailed in this article should allow you to create a great city strategic plan. The strategic planning process should not stop here though, the strategy roll out is just as crucial to the planning process as writing the city strategic plan.

This is because the roll-out phase is when you'll have the opportunity to share the strategy with the rest of the departments in your municipality, in order for those departments to then create their own strategic plans based off the cities plan.

Without cascading the city strategy down through the organization, poor alignment between departments can foster, and confusion and inefficiencies are created.

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7 Best Practices for Local Government Strategic Planning

7 Best Practices for Local Government  Strategic Planning

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strategic planning process for local government

A local government strategic plan provides an opportunity for city and county managers to shape everything from their jurisdiction’s youth services, accessibility, and downtown landscape. This two-to-five-year plan is a vision for the future—one that finds the balance between available resources and big dreams. 

A strategic plan is an opportunity for local government managers to connect to their community’s needs and to build initiatives based on resident priorities. To that end, it’s one of the most valuable work products local government leaders will draft and oversee. Preparing it must come with careful consideration. However, developing a strategic plan also involves some complexity and several moving parts. Council members must also approve the plan. Adhering to the following best practices for local government strategic planning can help you streamline your planning process and ultimately improve your strategic plan.

Local government strategic planning best practices

The strategic planning best practices below will help city and county managers draft and execute a successful plan.

1. Obtain community input

A strategic plan serves the community, so it should take the community’s needs into consideration . Seeking community input during the planning process is critical. Additionally, mechanisms to ensure that resident feedback is heard should be established. These mechanisms include public meetings, surveys, hearings, workshops, and technological solutions for broader participation by those who would not necessarily participate.

2. Put vision before resources

Policy experts often recommend that the vision of the strategic plan not be hampered by available resources. The GFOA Best Practices: Establishment of Strategic Plans states that a strategic plan is about “influencing the future, not just preparing for it or adapting to it.” It goes on to say that it is the vision itself that should drive the allocation of resources. In other words, while it is important to consider resources, strategic plans are a roadmap. And as they don’t require dollar-for-dollar accounting, you should see your strategic plan as an opportunity to dream big.

3. Incorporate equity from the first step

Including DEI in your strategic plan ensures that you’re serving all parts of your community – not just the active participants. The American Planning Association defines this as “recognizing planning practices that have had an unequal impact on specific communities and actively working with affected residents to create better communities for all.” Establishing equitable and inclusive processes from the ideation phase ensures that all residents have a voice in shaping the vision and setting strategic priorities, ensuring that all residents benefit from your strategic plan.

Too often, the most active participants in local government do not necessarily speak for the entire community. More so, the most vulnerable members of your community may face barriers to participation. These include language barriers, accessibility, and even a lack of knowledge that taking part in local government is possible. Lowering these barriers and including underrepresented voices in your strategic plan helps you build a city with all of the communities you serve. For city and county managers, this means broadening the ways by which you hear from the community and gather feedback.

4. Build on the past

A successful strategic plan doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. City and county managers should borrow from the successes of previous strategic plans, and from the successes of their neighbors. Similarly, local governments can benchmark against similar communities .

5. Utilize data to support your plan

Perhaps one of the most important steps in creating a strategic plan is the approval process. The process of creating a plan varies by jurisdiction: in some cities and towns, managers are responsible for creating the plan, while in other jurisdictions the plan is created by a committee. One constant, however, is that strategic plans and the priorities they establish must be approved by elected officials such as council members. The challenge is that it can be difficult to approve policies that are endorsed by more than just the loudest members if council members are not heard by the entire community.

For this reason, data is one of the most valuable tools local governments leaders can harness, as it means backing up proposed initiatives with the priorities of the community at large. This is where community input comes into play, and it is representative and diverse community input. Using organic feedback and broad-reaching surveys can help local government leaders get elected officials on board and approve their strategic plan.

6. Measure your performance

A successful local government strategic plan provides a vision for the future and also lays out necessary steps to achieve those goals. Performance management is the assessment of the implementation of a strategic plan through key performance indicators (KPIs) and data analysis. Without KPIs, it’s impossible to know whether implementation is going according to plan and which areas need to be optimized. Performance management is an opportunity to evaluate your strategic plan in real-time —or even just a portion of it. Perhaps equally importantly, performance management also provides a foundation for future plans.

7. Stay flexible

If the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that even the best-laid plans can go awry. For that reason, staying flexible and dynamic is a must for executing a strong strategic plan. City and county managers must be able to set a course in both the development and implementation of a strategic plan. Additionally, they need to adapt to changes in the environment and lessons learned through performance management and evaluation. Doing so is a recipe for success.

Local government strategic planning: next steps

Following these best practices puts local government leaders on the path to a dynamic strategic plan that serves all members of the community. However, with each of these best practices come new challenges that must be considered in order to be truly successful.

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This course will take place in person at the School of Government, from 9am - 5pm.

Strategic planning is one of the most effective tools in local government to improve organizational performance and sustainability. Strategic plans help public managers develop a detailed course of action to take an organization from its current state to the desired future state while ensuring its survival and success. This one-day course is designed for local public managers serving mid-tier and leadership roles. It offers public managers the tools to develop new strategic plans or improve their existing plans. This course employs accessible step-by-step techniques to demystify the strategic planning process for public managers and presents flexible, pragmatic methods to implement strategic plans.

This course is a part of SOG’s Evidence-Based Course Series .

Learning outcomes:

  • Identify the benefits of strategic planning
  • Develop and refine mission, vision, and values
  • Analyze organizational environment
  • Identify and frame strategic issues
  • Formulate strategic alternatives
  • Develop an understanding of logic models

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Government Strategic Planning 2023: Examples & Helpful Tips

strategic planning process for local government

When it comes to getting things done as a local government, two of the most critical variables are budgets and timeframes. To be as efficient as possible, you’ll need an ironclad strategic plan for your local government that showcases how you’ll spend your local budget and how you and your subcontractors will meet timeframe deliverables on public projects.

Here, we’ll explore the key reasons that you owe it to your constituents to have a local government strategic plan, along with examples and tips for crafting the best plan possible. 

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What is a Government Strategic Plan?

A local government strategic plan is the process of assessing and addressing the current situations in your area as they pertain to critical physical infrastructure, regional natural disasters, government technology, cyber-security, the health of your constituents, and other variables that will have a direct impact on your neighborhood and constituents. Once your local government identifies the largest threats for your neighborhood, the key to a high-quality government strategic planning process is forming a plan for mitigating risk and completing infrastructure projects as cheaply and quickly as possible. 

Why is a Strategic Plan Critical for a Local Government?

Without a gameplan, your locality is more likely to blow through your departmental budgets and miss deadlines for infrastructure projects. Strategic plans allow your governmental officials to give serious consideration to the future before building a roadmap that will help your team to achieve goals that matter to your constituents. 

What Should Be Included in a Government Strategic Plan? 

Your local government will need to consider national issues that pertain to town and city governments across the United States as well as regional issues that more directly impact your community than localities elsewhere. 

Here’s a look at the common features of a local government strategic plan:

1. voices across government departments & roles.

While government leadership should play a major role throughout the strategic planning process, a true risk mitigation effort needs to consider various perspectives and potential future outcomes. Working with a diverse rank of government officials across departments and leadership levels will allow you to craft a well-rounded strategy.

2. Consider Your Mission

Your local government needs to build your plan around a general mission statement. At a high-level, what are the issues your government is most determined to address? What upcoming public projects matter most to your constituents? 

Giving these questions serious thought will allow you to articulate the key components of your strategy in a simple mission statement. 

3. Holistic Risk-Assessment

Every government has risks to consider and address with policy and infrastructure projects. A holistic view of the various threats to your locality will include:

  • National issues: social and economic challenges are occurring at the national level, and constituents on both sides of the aisle are frustrated with their government’s inadequacies. Consideration to which issues matter most at a national level will allow your locality to take localized efforts to address them. 
  • Constituent frustrations: angered constituents equates to a failed re-election effort. Your local government needs to consider which issues matter most to your constituents, and assess these issues to prevent bad government-constituent relations. Read this guide to learn more about Why the Public is Losing Trust in Local Governments
  • Economic hardship: especially as we enter a period of recession, your local government will need to consider the impact of inflation on local businesses, constituents, and budgets.
  • Natural disasters: which particular natural disasters pose the largest risk to your area? What actions have / are being taken to address these disasters, mitigate risks, and communicate with the public?
  • Cyber attacks: hackers have been causing local government data breaches for years, and attacks are becoming more frequent. Have you made the effort to embrace cyber secure technology and back up your government data?
  • Intergovernmental challenges: are you having issues recruiting new government workers? Are your internal processes inefficient and expensive? Is your information technology strategy up to date? Failure to recognize and address these types of issues is one of the biggest causes of inefficient bureaucracy. 
  • Public policy: which national and state laws are the highest priority for your locality to address in the near future? What penalties will you face for failing to address these policies?

4. A Refined List of Issues

Once you’ve considered all of the broad risks, it’s time to prioritize the most important ones and build your strategic plan to address them. The top issues should be concerning to your constituents, pose serious risks to the health, quality, safety, economy etc. of your community, and will be quintessential to the future endeavors of the local government and township as a whole. 

5. An Actionable Gameplan 

Now that you’ve collectively agreed on the major issues, it’s time to consider the course of action to address them. Your local government strategic planning needs to articulate where departmental budgets will be allocated in coming months and time frames for getting work completed along with actionable strategies for hitting these deadlines.

To save time and money, many local governments are embracing a digital transformation with government management software. This software automates government tasks and stores financial data in real time, meaning you’ll be able to regularly assess your budgets and save time on government projects. 

6. Use Measurable KPIs

To assess your performance, you’ll need to determine which key performance indicators (KPIs) matter most in your strategic plan and set measurable goals for each.

Consider the following goal types when setting your KPIs:

  • How much is this public infrastructure project expected to cost?
  • How long is this government project going to take?
  • Are constituents happy with the efforts being taken by our locality?

Gauging timelines, public perception, project budgets, and other key aspects of a strategic plan will make it easy to see if you're nailing your goals or missing the mark. Learn more in our guide to Setting Measurable Local Government Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 

Once KPIs are identified, outline who’s doing what and assign them a task via your local government management platform to keep everyone organized and accountable.

7. Put Your Plan Into Action

Upon the completion of your plan and approval of the policymakers for budgets and timeframes pertaining to the key projects, it’s time to take action on implementing your government projects. Release RFPs for private-sector partnerships, begin filing the key paperwork, and ensure intergovernmental communications make it explicitly clear who’s doing what and when. 

Here’s a real-life strategic planning example of How Jackson, NJ Successfully Took Action on Their Government-Wide Digital Transformation Goal .

8. Get Back to the Drawing Board

Taking strategic action to address risks obviously involves some risk in itself. You’ll need to pay key attention to your KPIs, and pivot if issues arise with meeting timeline and budgetary goals. 

If these types of issues do occur, you’ll need to consider which aspects of the process could be streamlined with government technology . Automation will save time and money to increase the success rate of projects outlined in your management planning. 

Pro Tips for Mastering Local Government Strategic Planning 

While the above section highlighted the key aspects of the government strategic planning process, this section will teach you the best practices for taking it to the next level. 

Here are some key tips for mastering strategic planning:

  • Don’t be late to making a digital transformation: states like NJ and FL are setting the tone by passing electronic permitting and inspection laws for a reason: because it saves governments time and money and boosts the local economy. To mitigate risk across the board before you even get to strategic planning, going digital will make future endeavors more efficient and timely (and mitigate cybersecurity threats!.)
  • Correspond with constituents constantly : your constituents elected local leadership because they believed you’d make serious strides towards improving their local quality of life. To make that happen, you’ll need to truly understand which issues are most concerning to them. Having a firm grasp on constituents’ takes on major issues and where public funds should be allocated will make it easier to make a strategic plan that positively benefits the people in your neighborhood. 
  • Give government officials time to think about the strategic plan: Government leadership should let government workers know in advance that they’ll be asked for input on the government strategic plan. That will give them time to truly ask big questions when it comes to the biggest issues in your locality to prioritize. 
  • Check in on your financial dashboards: knowing where your taxpayer dollars and federal grants (from recent legislation like the American Rescue Plan and Infrastructure Investments & Job Acts) are being allocated is quintessential to seeing a government strategic plan through. With GovPilot, data across departments is pulled into financial dashboards in real time, allowing you to see where money is being spent and how cost per project is lining up against your budget. 
  • Use automated RFP notifications for local business partners: efficient and cost effective private-sector partners will be critical to seeing your highest priority physical & digital infrastructure projects through. With automated RFP software, you can send email blasts / texts out to local private sector businesses and collect proposals in a simple online platform. Learn more in our guide to the Best Software for Government Procurement . 

Understanding the Government Strategic Planning Process

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. Your constituents deserve a well-thought out gameplan for how their tax dollars are being spent and how their elected officials are bringing about meaningful change. Take the time to strategic plan across the entirety of your municipal or county government by considering the largest risks and how you’ll address them. Answer big questions regarding costs and timelines, and set actionable KPIs to turn your plan into action. And use government technology to automate workflows, track budget allocation, and get paperwork filed quickly.

Learn more about how GovPilot government software can transform your local government processes with a free demo. 

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Real Life Government Strategic Plan Examples & Success Stories

GovPilot takes pride in being the operating system for local governments. Here are some case study examples of challenges that localities were facing, and how shifting online helped them to hit their strategic planning goals across departments:

  • Big Bear Lake, CA’s Economic Goal: Increase Vacation / Short-Term Rentals With Online Applications 
  • How Galloway, NJ Improved Their Public Records & Document Request Processes
  • How Bexar County, TX Streamlined the Permitting Review Process
  • How Atlantic City, NJ Maintained Zoning Processes During the Pandemic Lockdowns
  • Atlantic City Had a Goal to Modernize IT. Here’s How They Did It in Weeks
  • Local Government Accountability: Operating a Truly Ethical Local Government
  • How Do Online Permitting Systems Work?
  • Government Data Breach Prevention: Preventing Data Loss & Leaks
  • What is GovTech? Everything to Know About Government Technology
  • Modern Government Trends, Events, & Technology
  • Tornado Mitigation & Disaster Plan
  • Wildfire Mitigation & Disaster Plan
  • Local Government Disaster Preparedness Guide
  • Continuity of Government: Government Procedures During a Crisis
  • Best Software for Government Procurement
  • How to Build a 15-Minute City
  • Building Inspections 101: How Municipalities Can Improve Public Safety
  • Government Cybersecurity: How to Prevent Ransomware Attacks
  • Municipal Planning: Reclaiming Your City Streets
  • Government Blockchain: How Local Government Can Use Crypto
  • How Local Governments Can Encourage Civic Engagement

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Public Sector - Four Steps to High-Impact Strategic Planning in Government

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/ focus, four steps to high-impact strategic planning in government.

By  Matt Boland ,  Troy Thomas , and  Danny Werfel

How do governments fare when it comes to strategic planning and execution ? Consider a recent session BCG conducted with a group of government leaders. To kick off the discussion, we asked for a show of hands: Who among you knows exactly what your agency’s priorities are? A few raised their hands. We then asked, Who among you believes that your agency’s strategic-planning process has had a real impact on your work? Again, just a few. Our final question: How many of you think that your agency can—and must—do better in this area? To that, everyone raised a hand. 

Smart planning and sustained execution are needed to anticipate and navigate the increasing complexity and challenges facing government leaders around the world. Governments must make the best use of limited resources and mitigate the risks of economic and political turbulence. Despite these imperatives, public-sector agencies commonly fail to value strategy, and they rarely excel at strategic planning and execution. The result: government leaders struggle to change their organization’s behavior and to drive progress toward the most important policy outcomes. 

The key to upping government’s game on this front is to understand what prevents effective strategic planning and execution and then to attack those challenges head on. On the basis of its more than 50 years of working as a leader in strategy, BCG has developed deep insight into the barriers that confront the private sector and an understanding of how they also challenge the public sector . These hurdles include a planning system that is too focused on bureaucratic processes at the expense of outcomes. In the public sector, such challenges are compounded by the frequent changes in leadership that are tied to election cycles, entrenched hierarchies and regulations, and a culture of risk avoidance. 

Drawing on 31 interviews with current and former public-sector leaders around the globe, we have identified four steps that governments can take to eliminate these obstacles: promote a strategic culture, leverage the organization’s purpose to catalyze action, transform the operating model, and build a system for execution and learning. 

Remaking the strategic-planning process is not about creating the optimal meeting schedule, metrics, or mission statements. It is about building a system that allows agency and department heads to determine priorities, put adequate resources behind those priorities, and then hold people accountable for results. It is about solving real problems. When they achieve this, government leaders find that they are fighting the right battles and delivering lasting value for their citizens.

Government’s Strategic-Planning Imperative

It is through strategic planning and execution that both private- and public-sector organizations develop and implement strategies, whether for corporate growth or for achieving a federal mandate. Through this process, organizations reconcile their responsibilities with their resources and set strategic priorities. When done well, strategic planning and execution can effectively account for and manage the numerous variables that affect their plans and programs and make the important connections within and among stakeholders, allowing them to work in concert toward critical goals. Sustainable and flexible execution of the strategy promotes the likelihood that government will deliver on its promises, improving citizens’ confidence and promoting their trust. 

Exhibit 1 illustrates one highly effective approach to strategic planning: the W-shaped model. (See Four Best Practices for Strategic Planning , BCG Focus, April 2016.) This approach starts with leadership’s definition of the organization’s vision and strategic ambition. Next, the division, field unit, or function heads are asked to respond to a series of pointed questions about the organization’s big challenges relative to this vision. Answering these questions, the unit or function heads suggest concepts or proposals for meeting the challenges. On the basis of their subsequent discussion, management selects proposals and assigns the unit or function heads responsibility for developing detailed plans for putting those proposals into action. Management drives execution of the plan, as well as a system for learning and adapting that is based on new information.

strategic planning process for local government

Mounting Public-Sector Challenges. The need for this sort of effective strategic-planning and execution process in government is intensifying in the face of four difficult realities. 

First, owing to the scale and pace of change, including changes driven by advancing technology, today’s operating environment is more complex than ever before. Case in point: the democratization and proliferation of advanced technologies is upending the way governments manage risks to security and their economies. Second, finding solutions to most public-sector challenges requires the involvement of more stakeholders—in and out of government—than in the past. For example, responding effectively to the risks posed by infectious diseases such as the Zika and Ebola viruses required international collaboration within and across government agencies as well as the private sector. Third, many governments are facing ongoing erosion of public confidence. A 2017 Pew Research Center survey, for example, found that only 18% of Americans trust the national government to do what is right. A 2015 survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, meanwhile, found that just 43% of citizens in its member countries trust their government. Fourth, many governments are feeling the squeeze on discretionary spending due to rising deficits, aging populations, and the increasing cost of government services.

Obstacles to Effective Strategic Planning. Amid such challenges, strategic planning becomes more important than ever before. However, in many public and private organizations, such planning is frequently undervalued and poorly done. 

Many of the obstacles are common to both government and the private sector. In numerous situations, the process is too bureaucratic, requiring multiple iterations and consuming too much time. It can also be too internally focused, failing to account for external factors or to learn from the experience of other sectors or similar organizations. Furthermore, in all too many cases, strategic planning excludes key stakeholders who are needed both for diagnosing challenges and for delivering outcomes. The failure to involve midlevel managers is particularly problematic because it can mean that the right issues are not elevated to the attention of senior leaders as they set strategy and that there is limited buy-in among the rank and file, weakening execution. Finally, there is a disconnect between the strategy and the incentive structure that is meant to promote follow-through on the strategic plan. 

Public-sector organizations are, of course, quite different from private-sector companies. Some challenges seen in the private sector may be magnified in the public sphere while other additional issues that exist in government have no presence in the private sector.

For one thing, government leaders—especially political appointees—generally have a more limited window of time for action than do private-sector leaders. That’s because there is high turnover among government leaders in many countries. In the U.S., for example, not only does a considerable majority of the federal government’s most senior political leaders turn over every four to eight years, but the average tenure of a federal government, Senate-confirmed appointee is only 18 to 30 months. 

At the same time, although many government leaders have solid policy expertise, a large number have little of the strategy and management expertise that comes from running a large and complex organization. As a result, it’s not unusual for them to delegate responsibility for the strategic-planning process, and they are not always personally invested in execution. This lack of engagement at the top filters down, leading to marginally engaged staff members who are not optimally committed to developing and implementing the organization’s strategy. 

Finally, many government organizations don’t perceive risk as private-sector companies do. Public-sector organizations can often be focused on short-term outcomes and compliance with rules and regulations rather than on long-term strategic results. Consequently, creating a strategy that can be adapted in the face of changing environments or new information is difficult.

Building a Strategic-Planning Process That Delivers Impact

To improve their strategic-planning and execution track record, government leaders should focus on steps that leverage four critical areas: culture, purpose, operating model, and execution. (See Exhibit 2.) Steps taken in these areas affect all stages of strategic planning—and can enhance the entire process. Of the four, culture is the most critical. It shapes and is shaped by the other three major levers for change. Changing an organization’s culture will unlock opportunity in the other three areas and help embed change in the organization.

strategic planning process for local government

Promote a Strategic Culture

Certainly, there are pockets of robust strategic planning in government, particularly within the defense sector : it is ingrained in the military profession. But either the culture of too many public-sector organizations does not embrace the value of strategic planning or the organizations’ leaders aren’t committed to that process.

To ensure a successful culture shift, the head of the agency or office must take a leading role in strategic planning, middle management must be involved from the start, and the risk-averse mindset inherent in government organizations must be addressed. 

“Strategy is ultimately the top leader’s responsibility,” according to one former senior government official. “You can’t delegate responsibility for leading change.” Public-sector leaders must personally drive the effort to set strategic priorities, build buy-in, align resources, communicate the strategy consistently, and hold people accountable for executing the plan. And they should make it clear to everyone in the organization that the unit responsible for strategic planning has a clear mandate from the top. 

To draw midlevel management into the strategic-planning process from the start, senior management must identify key staff throughout the organization who have responsibility for implementing policies and programs and bring them into the process through cross-functional teams. In addition, leaders should link the day-to-day work of frontline staffers to the strategy by highlighting ways that their roles and responsibilities—and the strategic-planning system itself—can help eliminate the obstacles to achieving important objectives and directly contribute to solving citizens’ real-world problems. Such steps will develop strategic thinking in personnel who are likely to be the next generation of leadership. And just as important, it will build buy-in for the strategy, making successful execution more likely.

The former head of a major operational directorate within a large government tax authority told us, “If a team is closely involved in developing the strategy, they will feel ownership of it. If they feel ownership, then they will want to make it work.”

For the head of one large government diplomatic organization, ensuring commitment to the strategy among the rank and file was critical for delivering results. She initiated and personally led a strategic-planning process when she took the helm of the organization a few years ago and involved managers from across the organization in the effort. In addition, goals were designed to drive agency-wide cooperation across various functional and regional silos. “This created a clear sense of where we were going, why, and the role each group played in achieving our goals,” she reported. 

The conservative mindset that some government organizations cultivate in employees can be a serious impediment to execution of the strategy. It’s important to find ways to reward and protect—not punish—those who take reasonable risks and achieve less than positive results. 

The head of a large transportation department understood that risk aversion could seriously undermine the progress of an extensive infrastructure project that the department was managing. The staff knew that rather than confine traffic to one lane during the many months of construction, the most cost-effective way to manage one element of the project would be to completely shut down traffic for several weeks. The head of the department knew that shutting down all traffic would generate short-term public outcry, but he was willing to take that risk. He understood the long-term public benefit and cost-saving opportunity that could be achieved in expediting the project, and he made it clear to his staff that he would own the decision should public backlash be directed at any of them. 

Leverage the Organization’s Purpose

A critical element in effective strategic planning is a clear sense of purpose, which consists of an organization’s timeless reason for being—its mission—and the strategic goals for fulfilling this mission within a set period of time. Strategic planning and execution allow organizations to deliver on that purpose by setting priorities, aligning resources, and mobilizing and measuring action. 

The following three actions help overcome the barriers to effective strategic planning and execution that stem from the organization’s overall sense of purpose: 

  • Reinforce the core mission of the organization. In addition to reinforcing the core mission, which is generally rooted in law, the leaders must articulate a compelling vision for advancing the mission over a three- to five-year period. This will provide critical direction and energy for the organization and ensure that all staff members understand where the organization is moving. 
  • Set clear strategic priorities to achieve the vision. This step may seem obvious, but it is rarely easy. “Deciding among top priorities is a challenge,” a former senior advisor in the U.S. executive branch told us. “Not everything can be a priority. You need ruthless prioritization.” Staff will play a key role in this area, helping to frame the inherent tensions and tradeoffs among these priorities.
  • Communicate the strategy throughout the organization. Organization leaders must make strategy come alive by providing their staff a consistently vivid strategic narrative that is relevant to their day-to-day activities. This story should be related energetically throughout the organization: the top leaders communicate the strategy to their direct reports, who then communicate it to the people they manage, and so on. The cascading narrative should show workers how their actions, driven by the new strategy, directly contribute to improving the organization’s performance. Such clarity can go a long way toward improving the odds of successful execution of the strategy. 

Consistent messaging was a powerful tool for mobilizing staff behind a large government defense agency’s new strategy. To help drive change, a variety of carefully drafted messages were developed to communicate the strategy, including a short “bumper sticker” message, a three-minute elevator pitch, a series of videos from top leaders, and detailed documents and presentations. One senior leader recalled that the head of the agency “joked that the strategy bumper sticker message would end up on his tombstone.” Still, consistent communication was critical. “Absent that kind of commitment to messaging of the strategy,” she noted, “it is difficult to overcome the cultural resistance to change.”

Transform the Operating Model

Typically, the public-sector operating model—the governance, structure, and processes of a government agency—is hierarchical, rigid, and not adaptable to changing circumstances. Action in three areas can eliminate those impediments and, in so doing, enable a more effective and efficient operating model:

  • Communication and Engagement with External Stakeholders. Government leaders should create a clear process for working with, for example, appropriators, authorizers, budgeting agencies, the office of the president or prime minister, citizens, and industry in order to secure the necessary resources and support for the strategic objectives.
  • Integration of Risk Management in the Strategic-Planning Process. Strategic planning and risk management must be integrated so that the organization can anticipate and prepare for the full spectrum of potential problems and opportunities that could arise during execution. In many cases, the primary risks relate to insufficient statutory authority, resource constraints, and weak or unwilling external partners. And effective risk management requires looking at the organization’s entire interrelated portfolio of programs, rather than addressing only risks that are within silos or that are perceived as external to the organization. 
  • Adapting Processes to Support the Strategy. New programs, policies, and the ways that their success is tracked and that resources are allocated should be directly linked to the organization’s strategic objectives. The use of agile teams—groups whose members are from functions throughout the organization and that are designed for rapid experimentation and adjustment—can provide powerful support in the design and development of these programs and policies. (See “ Taking Agile Way Beyond Software ,” BCG article, July 2017.) Such teams can generate quick insight on which initiatives are working and which are not. In addition, what success will look like for each strategic objective should be clear, with specific performance goals, indicators, and milestones identified for assessing progress. Furthermore, leaders must ensure that the disposition of resources and talent and the decision-making process are driven by the organization’s strategic priorities. The head of the large diplomatic organization mentioned previously says that more often than not, this is the exception in government. In many cases, she noted, “the strategy is not viewed as something that helps us get resources. There’s very little correlation between the strategy and budget requests.”

Leaders within the large defense organization described previously not only created multiple ways to communicate the strategy but also built a process that ensured that strategic priorities were supported with the necessary resources. During the budgeting process, one military department cut back on orders for equipment that was needed to support a crucial strategic objective. The aim was to trim purchases in order to invest in modernizing other conventional capabilities. Armed with a clear understanding of the priorities, senior defense organization leadership directed the department to fund strategically important equipment while allowing the department to determine how to offset the costs of other, less critical programs. 

Develop a System for Execution and Learning

Agencies that lack critical tools and data that can be used to measure progress cannot adjust course on the basis of new information. In addition, when strategy is not integrated into the day-to-day actions of frontline staff, employees can focus too much on programs that are not relevant to the organization’s strategic priorities. 

Doing an effective job of executing and adjusting the strategy hinges on three elements: the right data, a system that values accountability and aligns incentives, and the ability to adapt where necessary. The involvement and commitment of frontline managers is critical to success in all three areas.

The data required includes not only upfront information about what works in terms of programs and initiatives—data that can drive the initial strategic-planning process—but also timely and action-promoting data during the execution phase. Such information can come from both internal and external sources. Internal data may be the result of monthly strategy “pulse checks” with staff, quarterly or annual strategic reviews with senior managers, and evaluations of specific programs. External data can and—in many cases—should include information on the impact of certain programs in the real world. For the data to make a difference, it must be available, reliable, and timely. A senior executive in a large finance and tax agency told us that it’s important to “measure what matters—and movement will happen on things you measure.” 

The second element—accountability and incentives—is critical to successful execution. Leaders should hold regular evidence-based progress reviews with key managers, including officials who have direct oversight of programs that support each strategic objective. The sessions should focus on performance data for each program and allow in-depth discussions that include suggestions related to improving performance and mitigating risk. These sessions must be held more frequently and cover more detail than the annual or quarterly strategic reviews that many government departments and agencies already conduct. At the same time, the organization should create clear and valued incentives, including formal and informal awards and recognition for those who adopt new behaviors and contribute most to achieving objectives. 

The most effective government organizations understand that without accountability and the right incentives, even the best strategic plan will likely never become reality. One large agency responsible for managing much of the government’s real estate holdings held biweekly meetings at which staff reported progress on strategic priorities. According to the agency administrator, that “repeatable rhythm” of reporting kept the team focused on those priorities. A public-housing-and-finance organization, meanwhile, tied management’s performance evaluations to the accomplishments of the agency’s strategic objectives. This required identifying the right metrics for tracking progress against the objectives and instituting a credible and timely review process that integrated that information.

The third element—the ability to monitor performance in a way that helps the organization adapt—can result in two types of adjustments. First, data on the progress of key strategic objectives can help the organization alter the way it is executing its existing strategy. The strategic objectives may not change, but the way in which the organization tries to achieve them may. The second involves revision of the strategy itself. The need for such a shift can become evident only if the organization steps back periodically to assess whether or not things have changed in the overall operating environment. Such analysis may reveal that the assumptions on which the original strategy was based have changed, making it necessary to revisit the strategy.

Government agency and department heads worldwide can confirm that, as public-sector leaders, they are struggling to be successful in a uniquely challenging period. Political upheaval is the norm, and technology continues to alter the ways that society functions. 

In such an environment, government institutions must up their game or risk becoming irrelevant to the citizens they serve. Because confidence has slipped and must now be rebuilt, governments will be forced to take a major leap in the ways that they plan and execute strategy. Government leaders must institute a strategic-planning process that identifies the right priorities and drives decision making that supports those priorities. Taking steps in the four areas we’ve outlined—culture, purpose, operating model, and execution—can move governments from endless rounds of planning to delivery of results.

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Strategic Planning

This page provides basic information about strategic planning for local governments in Washington State, including examples of local strategic plans, vision statements, and mission statements.

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is the process by which leaders of an organization, such as a local government, determine what it intends to be in the future and how it will get there. It involves developing a vision for the organization's future and determining the necessary goals, priorities, and action strategies to achieve that vision.

As Yogi Berra would say:

"If you don't know where you are going - you might end up someplace else."

A strategic plan serves as a community's roadmap and is used to prioritize initiatives, resources, goals, and department operations and projects. The strategic plan is a big-picture document directing efforts and resources toward a clearly defined vision.

Vision Statements

Community visioning is the process of developing consensus about what future the community wants, and then deciding what is necessary to achieve it. A vision statement captures what community members most value about their community, and the shared image of what they want their community to become. It inspires community members to work together to achieve the vision.

A thoughtful vision statement is one of the elements needed to form a forward looking strategic framework that gives councils or boards the long-term-comprehensive perspective necessary to make rational and disciplined tactical/incremental decisions on community issues as they arise. Community vision statements are typically crafted through a collaborative process that involves a wide variety of community residents, stakeholders and elected officials.

Mission Statements

Mission statements are directly connected to vision statements. While a vision statement describes the desired future state of the organization, the mission statement describes how that vision will be achieved. Ideally, mission and vision statements are crafted through a collaborative process that involves a wide array of community stakeholders and elected officials, usually as part of an overall strategic plan.

A well-crafted mission statement should capture in a short, concise paragraph the purpose of the organization's existence and what actions it takes to fulfill this purpose.

Examples of Strategic Plans

Below are a few examples of strategic plans adopted by local governments in Washington State.

Cities/Towns

  • Camas Strategic Plan 2018-2020
  • Issaquah  Citywide Strategic Plan webpage  – Allows viewers to access parts of the plan via related webpages or download the entire document
  • Richland 2018 Strategic Leadership Plan
  • Shoreline City Council Goals and Workplan, 2022-2024
  • Snohomish Strategic Plan 2014-2018
  • Spokane  Strategic Plan webpage  – Allows viewers to access measures/goals built into the 6-year strategic plan, including a  1-page summary
  • Tacoma 2025 Strategic Plan
  • Cowlitz County Strategic Plan 2016-2020
  • Thurston County Strategic Plan 2019-2020

Special Purpose Districts

  • Franklin Public Utility District Excellence in Governance & Strategic Plan
  • Lakehaven Utility District Water System Plan Update 2016  – Water-sewer district
  • Olympic Medical Center Strategic Plan 2021-2024
  • Port of Vancouver 2018 Strategic Plan
  • South King Fire & Rescue  Strategic Leadership Plan 2017-2021

Examples of Vision and/or Mission Statements

Below are a few examples of mission statements and/or vision statements adopted by local governments in Washington State.

  • Bothell Road Map 2017-2018  – Includes vision, strategies, values, and city council goals
  • Lakewood Resolution No. 2015-30 (2015) – Adopting vision statement
  • Pullman City Council Mission
  • Renton Business Plan  – Includes vision, mission, and goals
  • Seattle City Clerk Vision, Mission, and Values  – Specific to clerk's office
  • Shoreline Vision 2029
  • Snoqualmie Fire Department Mission & Goals
  • Stanwood Public Works Mission Statement  – Specific to public works department
  • Tacoma The Principles that Guide Us  – Includes vision and mission statements
  • Walla Walla Statement of Mission, Vision & Values
  • Clallam County Mission Statement and Statement of Values
  • Spokane County  2018 Strategic Framework  – One-page overview connecting mission to core values, objectives, and vision
  • Lacey Fire District No. 3 Mission, Vision & Values
  • Port of Kalama What is Our Mission?
  • Woodinville Water District Mission Statement

Recommended Resources

Below are some resources that local governments can use to help develop their strategic planning processes, visions, and mission statements.

  • Balanced Scorecard Institute: Is There Any Strategy In Your Strategic Plan? (2008)
  • Boston Consulting Group: Four Steps to High Impact Strategic Planning in Government  (2018)
  • Center for Rural Pennsylvania: Planning for the Future: A Handbook on Community Visioning  (2006) – Well-organized guide outlines a suggested process, elements of success, and lessons learned. Also provides sample workshop agendas, announcements, checklists and other materials.
  • Community Tool Box:  Chapter 8: Developing a Strategic Plan  – Part of the "Community Tool Box" provided by the University of Kansas Center for Community Health and Development
  • Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA): Building a Financially Resilient Government through Long-Term Financial Planning (2011)
  • Strategic Planning for Local Government  – For-purchase ICMA publication
  • Maine State Planning Office: Community Visioning Handbook: How to Imagine - and Create - a Better Future  (2003) – Particularly thoughtful visioning guide. Nice explanation of "why vision?" useful "how to" steps and public workshop instructions, tips and exercises.
  • Mosaica: Strategic Planning: A Ten-Step Guide  (2001) – Useful general guide to strategic planning for all types of organizations.
  • National Civic League: Community Visioning and Strategic Planning Handbook (2000) – Still useful guide lays out the framework of the successful community planning processes used by the National Civic League and others across the country

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Strategic Planning

The heart of all strategic planning models.

strategic planning process for local government

By Kevin Knutson

11 march 2020.

The Heart of All Strategic Planning Models

  • 1 The underlying framework of strategic planning models—goals, strategy and delivery
  • 2.1 Outcome clarification
  • 2.2 Strategy formulation
  • 2.3 Plan implementation and reporting
  • 3 Leadership matters more than the strategic planning model
  • 4 Get the template ↓

The purpose of developing a strategic planning process is to align organizational resources to achieve long-range goals, and there are dozens of effective ways to accomplish this result. Although you’ve likely used a couple of them and heard of others, some may sound like something off a menu in Kyoto. It’s easy to get stuck on trying to figure out the right approach for your organization.

Some common types of strategic planning models used in local government, healthcare and education include:

  • Standard strategic planning —This is the most common approach used by local governments and school districts and involves identifying a long-term (20-50 year) vision, mid-term goals (3-5 Years) and short-term strategies and actions (1-2 years) to achieve them, based on research about the community.
  • Community-based strategic planning/visioning —A process that engages residents in a discussion about their hopes and dreams for the community and what it will look like in the future, with specific action steps developed to get there.
  • Council goal-setting —A stripped-down version that involves working with elected officials to determine the organization’s top policy priorities over the next few years to align resources and staff effort.
  • Strategic gap/need analysis —In this approach, the organization defines its ideal outcomes and compares it against current performance. Actions are then identified to close the gaps.
  • Issue-based strategic planning —Where traditional strategic planning starts with a vision for the future and works back to what we need to do today to get there, issue-based planning takes a careful look at the current environment, identifies problems and asks the question “What are we going to do to improve in these areas?”

Many local governments have also used private sector approaches to good effect, such as Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) , Hoshin Kanri , Balanced Scorecard (BSC) , scenario planning , self-organizing planning and others.

With so many choices, it can be hard to figure out which one will help you deliver results.

It doesn’t really matter which strategic planning model you use, it turns out, because selecting an approach is about leadership style and corporate culture rather than relative effectiveness of the different models.

The reason for this is that all strategic planning models share several key characteristics, and the differences have more to do with the way leaders prefer to talk about and visualize the issues and challenges that they must address, rather than the way they are going to do it.

The underlying framework of strategic planning models—goals, strategy and delivery

All strategic planning processes have the following in common:

  • Goals —Clarify what you want to accomplish
  • Strategy —Identify what actions you need to take to get there, and
  • Delivery —Implement, monitor, control and report on progress and results

If it seems simple, it’s because it is.

Strategy is how you are going to mobilize resources to achieve an outcome. The plan is just the road map for your team to follow and the measure of your success.

The foundation for a rock-solid strategy development process

Let’s have a look at each of these three areas to see how they work together. While many of the strategic planning approaches cited above have additional tools or activities, they are all based on the three foundational ideas.

Outcome clarification

The basis of setting goals is understanding what the community or organization wants to achieve in a concrete way. A useful way to look at it is that you are defining success so that when you reach your destination, you know it was the one you intended. It’s the most important step, because, as Yogi Berra noted: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.”

For many communities, this means establishing a long-term vision for what it will be like in 20,30, 50 or even 100 years. It could also mean establishing a mission statement, defining why the organization exists. For self-organizing planning, you might start with a set of values that will define appropriate actions. It doesn’t matter so much what you call it—what matters is that you have a big-picture outcome you want to achieve.

Next, you narrow your focus by identifying three to six goals or priorities that you can reach over the mid-term, say three to five years, that reflect what the community needs to do to achieve the long-term vision. For goal-based or issue-based planning, it’s helpful if you have a good understanding of the current conditions in the community and organization to select goals that will be effective in making progress. Again, the name doesn’t matter as much as the function. Some organizations call them strategic priorities, pillars, critical success factors, or focus areas.

For example, if part of your vision is to be the safest city in the state, the goals should include improving public safety, communications, building codes, or transportation. Whatever is needed to make the vision a reality for your community.

There are a lot of tools to help you develop your vision and goals. Many communities opt to engage residents, businesses, students and parents in workshops designed to gather input around their vision for the community. Others use surveys, online platforms, focus groups, and charrettes to gather intelligence from stakeholders.

Taking stock of current conditions is important too. What services do you provide and to whom? How are the service delivery mechanisms affected by changes in technology, legislation, or demographics? What changes are on the horizon for the community? What economic impacts could help or hinder you on your path? Conducting an environmental scan provides a baseline to plan from.

Some other tools that can be used to help develop your vision and priority goals will help identify goals include:

  • Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis
  • Political-Economic-Social-Technological (PEST) analysis
  • Political-Economic-Social-Technological-Legal-Environmental (PESTLE) analysis
  • Service-demand analysis

Any information you gather can help you refine the vision and goals you establish.

Lastly, it is also helpful to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) for each goal area that provide quantitative measures of the outcomes you hope to achieve. This allows you to set targets and measure success against objective standards.

Strategy formulation

Once you have the high-level, long- and mid-term goals established, you’ll want to get even more concrete about how you’re going to achieve them, by identifying strategies and actions. This stage is critical in that it takes the big picture thinking behind the vision and goals and injects a bit of reality. What resources will it take to achieve our goals? How long will it take? What are the things we need to do differently?

Strategies are the short-term approaches you’re going to apply to achieve the goals. In the same way that the goals define the path toward the vision, strategies map the path to the goal. They usually have a shorter time frame, one to three years, and can be framed as objectives for the organization to achieve.

In the public safety example above, strategies might include reducing property crime, minimizing crashes at high-risk intersections, or improving traffic signalization.

For each strategy, staff should identify actions that will be taken in the next 12 to 18 months to implement the strategy. The actions are included in departmental work plans and have assigned owners and timelines, to ensure accountability.

Each action should be “ SMART ,” that is, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound. That means we need to have performance metrics that track the action, a schedule or work plan to follow, and the resources necessary to make it happen.

Examples of actions that support the strategy to minimize crashes could include such things as conducting traffic studies, targeted traffic enforcement, dynamic positioning of emergency vehicles, or optimizing signal timing.

Plan implementation and reporting

Once the plan has been developed, most strategic planning approaches include tools for executing the plan. Common tools include:

  • Monitoring progress and status of actions
  • Identifying disruptions
  • Allowing for adaptability in response to external impacts
  • Reporting structure and cadences
  • Sharing information with stakeholders
  • Celebrating wins

Implementing the actions that support strategic plans is often an exercise in project management, with action plans and timelines, key milestones, and performance metrics.

When establishing a planning approach, it’s important to understand who will use information about the plan and progress and when they need it. Our blog post “ How to Build a Local Government Performance Reporting Framework ” provides more detail, but the key is that different audiences (e.g., staff, your leadership team, your governing body, and the public) have different needs, both in the type and frequency of information.

By tracking progress and status on plan elements, you are able to identify where disruptions are occurring and assess what actions you will take in response. Whether you change the due dates, assign more resources, or even discontinue the action, reacting quickly can help both mitigate adverse consequences and help make decisions based on data.

Most strategic planning models also have a review period for multi-year planning horizons. Being able to adapt the plan to changing circumstances or absorb the impact of major events, such as hurricanes or earthquakes, keeps the plan relevant and the timeline realistic.

Lastly, the structure of most models allows for sharing data about plan progress, status and performance to your elected body and public on a regular basis. Annual reports, workshops and public dashboards allow you to tell the story of the organization’s journey toward achieving the goals and vision, celebrate success, and engage the community around a common purpose.

No matter what strategic planning approach you decide to use, if you get these three essential things right, your plan can be a success.

Leadership matters more than the strategic planning model

We noted at the start that the strategic planning model was really a function of leadership style, which means that the right approach is the one that best fits the organizational culture. One of the key reasons for this is that the main cause of failing to execute strategic plans is lack of follow-through. A manager, administrator or superintendent may be instrumental in developing the plan, but unless they thread it into the management processes, it becomes the proverbial “plan on the shelf.”

Leaders make a difference in each of the fundamentals. They:

  • Provide a framework for plan development
  • Organize staff to identify strategy
  • Mobilize the organization to execute the plan

The last item is often the most difficult, but also the most important. At the end of the day, for a plan to be successful, there must be a commitment to seeing it through on a day-to-day basis.

The best plan in the world is useless if you’re not using it to move the organization forward.

Developing the plan is just the beginning. The real work comes when we put it into action.

In a future post, we’ll explore how senior leaders can bring strategy to life.

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Kevin Knutson

Kevin has spent more than 20 years working for the cities of Coral Springs, Florida and Reno, Nevada, specializing in administration, budget, strategic planning, performance management, process improvement and communications. He also served as a local government consultant, where he provided more than 200 strategic planning, performance management and organizational assessment projects to 142 cities, counties and districts across the US.

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ICMA University is the premier resource for local government leadership and management training. Our programs are designed to advance your career, enrich your community, and contribute to your professional fulfillment. ICMA’s online workshops and programs bring the latest research from leading experts to your office. Our conferences and in-person workshops allow you to network with colleagues and exchange ideas.  All ICMA University programs are drawn from the 14 core competencies that members have determined are essential to local government leadership and management.

ICMA’s professional development programs encourage local government professionals to think in terms of leading the organization and not just managing the organization. Leadership is engaging with and inspiring others to participate in developing, achieving, articulating, and embodying a shared set of values, shared sense of purpose, and shared vision of the desired community outcome. Leadership requires professionals who are highly interpersonally competent as well as self-aware.

ICMA also recognizes the leadership role of local government managers in creating and maintaining resilient and livable communities. Through the responsible stewardship of public resources, our communities will retain the economic, environmental, and social capital needed to prosper for future generations.

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Graphical list of the 14 ICMA Practices

Being fair, honest, and ethical in all personal and professional relationships and activities

Leadership dimensions that contribute to this core content area are:

  • Fostering ethical behavior throughout the organization through exemplary personal actions.
  • Ensuring the decision-making model reflects integrity, honesty, and openness.

Management dimensions that contribute to this core content area are:

  • Conducting professional relationships and activities fairly, honestly, ethically, and in conformance with the ICMA Code of Ethics and the policies of your local government to maintain public confidence in the profession and local government.
  • Performing official and personal affairs in a manner that clearly conveys that you cannot be improperly influenced.
  • Fostering ethical behavior throughout the organization through staff training on administrative ethics and the ICMA Code of Ethics.
  • Holding staff accountable and instilling accountability into operations.
  • Communicating ethical standards and guidelines to others.

Ensuring and managing community involvement in local government to support good decision making

Leadership  dimensions that contribute to this core content area are:

  • Building relationships among local, state, and federal elected and appointed officials to advocate for the community.
  • Ensuring robust public outreach in the policy-making process. 
  • Respecting the governing body’s role in setting direction and vision, and helping staff and the community understand the governing body’s role in the democratic process.
  • Working to promote civility in public discourse.
  • Advocating for diverse viewpoints to be considered and helping the organization seek them out when they appear to be missing.

Management  dimensions that contribute to this core content area are:

  • Understanding the perspectives of elected officials and being mindful of competing public values in policy recommendations.
  • Learning and respecting a community’s history with various political, social, and economic issues.
  • Engaging with and understanding the viewpoints of key stakeholders in the community; committing to ongoing communication about expectations, decisions, and outcomes.
  • Understanding emerging technologies that are designed to promote open dialogue between local government and constituents.
  • Employing a range of engagement, positive communication, and conflict resolution methods.

Creating an environment of involvement, respect, and connection of diverse ideas, backgrounds, and talent throughout the organization and the community

  • Authentically bringing everyone, including traditionally excluded individuals and groups, into processes, activities, and decision making.
  • Taking a proactive approach to service delivery and decision making that accounts for underlying differences in opportunities, burdens, and needs, in order to equitably improve the quality of life for all.

Management dimensions that contribute to this content area are:

  • Driving measures, goals, and plans around diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization and community ; communicating the vision for why and how achieving these goals will improve the organization and service delivery.
  • Understanding and championing sustainable support mechanisms such as affinity groups, mentoring programs, and cultural celebrations.
  • Educating the organization on common behaviors that advance diversity and inclusion efforts and address implicit biases.
  • Being aware of and acknowledging culturally significant events and holy days for employees and community members.
  • Creating opportunities for employees and community members to learn about each other's cultural backgrounds, lives, and interests; building relationships through increased understanding.

Taking responsibility for the development, performance, and success of employees throughout the organization

  • Energizing the team to reach a higher level of performance.
  • Providing the team with a sense of direction and purpose, and balancing the big picture framework with day-to-day operations.
  • Prioritizing collaboration and efforts that create a shared sense of success.
  • Being a role model and demonstrating behavior expected by others.
  • Developing an environment where staff are encouraged to learn new skills and try new ideas.
  • Developing meaningful connections with people at all levels of the organization.
  • Facilitating teamwork.
  • Setting clear expectations for the organization and work groups.
  • Creating an empowering work environment that encourages responsibility and decision making at all organizational levels.
  • Delegating: assigning responsibility to others and relying on staff.
  • Coaching and mentoring: providing direction, support, and feedback to enable others to meet their full potential.
  • Conducting effective performance evaluations, reviewing success and opportunities for achievement of goals and work objectives, providing constructive feedback, and identifying others’ developmental needs and available ways to address those needs.
  • Creating a positive atmosphere where interactions are based in respect and professionalism.

5. PERSONAL RESILIENCY AND DEVELOPMENT

Demonstrating a commitment to a balanced life through ongoing self-renewal and development in order to increase personal capacity

  • Modeling healthy work habits to your employees.
  • Modeling a healthy lifestyle to your employees.
  • Actively encouraging a personal and professional growth and development mindset throughout the organization.
  • Seeking and providing support when career setbacks occur.
  • Periodically establishing personal development goals.
  • Successfully integrating work and personal responsibilities; periodically assessing yourself and seeking input from trusted others on their assessment of your work-life balance or integration.
  • Continually practicing mindfulness of your stress levels.
  • Identifying areas where you would like to gain knowledge or skills and developing a plan to acquire those skills and knowledge.

Defining and communicating a vision and leveraging all resources and tools to achieve it

  • Creating, conveying, and instilling a unified vision and purpose by illustrating and providing examples of what the future will look like.
  • Fostering a safe place to take risks and initiative; serving as an example to others by applying lessons learned to future initiatives, decision making, and risk taking.
  • Examining the full scope of factors that influence an issue, determining calculated risks, and developing and using relationships and interpersonal skills to build consensus Implementing integrated solutions to complex problems that address the needs of all stakeholders.
  • Creating new and innovative strategies to deal with rapid change by assessing the environment, synthesizing strategies and plans, ensuring organizational direction and alignment, generating excitement in the workforce, and celebrating new ideas.
  • Thinking and acting to instill a culture of continuous improvement; moving the organization forward through consistent examination of methods and integration of new and innovative business trends.
  • Demonstrating high interpersonal competence and educating yourself on fundamental concepts such as self-awareness, judgment, emotions, power, resistance to change, and trust.
  • Sharing, supporting, and advocating the organization’s mission and vision by developing and communicating the vision to staff and others.
  • Creating an environment through coaching that encourages others to address complex problems using a strategic approach.
  • Providing resources and training to support creative innovation and problem-solving and seeking opportunities for improvement as well as new initiatives.

Developing a plan of action that brings the community together, provides clarity of purpose and priorities, and guides the organization’s actions in achieving its goals and objectives

  • Ensuring the organization is focused on the core mission, plans are implemented, and resources are available to achieve the plan’s goals and objectives.
  • Ensuring that the social responsibility of the organization is well understood and forms part of the planning process. 
  • Making sure the plan ties all parts of the organization together and that everyone sees themselves in the plan and is invested in the plan. 
  • Making sure that the planning process is highly participative, involves all levels of the organization, has strong support from the elected officials and the community, and coalesces everyone around the plan. 
  • Building an integrated planning system that begins with the community and flows to corporate, operational, and individual plans.
  • Plan examples include short- and long-term financial, human resource and workforce, enterprise-wide technology, capital improvement and asset management, and community.
  • Carrying out the planning process incorporating the needs of all stakeholders, including input from the community, elected officials, and staff.
  • Completing an environmental scan and assessment of organizational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats including major economic, social, and competitive factors.
  • Developing a vision and mission for the organization that are aspirational and reflect the organization’s social responsibility.
  • Ensuring that organizational values are incorporated into strategy and plans at all levels.
  • Determining goals and key strategic objectives and indicators.
  • Completing a strategic planning document Implementing the strategic plan.
  • Assessing the results of the planning effort through data collection and measurement and benchmarking of performance.
  • Ensuring necessary improvements to processes and systems so that attainment of goals and objectives is possible.

Engaging with elected officials and other community stakeholders to create and execute policies that achieve common goals and objectives

  • Assessing the environment to determine the best approach or style for championing a project to success
  • Maintaining perspective and focus on both short- and long-term outcomes
  • Listening to identify core interests and build cooperation and consensus among and within diverse groups Helping diverse groups identify common goals and act effectively to achieve them
  • Energizing a group: acting as a stimulus for group action
  • Demonstrating courage and taking responsibility for advancing the policy discussion
  • Knowing when to lead others and when to follow the lead of others Accepting and implementing elected officials’ decisions that run counter to your recommendations
  • Being politically savvy: recognizing and navigating relationships to influence and achieve positive results
  • Understanding the political environment and the impact of decision making on diverse groups.
  • Helping elected officials develop a policy agenda that can be implemented effectively and that serves the best interests of the community
  • Understanding the policy cycle, including problem definition, data gathering, development and analysis of alternatives, and ranking and recommendations
  • Communicating sound information and recommendations Developing fact sheets, issue briefs, and other materials to provide information to decision makers and other stakeholders
  • Respecting the role and authority relationships between elected and appointed officials
  • Recognizing interdependent relationships and multiple causes of community issues
  • Anticipating the consequences of policy decisions and their link to strategy
  • Acting as a neutral party in the resolution of policy disputes; using mediation and negotiation techniques Identifying core initiatives, long-term trends, and policy issues to support and enhance the success of local government
  • Participating in national, state, provincial, regional, and local policy discussions.

Discerning community needs and providing responsive, equitable services

  • Convening, encouraging, and ensuring that all facets of the community are represented and have physical or technological access to engage in and be informed about community discussions and issues
  • Celebrating participation and engagement of the community
  • Building a culture of transparency throughout the organization
  • Making difficult funding recommendations and building consensus when needed, taking service equity into consideration
  • Understanding that different approaches are needed to account for different needs.
  • Adopting a variety of data collection methods to determine community and resident needs and to inform decision making
  • Using technology to build an open and engaging relationship between residents and their government
  • Employing various communication methods, including social media, to ensure transparency and to tell the story of local government services and performance
  • Providing complete, accurate, and timely information.

Understanding the basic principles of service delivery, using strategic decision making and continuous improvement to serve the organization and community, and influencing the components and relationships between operational areas

  • Championing and supporting comprehensive plans and quality standards for service delivery and efficiency
  • Anticipating the probability and impact of external influences on the organization, community, and individual service levels; initiating change to harness positive impacts and mitigate negative impacts
  • Identifying strategic decisions required to pivot current resources and policies to achieve a desired future state
  • Holding managers and staff accountable for measuring performance, using data to improve services, sharing data with other communities, and using data to communicate with constituents and tell a story
  • Building a culture that values high performance and continuous improvement.
  • Understanding the basic principles of service delivery in functional areas
  • Systems planning: Understanding the processes by which functional and operational systems can impact the ability to grow jobs and improve the economy, to control cost of government, and to improve quality of life; recognizing that systems are interrelated and interdependent and must work in a coordinated fashion in order to maintain long-term community vitality
  • Asking the right questions of functional experts to ascertain service delivery needs and corresponding solutions Understanding the roles and responsibilities of all levels of management and aligning those with the broader mission and vision of the organization
  • Identifying the interconnectivity within the organization and with other levels of government—horizontal integration and collaboration—to create opportunities to improve service or efficiency
  • Identifying, gathering, and reporting performance measures in a manner that is meaningful, understandable, and efficient; using data to lead and manage the organization and deliver results.

Demonstrating an understanding of information technology and ensuring that it is incorporated appropriately in service delivery, information sharing, and public access 

  • Remaining future oriented to anticipate how new developments in technology can be applied to local government
  • Being a change agent, role model, and advocate for technology innovation that improves the organization and community
  • Engaging the users of technology in decision making about the tools they use to serve the community and accomplish tasks
  • Sharing data and technology with other communities to improve delivery of service and, ultimately, quality of life.
  • Identifying the organization's technology needs and devising strategic plans to meet those needs
  • Managing technology resources to maintain up-to-date systems, software, and infrastructure; establishing a business continuity plan
  • Ensuring security of information technology systems 
  • Continually exploring work process and process improvements; automating only effective processes.

Implementing long-term financial analysis and planning that integrates strategic planning and reflects a community’s values and priorities; preparing and administering the budget

  • Supporting transparency in financial planning and budget development by involving the community to identify goals and prioritize spending
  • Building financial resiliency by analyzing risk, anticipating future trends and challenges, and planning for the unexpected
  • Using the budget to tell a story and as a vehicle to connect with and inform the community
  • Understanding the community and governing body’s priorities and advancing them through the budget and short- and long-term financial planning and management
  • Communicating and working collaboratively with departments and stakeholders throughout the budget process and through ongoing financial management
  • Ensuring the governing body is well informed about its fiduciary responsibilities.
  • Implementing short- and long-term financial analysis and planning
  • Preparing accurate and understandable capital and operating budgets
  • Providing information for effective budget and financial planning decisions by elected officials and other stakeholders
  • Administering the adopted budget and ensuring accountability for spending
  • Taking responsibility for preventing fraud in the system
  • Engaging in strategic planning to direct the development of goals and the budget document
  • Engaging employees across the organization in strategic planning, budget development, and ongoing budget management
  • Measuring performance and assessing the results of spending
  • Understanding investments and best practices of government finance officers
  • Interpreting financial information to assess the short- and long-term fiscal condition of the community, determine the cost-effectiveness of programs, and compare alternative strategies.

Ensuring that the policies and procedures of the organization are applied consistently and fairly, and motivating and engaging the workforce to its highest potential

  • Encouraging each employee to be focused on personal growth; proactively providing professional and leadership development opportunities for staff
  • Modeling the organization’s values
  • Building a culture of trust and inclusiveness in which employees understand the big picture and how their positions fit within it
  • Ensuring that hiring practices are open and transparent and that diversity goals are acted upon
  • Actively engaging employees in the development of a high-performance organization
  • Forecasting the needs of the workforce and institutionalizing succession planning.
  • Understanding the organization’s policies and procedures, making sure that they remain current, and ensuring that they are applied consistently 
  • Understanding the collective bargaining process
  • Keeping current on trends in human resources management
  • Understanding employee and employer rights and responsibilities and applicable laws and regulations
  • Providing for continuous education and improvement, including coaching, mentoring, and access to professional and leadership development
  • Recruiting, retaining, and developing a talented workforce
  • Aligning the organization’s human capital with the strategic objectives of the governing body.

Effectively facilitating the flow of ideas, information, and understanding

  • Articulating personal support for policies, programs, or ideas that advance organizational and community objectives
  • Practicing emotional intelligence, including understanding and managing your own and others’ emotions and harnessing emotions to apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving
  • Using verbal and nonverbal communication and cues to inspire and motivate
  • Effectively communicating with elected officials
  • Maintaining poise and composure while presenting in emotionally charged and crisis situations
  • Understanding your environment; knowing when to engage and when not to engage
  • Building a culture of transparency in the organization that facilitates effective information sharing across the entire organization and community
  • Strategically supplementing the organization's communication tools to provide the most effective outreach opportunities.
  • Clearly and articulately conveying a message to diverse audiences who have different levels of understanding of the content
  • Selecting the most effective communication methods and using interesting and compelling tools to share information, including story telling
  • Communicating and sharing information respectfully, credibly, and confidently
  • Communicating complex material in a nontechnical way
  • Anticipating things that can go wrong and preparing accordingly
  • Demonstrating a solid grasp of the subject matter
  • Understanding, appreciating, and interacting with persons from cultures or belief systems other than one’s own
  • Providing accurate information in a timely manner
  • Training staff on how to appropriately and effectively communicate with various stakeholders, including traditional and social media, with one message and one voice, and in compliance with community protocols
  • Preparing a crisis communication protocol
  • Establishing positive working relationships with the media and other key information-sharing outlets Understanding and training staff on the importance of appropriate compliance with public records requests.

ICMA’s Management and Leadership Assessments

ICMA’s Management and Leadership Assessments are an important part of ICMA’s professional development programs. The Management Assessment revised 2019 (formerly known as the Applied Knowledge Assessment) is required for application to the Voluntary Credentialing Program, the Emerging Leaders Development Program, and Leadership ICMA.

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How to Increase Local Government Transparency Through Strategic Planning

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RELATED TAGS:

blog , government , Strategic Planning

Since processes went online, local governments have had to adhere to high accountability standards. Citizens expect trust within their residential municipalities, and leaders understand that their effectiveness requires open and honest relationships with their constituents. People who have embraced their role in growing their communities aren’t willing to tolerate a lack of transparency in government. 

A government’s digital capabilities impact its trustworthiness in the eyes of the people it serves. The more easily citizens can find the information they need and communicate with leaders online, the more they perceive their leaders to be trustworthy. Since many communities want to participate in strategic planning initiatives, transparency in public administration has become a leading best practice. 

In This Article

Examples of Transparency in Government

The importance of local government transparency, tips for improving the visibility of strategic plans, create a more transparent government with achieveit, let’s do this, what is transparency in government.

What does transparency mean? Transparency in local government means operational practices, budgetary allocations and other decisions that impact citizens must be visible to the public. With these records, locals can hold their leaders accountable and actively participate in decision-making processes. 

Local government transparency fosters trust in elected officials, improves service delivery and reduces corruption. Legislators must put accountability and transparency at the top of their agendas. 

Innovative technology assists in government transparency with additions such as publicly facing dashboards to provide citizens with information and keep them informed. More municipal governments are using digital services to enhance accountability. Publicly facing dashboards assist with transparency in the following ways:

  • Building trust
  • Creating accountability
  • Communicating messages
  • Encouraging citizen participation

Local governments have focused on transparency and visibility for some time. Some good examples of transparency in government include the following.

  • The Healthy Oregon Act: This law, enacted in 2007, focuses on providing historically underprivileged people with more access to health care services.
  • Open Data DC: This site lets visitors view datasets and other official government information.
  • Email alerts in St. Paul, Minn.: Through St. Paul’s public web portal, citizens can apply for Freedom of Information Act requests and sign up for email alerts about construction projects, community services and more.

Technological advancements make it easier for elected officials to communicate and provide real-time updates. For a government to succeed, it must win the trust of the citizens it serves and allow them to engage in planning and operations. Local government transparency has the following benefits.

The Importance of Local Government Transparency

  • Provides citizens with valuable information: The public can view updates and community information, and check on future developments, new ideas and recent accomplishments that affect them. 
  • Builds confidence in your administration: Transparency is the first step to effective two-way communication. When citizens feel your administration is responsive to their needs, they have confidence in your abilities. 
  • Fosters citizen engagement: Efforts to provide constituents with accessible information lays the groundwork for better two-way interactions. Their feedback helps you act in their best interest.
  • Demonstrates integrity: Your citizens will support you through good and challenging times when they can see your plans, implementations and failures.
  • Creates accountability: When information is available, people can hold governments accountable for their actions and lack of effort. 
  • Boosts trust: People trust your administration when they can see the nitty-gritty details for themselves. Local government transparency allows citizens to get information from a verifiable source they can trust. 

Strategic planning is a staple in government initiatives. Defining your long- and short-term goals and creating a roadmap to implement them provides your administration with actionable tasks, a priority list and the ability to track successes. You can also identify areas for improvement and adjust your strategy to align with these. 

Transparency enhances your strategic planning operations in many ways, and sharing these plans with the public can have benefits like these.

  • Facilitating report sharing: Providing your citizens with report data and communicating your strategic plan to the public makes them confident, as they can see you’re setting them up to overcome challenges in the future. 
  • Applying citizen feedback: Sharing plans and progress reports is vital to create a culture of transparency. 
  • Communicating your results: Positive results lose their meaning when people aren’t aware of your goals in the first place. People who follow your processes from the planning stage have a vested interest in your success and support your initiatives. 
  • Tracking your processes: Government and citizens can track progress and provide input and support. 
  • Responding to citizen interactions: Citizens can provide actionable feedback on your focus areas, which fosters a cohesive community.
  • Increasing visibility: Communicating your strategic plans gives citizens valuable information on how you allocate resources. They are more comfortable with your decisions when they can see where the money is going. 
  • Cultivating confidence: When citizens have access to your strategic plan, they feel confident in their local government. 

Visibility is about ease of access to valid information. Breaking visibility down into the following actionable steps can help you stay ahead of the curve in your quest for transparency.

  • Strategic planning software: Data in the wrong format can be inaccessible. People need to access your data in one dashboard to get a complete view of your processes. 
  • Publicize progress: Sharing your progress toward achieving your strategic goals fosters accountability in government employees and builds public trust. Celebrating your successes keeps your strategic plan in your citizens’ minds. 
  • Connect with your community: Essential data comes from the public. Ensure your strategic plan factors in two-way communication between government and citizens. 
  • Upgrade your user interface: UI is one of the most critical elements of strategic plan visibility. Your information should be easy to access and understand. 
  • Involve your citizens: Giving local people the opportunity for involvement in the planning phase is one of the most effective ways to build confidence in your strategic plan. 
  • Use progress reports: The public should be able to link your daily progress to your strategic outcomes. Providing progress reports lets them know how your initiatives are doing. 
  • Explain your decisions: Citizens need to understand your choices, why they matter and their roles. Let people know why you’ve made confident choices, and they’re likely to get on board and support you. 

AchieveIt strategic planning software can help local governments enhance transparency and visibility. You can empower your government by measuring plan success, improving organizational effectiveness and reporting key results internally and to the public. 

Create a More Transparent Government With AchieveIt

AchieveIt can help you connect, manage and execute strategic plans and initiatives in the following ways.

  • Connecting plans and initiatives: Plans and initiatives span across all departments so you can present a cohesive strategy to the public. 
  • Creating visibility: Internal administrators, decision-makers and the community can access the strategic plan, track progress and highlight improvement areas.
  • Enabling informed decisions: Real-time data and context allow you to make confident decisions with the latest information.
  • Establishing a single source of information: The details you provide should be authoritative, verifiable and easy to access. 
  • Promoting accountability: Report tracking and effective delegation hold people accountable throughout your organization. 
  • Embedding public-facing dashboards: Citizens can easily access your information with a public-facing interface to enhance user experience and promote transparency. 
  • Establishing uniformity: You can execute your strategic plan in alignment with your current operations. Create and connect unlimited strategic plans on your terms with your structure. 
  • Centralizing updates: AchieveIt automates the update collection process, allowing staff to be more productive and providing real-time dashboards and reports.
  • Sharing progress and results: The public can stay in the loop. With AchieveIt, you can share real-time updates with the community instead of fielding complaints and questions. 

Transparency is a fundamental pillar of trust in the public sector. It enables citizens to hold their government accountable and access information on decision-making in their community. Governments must provide their citizens real-time data to foster trust and enhance engagement and support. 

Using AchieveIt can help you increase transparency throughout your operations. The AchieveIt platform provides an automated, intuitive way for organizations to connect and manage their plans and initiatives. Information is more accessible and easier to understand, so citizens can provide valuable input and support your strategic plan. 

Let us help you transform thoughts into actions. Book a demo today to learn more about how AchieveIt can help you connect, manage and execute critical plans and initiatives with integrated plan management. 

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strategy leaders discussing ideas

Article contents

Strategic planning in the public sector.

  • John Bryson John Bryson Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
  •  and  Lauren Hamilton Edwards Lauren Hamilton Edwards School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
  • https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.128
  • Published online: 24 May 2017

Strategic planning has become a fairly routine and common practice at all levels of government in the United States and elsewhere. It can be part of the broader practice of strategic management that links planning with implementation. Strategic planning can be applied to organizations, collaborations, functions (e.g., transportation or health), and to places ranging from local to national to transnational. Research results are somewhat mixed, but they generally show a positive relationship between strategic planning and improved organizational performance. Much has been learned about public-sector strategic planning over the past several decades but there is much that is not known.

There are a variety of approaches to strategic planning. Some are comprehensive process-oriented approaches (i.e., public-sector variants of the Harvard Policy Model, logical incrementalism, stakeholder management, and strategic management systems). Others are more narrowly focused process approaches that are in effect strategies (i.e., strategic negotiations, strategic issues management, and strategic planning as a framework for innovation). Finally, there are content-oriented approaches (i.e., portfolio analyses and competitive forces analysis).

The research on public-sector strategic planning has pursued a number of themes. The first concerns what strategic planning “is” theoretically and practically. The approaches mentioned above may be thought of as generic—their ostensive aspect—but they must be applied contingently and sensitively in practice—their performative aspect. Scholars vary in whether they conceptualize strategic planning in a generic or performative way. A second theme concerns attempts to understand whether and how strategic planning “works.” Not surprisingly, how strategic planning is conceptualized and operationalized affects the answers. A third theme focuses on outcomes of strategic planning. The outcomes studied typically have been performance-related, such as efficiency and effectiveness, but some studies focus on intermediate outcomes, such as participation and learning, and a small number focus on a broader range of public values, such as transparency or equity. A final theme looks at what contributes to strategic planning success. Factors related to success include effective leadership, organizational capacity and resources, and participation, among others.

A substantial research agenda remains. Public-sector strategic planning is not a single thing, but many things, and can be conceptualized in a variety of ways. Useful findings have come from each of these different conceptualizations through use of a variety of methodologies. This more open approach to research should continue. Given the increasing ubiquity of strategic planning across the globe, the additional insights this research approach can yield into exactly what works best, in which situations, and why, is likely to be helpful for advancing public purposes.

  • strategic planning
  • strategic spatial planning
  • strategic management
  • performance management
  • public organizations

Introduction

In the most widely used text in the field, strategic planning is defined as “a deliberative, disciplined effort to produce decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization or other entity [such as a collaboration, function, or community or region] is, what it does, and why it does it” (Bryson, 2011 , pp. 7–8). Defined in this manner, strategic planning consists of a set or family of concepts, procedures, tools, and practices meant to help decision makers and other stakeholders address what is truly important for their organizations and/or places. Additionally, approaches to strategic planning vary in their purposes; formality; temporal horizon; comprehensiveness; organizational, inter-organizational and/or geographic focus; emphasis on data and analysis; extent of participation; locus of decision-making; connection to implementation; and so on. Successful use of strategic planning is thus dependent on which approach is used, for what purposes, and in what context (Bryson, Berry, & Yang, 2010 ; Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015 ).

Strategic planning can be part of the broader practice of strategic management that links planning with implementation (Poister, Pitts, & Edwards, 2010 ; Talbot, 2010 ). It can be applied to organizations, collaborations, functions (e.g., transportation or health) and places ranging from local to national and international (Albrechts & Balducci, 2013 ). Note, however, that organizational, community, function-oriented, or place-based strategies have numerous sources besides explicit planning (Bryson, 2011 ; Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015 ). This entry focuses solely on planning.

Over the past 40 years in the United States, strategic planning by governments and public agencies has become increasingly widespread. All federal agencies have been required since 1993 to engage in strategic planning as a result of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 and the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010 ( https://www.performance.gov/ ). Surveys over the years have indicated that an increasingly large percentage of governments at the state and local levels currently use strategic planning (Poister & Streib, 2005 ; Jimenez, 2013 ). Strategic planning is also increasingly common around the globe, including in non-English-speaking countries and those with an administrative law culture, such as Italy and France (e.g., Joyce & Drumaux, 2014 ; Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015 ; Balducci, Fedeli, & Pasqui, 2011 ; Albrechts, Balducci, & Hillier, 2016 ).

Yet, why strategic planning has become an increasingly standard practice is unclear. Understanding the reasons why it is used in different contexts is thus an important topic for future research, in part because those reasons are likely to affect the results of using it. Possible explanations include faddishness (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006 ), coercion (Radin, 2006 ; Tama, 2015 ), normative mimesis (DiMaggio & Powell 1983 ; Tama, 2015 ), or prior relationships and experience with potential strategic planning participants (Percoco, 2016 ). On the other hand, strategic planning also may be adopted because users think it will help them figure out what their organizations should be doing, how, and why. In other words, strategic planning in some circumstances may provide a way of sense-making, or knowing, helpful to decision makers (Bryson, Crosby, & Bryson, 2009 ), especially within the framework of what is called the New Public Management (NPM).

NPM is a reform narrative that has explicitly or implicitly guided much government reform in the United States, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent elsewhere (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011 ). NPM involves a significant break with (or at least a shifting of emphasis from) prior eras when government agencies were more typically organized as large, public Weberian bureaucracies in charge of direct service delivery and accountable exclusively, or at least principally, to their political masters. In contrast, NPM emphasizes: public choice; the applicability of principal-agent models to controlling government agencies, managers and those with whom they contract; the importance of customer service and focusing on results or outcomes; managers having more discretion in how they go about achieving results; and less reliance on rules and regulations.

In this context, and given the increased discretion managers and often agencies are supposed to have, strategic planning and strategic management are likely to be far more useful (Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015 ; Hansen & Ferlie, 2016 ). On the other hand, NPM reforms also may conflict with more traditional bureaucratic controls that have been an important part of accountability requirements in a democracy (Kettl, 2013 ). For example, in one study Moynihan ( 2006 , p. 77) finds that US state governments “emphasized strategic planning and performance measurement, but were less successful in implementing reforms that would enhance managerial authority, undermining the logic that promised performance improvements.” NPM, in other words, can be yet another “tide of reform” that is layered on top of previous tides of government reform, and the interactions among these reforms are often conflictual, hard to assess, and can and do undermine agency effectiveness (Light, 1998 ).

This entry is organized into the following sections. First, we discuss the meaning of the adjective strategic in front of planning, in contrast to other adjectives such as long-range, program or project, or action planning. Second, we discuss briefly the applicability of strategic planning to organizations, collaborations, cross-boundary functions, and places. Third, we discuss how the various approaches to strategic planning have been conceptualized and what research shows, if anything, regarding their use and effectiveness. Fourth, we look at important themes in the research and implications for future research. Finally, we offer a set of conclusions.

What Makes Public-Sector Planning Strategic ?

The roots of public-sector strategic planning are originally mostly military and tied to statecraft (Freedman, 2013 ). Starting in the 1960s, however, most of the development of the concepts, procedures, tools and practices of strategic planning has occurred in the for-profit sector. Public-sector strategic planning got a serious start in the US in the 1980s (e.g., Eadie, 1983 ). This history has been documented by Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel ( 2009 ) and Ferlie and Ongaro ( 2015 ).

Public-sector strategic planning is a subset of planning, but what exactly makes it strategic ? All or most of the following features are typically used to characterize public-sector planning as strategic (e.g., Kaufman & Jacobs, 1987 ; Poister & Streib, 1999 ; Christensen, 1999 ; Conroy & Berke, 2004 ; Chakraborty et al., 2011 ; Albrechts & Balducci, 2013 ; Bryson & Slotterback, 2016 , pp. 121–122):

Close attention to context and to thinking strategically about how to tailor the strategic planning approach to the context, even as a purpose of the planning typically is to change the context in some important way.

Careful thinking about purposes and goals, including attention to situational requirements (e.g., political, legal, administrative, ethical, and environmental requirements).

An initial focus on a broad agenda and later moving to a more selective action focus.

An emphasis on systems thinking; that is, working to understand the dynamics of the overall system being planned for as it functions—or ideally should function—across space and time, including the interrelationships among constituent subsystems.

Careful attention to stakeholders, in effect making strategic planning an approach to practical politics; typically multiple levels of government and multiple sectors are explicitly or implicitly involved in the process of strategy formulation and implementation.

A focus on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; and a focus on competitive and collaborative advantages.

A focus on thinking about potential futures and then making decisions in light of their future consequences; in other words, joining temporal with spatial systemic thinking.

Careful attention to implementation; strategy that cannot be operationalized effectively is hardly strategic.

A clear realization that strategies are both deliberately set in advance and emergent in practice.

In short, a desire to stabilize what should be stabilized, while maintaining appropriate flexibility in terms of goals, policies, strategies, and processes to manage complexity, take advantage of important opportunities, and advance public purposes, resilience and sustainability in the face of an uncertain future.

The list is extensive and approaches vary in how well they attend to each item in both theory and practice. The underlying hypothesis guiding research and much practice is that strategic planning by public-sector organizations will lead to better performance by these organizations. Two issues, however, become immediately obvious: first, how does one operationally assess the “strategic-ness” of the planning, and second, what effects do different levels of “strategic-ness” have on results of various kinds? Unfortunately, the empirical research on public-sector strategic planning in general, and especially its connection with implementation, is remarkably thin, given how widespread the use of strategic planning is (Bryson, Berry, & Yang, 2010 ; Poister, Pitts, & Edwards, 2010 ; George & Desmidt, 2014 ). That said, the few studies that have explored these issues have generally, though not always, found a positive causal effect of strategic planning on implementation success.

Applicability to Organizations, Collaborations, Functions, and Places

At its most basic, strategic planning involves three things: deliberations around important issues of ends and means, decisions, and actions. 1 The various approaches to strategic planning help make the process reasonably orderly, increase the likelihood that what is important is actually recognized and addressed, and typically allow more people to participate in the process. When the process is applied to an organization as a whole on an ongoing basis, or at least to significant parts of it, usually it is necessary to construct a strategic management system, or what is often called a performance management system (see the section “Ways in Which Strategic Planning Has Been Conceptualized” ). The system allows the various parts of the process to be integrated in appropriate ways, and engages the organization in strategic management, not just strategic planning.

When applied to a function or collaboration that crosses organizational boundaries, or to a community, cross-organizational sponsorship of some sort is usually necessary. Working groups or task forces probably will need to be organized at various times to deal with specific strategic issues or to oversee the implementation of specific strategies. Special efforts will be needed to engage traditionally underrepresented groups (Innes & Booher, 2010 ). Because so many more people and groups will need to be involved, and because implementation will have to rely more on consent than authority, the process is likely to be much more time-consuming and iterative than strategic planning applied to an organization. On the other hand, more time spent on exploring issues and reaching agreement may be made up later through speedy implementation (Innes, 1996 ; Bovaird, 2007 ; Innes & Booher, 2010 ). Strategic planning in an organization typically involves a mixture of lateral collaboration and vertical hierarchy. In interorganizational collaborations, lateral collaborative processes overshadow hierarchy, yet attention to the hierarchical structures and power differences that exist within the collaboration and in its participating organizations will be vital in developing and implementing a strategic plan (Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2015 ).

In addition, when a community is involved, special efforts will be necessary to make sure that resulting strategic plans are compatible with the community’s spatial comprehensive plan, along with the various devices used to implement it, such as capital improvements programs, spatial subdivision controls, a zoning ordinance, and official maps (Bryson & Slotterback, 2016 ). City planners can play a crucial mediating role in linking the broadly inclusive visioning and goal-setting processes of strategic planning with the ongoing formal decision-making mechanisms of cities and regions (Legacy, 2012 ; Quick, 2015 ).

Ways in Which Strategic Planning Has Been Conceptualized

Because planning must attend to context in order to be strategic, approaches to strategic planning may be represented as generic in form but in practice are likely to be highly contingent (Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015 , p. 123). Generic approaches to strategic planning may emphasize process or content. A key contingency is whether the approach is being applied at the organizational or subunit level, to a boundary-crossing function or collaboration, or to a community or place. We briefly review prominent approaches below, drawing from Bryson ( 2002 , 2015 ) and Ferlie and Ongaro ( 2015 ).

Comprehensive Process Approaches

Process approaches may be characterized as comprehensive or partial in what they consider. We treat more comprehensive process approaches first, including those influenced by the Harvard Policy Model, logical incrementalism, stakeholder management, and strategic management systems approaches. Next, we consider more partial process approaches that are, in effect, strategies. These include strategic negotiations, strategic issues management, and strategic planning as a framework for innovation. Finally, we consider two content approaches, namely, portfolio and competitive forces analyses.

The Harvard Policy Model. The Harvard Policy Model, with suitable adaptions, has had a strong influence on the most widely used generic processes in the public sector. The Harvard model seeks the best fit between a firm or strategic business unit (SBU) and its environment (Andrews, 1980 ; Bower, Bartlett, Christensen, & Pearson, 1991 ). This is achieved via an analysis of the focal unit’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; and the values of senior management and the social obligations of the firm. Planning is separate from and precedes implementation. The model assumes there is a senior management group that is in charge and able to implement its decisions. The model does not offer specific advice on how to develop strategies.

The model can be applied in public-sector organizations, especially at the program or departmental levels, but typically a number of adaptations are necessary. First, a broader range of stakeholders must be considered, often including elected policy boards. Second a portfolio approach of some kind is often needed to allow strategic decision making for a portfolio of agencies or programs. A strategic issues management approach is needed because much public work is typically quite political, and articulating and addressing issues are at the heart of much political decision making. When applied to a collaboration or place, strategic planning should be paired with portfolio, issues management, and stakeholder management approaches, given the absence of hierarchical authority and shared-power nature of these contexts.

Public-sector adaptions of the Harvard model all draw on a roughly similar sequence of activities, while recognizing that following some sort of strict order is often not feasible, necessary, or even desirable (e.g., Nutt & Backoff, 1992 ; Bryson, 2011 ). These activities include:

Preparing for strategic planning by determining what elements should be included and a timeline. Stakeholder analysis is also valuable at this point to identify who should be involved in the process.

Creating, clarifying, or updating organizational mission, vision, values, and goals and clarifying any applicable legal statutes or mandates.

Assessing external and internal environments by analyzing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Identifying and analyzing issues facing the organization, based on upcoming challenges and/or changes coming to the organization.

Identifying potential strategies for effectively addressing the issues.

Assessing the feasibility of strategies using reasonable criteria.

Developing and implementing plans and related desirable changes.

Evaluating, monitoring, and updating the plan continually as new information becomes available.

Reassessing strategies and the strategic planning process.

A handful of researchers has tested the assumption that pursuing all or most of these activities will lead to strategy implementation success. For example, in one of the most complete tests to date, Elbanna, Andrews, and Pollanen ( 2016 ), in a study of 188 Canadian government organizations across federal, provincial, and local levels, found that formal strategic planning had a strong positive effect on strategy implementation, that the quality of managerial involvement in the process mediates the effect in a positive way, and that formal strategic planning can be especially beneficial in the face of stakeholder uncertainty. Other studies that have operationalized strategic planning in roughly analogous ways have find roughly analogous positive effects of more formal planning on outcomes (e.g. Walker et al., 2010 ; Andrews, Boyne, Law, & Walker, 2012 ; Poister, Edwards, & Pasha, 2013 ). These findings are at odds with arguments put forward by Mintzberg 1994 ), Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel ( 2009 ) that formal strategic planning is likely to hinder strategy formulation and implementation in business organizations. This may be because “effective control in the public sector may be best exercised ex ante , that is, through formal planning, instead of ex post through organizational performance measurement” (Elbanna et al., 2016 , p. 1035).

Furthermore, the findings are also at odds with the conventional wisdom that rational approaches are untenable in the public sector because of the technical problems of acquiring necessary data and information, and because of the political problems raised by competing stakeholders, including issues between the planners and those being planned for. Boyne, Gould-Williams, Law, and Walker ( 2004 ), however, found that in a recent attempt by UK local authorities to introduce a new planning system, the statistical results suggest that the problems of rational planning are largely technical (meaning lack of resources and expertise) rather than political. The link between rationality and politics thus clearly merits additional attention.

Logical incrementalism . Quinn ( 1980 ) was critical of formal strategic planning when taken to extremes of analysis and centralization; when it failed to take politics, power, and relationships into account; and when it failed to appreciate how incrementalism is important for learning and building consensus. In contrast, he emphasized the importance of incrementalism but only in support of overall organizational purposes. The idea of incrementalism guided by a set of overall organizational purposes (even as it may lead to changing the purposes) provides the link between formal strategic planning and logical incrementalism. In other words, Quinn sees formal strategic planning and logical incrementalism as desirable complements and not as inherently antagonistic. They are antagonistic only if strategic planning is taken to extremes, or if incrementalism ceases to be logical, meaning it no longer occurs within a broader framework of purposes.

Logical incrementalism is an approach that, in effect, fuses strategy formulation and implementation, and thus strategic planning and strategic management. The strengths of the approach are its ability to handle complexity and change, its emphasis on minor as well as major decisions, its attention to informal as well as formal processes, and its political realism. Beyond that, incremental changes in degree can add up over time into changes in kind. The major weakness of the approach is that it does not guarantee that the various loosely linked decisions will add up to fulfillment of organizational purposes.

Logical incrementalism is applicable to public organizations, as long as it is possible to establish some overarching set of strategic objectives to be served by the approach. Public organizations can (and likely often do) pursue some sort of strategic planning to establish broad purposes and logical incrementalism to reach their goals. Indeed, one study found that organizations that do strategic planning improve—but do so even more when they pair it with logical incrementalism (Poister, Edwards, & Pasha, 2013 ).

At the community level, there is a close relationship between logical incrementalism and collaboration. Indeed, collaborative goals and arrangements typically emerge in an incremental fashion as organizations individually and collectively explore their self-interests and possible collaborative advantages, establish collaborative relationships, and manage changes incrementally within a collaborative framework (Huxham & Vangen, 2005 ; Innes & Booher, 2010 ).

Stakeholder management. Freeman ( 1984 ) states that strategy can be understood as an organization’s mode of relating to or building bridges to its stakeholders. Stakeholder may be defined as any individual, group, or organization that is affected by, or that can affect, the future of the organization. Freeman argues, as do others who emphasize the importance of attending to stakeholders, that a strategy will only be effective if it satisfies the needs of multiple groups (Gomes, Liddle, & Gomes, 2010 ; Walker, Andrews, Boyne, Meier, & O’Toole, 2010 ; Ackermann & Eden, 2011 ). Because many interest groups have stakes in public organizations, functions, and communities, and because the approach incorporates economic, political, and social concerns, it is applicable to the public sector. In addition, some forms of stakeholder engagement such as citizen participation are often mandated in government decision-making process (Brody, Godschalk, & Burby, 2003 ; Buckwalter, 2014 ). Successful use of the model assumes that key decision makers can achieve reasonable agreement about who the key stakeholders are and what the response to their claims should be.

The strengths of the stakeholder model are its recognition of the many claims—both complementary and competing—placed on organizations by insiders and outsiders and its awareness of the need to satisfy at least the key stakeholders if the organization is to survive. Because of its attention to stakeholders, the approach can be particularly useful in planning for cross-boundary functions, such as transportation (Neskova & Guo, 2012 ; Poister, Thomas, & Berryman, 2013 ; Deyle & Wiedenman, 2014 ) and planning for places (Brody et al., 2003 ; Edelenbos & Klijn, 2005 ).

The primary weakness of the model is that genuine collaboration is difficult to achieve, as found by Vigar in transportation planning in England ( 2006 ). Another study of spatial planning in India found an additional difficulty in broadening stakeholder engagement beyond elite participants (Vidyarthi, Hoch, & Basmajian, 2013 ). Another challenge is the absence of criteria with which to judge competing claims and the need for more advice on developing strategies to deal with divergent stakeholder interests.

Strategic management systems . These are approaches that allow public leaders and managers to strategize about, and coordinate, important decisions across levels and functions within an organization, and across organizations (Talbot, 2010 ; Clarke & Fuller, 2010 ). Strategic planning is a necessary component (Poister & Streib, 1999 ). Strategic management systems vary along several dimensions: the comprehensiveness of decision areas included, the formal rationality of the planning and decision processes, and the tightness of control exercised over implementation of the decisions, as well as how the strategy process itself will be tailored to the organization and managed. The strength of these systems is their attempt to coordinate the various elements of an organization’s strategy across levels and functions. In doing so, they can help integrate better what NPM reforms have often fragmented (Christensen & Laegreid, 2007 ). Their weakness is that excessive comprehensiveness, prescription, and control can drive out attention to mission, strategy, and innovation, and can exceed the ability of participants to comprehend the system and the information it produces (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2009 ).

Strategic management systems are potentially applicable to public organizations (and to a lesser extent, communities), because regardless of the nature of the particular organization, managers must coordinate at least some decision making across levels and functions and concentrate on whether the organization is implementing its strategies and accomplishing its mission. Some public organizations—such as hospitals, police and fire departments, and the military—often make use of relatively comprehensive formal strategic planning and implementation systems. The US federal government is moving toward a reasonably comprehensive formal system (Moynihan, 2013 ). Early assessments of the routines built into the new system show they increase performance information use and learning (Moynihan & Kroll, 2016 ). Most government organizations, however, typically use less comprehensive, less formal, and more decentralized systems (Poister & Streib, 2005 ). These systems, as well as those for collaborations and places, typically focus on a few goals and issues, rely on a decision process in which politics plays a major role, and control something other than program outcomes (e.g. budget expenditures, contracting processes, etc.) (Bryson, 2011 , pp. 323–341).

Unfortunately, there are remarkably few scholarly assessments of the strategic planning component of any strategic management systems. One of the best is Hendrick ( 2003 ), a study of Milwaukee’s strategic planning system. She found that departments with more comprehensive, formal, and rational processes had better performance, a result generally in line with other studies. The role of politics in these systems, however, cannot be ignored. Gilmour and Lewis ( 2006 ), for example, found that assessments of the efforts of US government departments that included their strategic planning were used to reward “conservative” programs and punish “liberal” ones in the George W. Bush administration.

The applicability of strategic management systems to the community level is problematic, given the shared-power nature of these domains. In a comparative case study, for example, Loh ( 2012 ) found four ways in which a community planning process can fail. These include disconnects between: residents’ true desires and stated plan goals; plan goals and implementation steps; implementation steps and actual legal devices needed for implementation; and enforcement tied to these devices.

Partial Process Approaches

Considered here are three partial process approaches. Each is, in effect, a kind of strategy. These include: strategic negotiations, strategic issues management, and strategic planning as a framework for innovation.

Strategic negotiations . Strategy is often viewed as a partial resolution of organizational issues through a highly political process. Pettigrew ( 1973 ) and Mintzberg and Waters ( 1985 ) helped pioneer this process approach, but its roots go back to public sector accounts of strategizing (Allison, 1971 ). Negotiations are increasingly a part of governance through a variety of quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial processes (Bingham, Nabatchi, & O’Leary, 2005 ; Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015 ). These processes include empowered community visioning processes that create political mandates, negotiated rule-making, and environmental dispute resolution processes.

The strength of the approach is that it acknowledges that power is shared in many public situations and that cooperation and negotiation are required in order to reach agreements. The main weakness is that though the process can facilitate agreements, questions can and often do arise about the technical quality, process legitimacy, and democratic responsibility of results (Page, Stone, Bryson, & Crosby, 2015 ). Interestingly, Innes ( 1996 ) and Innes and Booher ( 2010 ) finds that while the negotiation processes can look messy, they quite often result in extremely rational, politically acceptable, and implementable solutions.

Strategic issues management. A major shortcoming of the Harvard model was a missing step between the SWOT analysis and strategy formulation. This was remedied with the addition of the step of identifying strategic issues as part of the strategic planning process, as well as less comprehensive annual reviews. This approach is especially important for public organizations, in particular those with continually or rapidly changing environments, since the agendas of these organizations consist of issues that should be managed strategically (Ackermann & Eden, 2011 ). In addition, many organizations have developed strategic issue management processes separate from annual strategic planning processes. Many important issues emerge too quickly to be handled as part of an annual or less frequent process. The approach also applies to functions, collaborations, or communities, as long as some group, organization, or coalition is able to engage in the process and to manage the issue.

The strength of the approach is its ability to recognize and analyze key issues quickly. The main weakness is that in general the approach offers no specific advice on exactly how to frame the issues other than to precede their identification with a situational analysis of some sort. Nutt and Backoff ( 1992 , 1993 ) and Bryson, Cunningham, & Lokkesmoe ( 2002 ) have gone the furthest in remedying this defect within the context of public strategic planning. Fairhurst ( 2011 ) and Gray, Purdy, and Ansani ( 2015 ), among others, provide useful advice outside of that context.

Strategic planning as a framework for innovation. In contrast with a strategic management system approach that can decrease innovation, other approaches use strategic planning as a chance to innovate and provide creative solutions for upcoming challenges (Osborne & Brown, 2012 ). These approaches rely on many of the same components discussed above but differ in that they emphasize fostering innovation and creating a more entrepreneurial culture within the organization. This approach can be difficult to use in some public organizations, particularly those with fewer resources to test approaches or room to make potentially costly mistakes. Furthermore, public organizations are often operating in highly visible and accountable contexts making any mistakes or learning opportunities more visible and problematic.

While there is a growing body of scholarly work on innovation in public organizations, there is little research on the connection between strategic planning and innovation. An exception is Andrews et al. ( 2012 , p. 155), who found that “organizations that emphasize a strategy of innovation get an even higher payoff when they fit this strategy to a process characterized by flexibility and negotiation with powerful stakeholders” (i.e., logical incrementalism). Another exception is Borins ( 2014 , pp. 73–93), who in a large-scale study of successful public-sector innovations, found a strong reliance on strategic planning (what he calls “comprehensive planning”) by the innovators, rather than “groping along,” which is Behn’s ( 1988 ) term for a manager-focused version of logical incrementalism. The relationship was contingent, however, on who the innovators were and whether new technology was involved. If the innovators were managers, planning was favored; if the innovators were frontline staff, groping along was preferred. If new technology was involved, groping along was used more frequently.

Content Approaches

The process approaches assist planners with ways of doing strategic planning but offer little advice as to what needs to be in strategies and plans. Strategic content approaches help by providing a way to determine the content of strategies that best fit the internal and external conditions facing an organization. We consider two: portfolio approaches and competitive analysis.

Portfolio approaches. These approaches conceptualize strategic planning as a way of helping manage a portfolio of entities (e.g., departments, programs, projects, budget items) in a strategic way. The portfolio arrays the entities against dimensions deemed strategically significant (e.g., the desirability of doing something against the capacity to do it). The resulting array helps clarify decisions about what to do. The strength of the approach is that it helps organizations make sense of and manage the various entities for which it is, or might be, responsible. The weaknesses of the approach include the difficulty of deciding on the dimensions, arraying entities against dimensions, understanding how to fit the approach into a broader strategic planning process, and managing the politics of winners and losers. While many public organizations at least implicitly make use of portfolio approaches, we know of no studies evaluating use of the approach in a public-sector strategic planning context.

Competitive analysis. Another approach uses competitive analysis to determine some of what should be in a strategic plan. The language may be difficult for public sector organizations, since they may not see themselves as competing for customers. However, many public or quasi-public organizations are clearly in competitive environments. For example, many services in most countries have to compete at least in some ways with businesses for customers. Vining ( 2011 ) adapted Porter’s ( 1998 ) private sector five forces model for the public sector by adding political and economic considerations that are more appropriate for any public sector organization. Vining hypothesizes that organizational autonomy—which is necessary to have some control over strategy—depends on a modified set of Porter’s five forces. Vining’s adaptations include: the power of agency sponsors/customers, power of suppliers, threat of substitute products, political influence, and the intensity of rivalry between agencies. Autonomy is hypothesized to impact organizational performance but can also help organizations determine what strategies are best suited to their internal and external conditions. To the best of our knowledge, the usefulness of the model has not been tested.

In sum, there are a variety of approaches to strategic planning. In other words, it is not a single thing but rather a set of concepts, procedures, tools, and practices. These presumably need to be applied contingently in particular settings in order to produce useful outcomes. Indeed, hybrid applications that blend approaches are often or even typically found (Bryson, 2011 ; Favoreu, Carassus, Gardey, & Maurel, 2015 ).

Prominent Research Themes and Implications for Future Research

In this section, we look at a number of themes that have animated research on public-sector strategic planning. We also consider implications for future research.

What is Public-Sector Strategic Planning?

How strategic planning is defined makes a difference in how it is studied and what the results of those studies are likely to be. As noted above, there are a variety of approaches to strategic planning and there is a reasonably clear set of criteria for determining whether an approach is strategic or not. The various approaches may be viewed as generic—their ostensive aspect—but must be applied contingently in context—their performative aspect (Feldman & Pentland, 2008 , pp. 302–303). This interpretation is consistent with much of the contemporary literature in public administration and urban and regional planning. The view is at odds, however, with some of the work in the business management literature associated primarily with Mintzberg ( 1994 ) and Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel ( 2009 , pp. 49–84), who by definition limits strategic planning to a formalized, rigid, highly analytic, staff-driven exercise (i.e. an ostensive view). In other words, scholars in public administration and planning take a far more flexible view of what strategic planning is, based largely on studying what people do when they say they are doing strategic planning (i.e., how strategic planning is performed).

Does Strategic Planning “Work,” and How Does It Work?

Assessments of whether and how well strategic planning “works” depend on how it is defined and studied. 2 An important methodological distinction is between what Mohr ( 1982 ) calls variance studies and process studies (see also Van de Ven, 2007 ). In variance studies, public-sector strategic planning is essentially treated as a routine or practice that is a fixed object, not as a generative system comprising many interacting and changeable parts. Variance studies typically assume that strategic planning is an intermediary , to use Latour’s ( 2005 , p. 58) term, meaning the planning itself is essentially invariant and merely the transporter of a cause from inputs to outputs. Inputs, in other words, are assumed to predict outputs fairly well as long as the “transporter” is transporting.

Studies of strategic planning in government do report mixed results. Roberts ( 2000 ) and Radin ( 2006 ) are among public management scholars who have questioned the effectiveness of strategic planning in government, particularly mandated strategic planning in the US federal government. In both studies, the authors viewed strategic planning as essentially an invariant intermediary. On the other hand, the majority of variance studies of public strategic planning that have used linear regression methodologies, have found positive (though not necessarily large) effects (e.g., Borins, 1998 , 2014 ; Boyne & Gould-Williams, 2003 ; Andrews, Boyne, & Walker, 2006 ; Meier, et al., 2007 ; Andrews et al., 2012 ; Elbanna et al., 2016 ).

Structural equation modeling, which has been underused, could be helpful. This type of analysis would allow researchers to determine whether or not strategic planning improves intermediate outcomes such as, for example, communication and conflict management strategies and whether or not intermediate outcomes improve performance (e.g., Bryson & Bromiley, 1993 ). It would also allow researchers to analyze how much of the impact is direct or indirect.

Process studies, in contrast, generally assume that the key to understanding the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of strategic planning may lie in seeing it as a complex process approach to knowing and acting (Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015 ). In the process, organizational (or multiorganizational) stakeholders engage with one another in a series of associations and performances over time to explore and ultimately agree on and implement answers to a series of Socratic questions. These include: What should we be doing? How should we do it? What purposes or goals would be served by doing it? And how can we be sure we are doing what we agreed we ought to do, and that we are achieving the effects we want?

Few studies have taken this approach. Exceptions include Wheeland ( 2004 ) and Bryson, Crosby, and Bryson ( 2009 ). The latter authors traced strategic planning as a complex cognitive, behavioral, social, and political practice in which thinking, acting, learning, and knowing matter and with which some associations are reinforced, others are created, and still others are dropped in the process of formulating and implementing strategies and plans. They showed that terms such as process steps; planners; stakeholder analyses; strategic plans; and mission, vision, goals, strategies, actions, and performance indicators are all relevant to any study of strategic planning in practice but not as rigidly defined terms. In short, these authors sought to understand how these terms are performed and what that meant for understanding strategic planning as a way of knowing that is consequential for organizational performance.

Our view is that the field will be advanced by pursuing a variety of variance and process studies. Variance studies can show in the aggregate what works and what does not. Detailed process studies, and especially comparative, longitudinal case studies, can help show how it works. In particular, much more knowledge is needed about what the actual process design features and social mechanisms are that lead to strategic planning success (or not) (Mayntz, 2004 ; Bryson, 2010 ). Barzelay and Campbell ( 2003 ), Barzelay and Jacobsen ( 2009 ) are among the few studies to actually focus on the importance of design features and social mechanisms for strategic planning.

What are the Outcomes of Strategic Planning?

Most studies of public-sector strategic planning have focused on performance outcomes, especially target achievement, efficiency, and effectiveness. In terms of these outcomes, strategic planning generally seems to have a beneficial effect. Some students have found that perceptions of improved performance are linked to strategic planning (e.g., Boyne & Gould-Williams, 2003 ; Poister & Streib, 2005 ; Ugboro, Obeng, & Spann, 2010 ). Others have avoided common source bias and perceptions of performance by connecting secondary performance measures with survey data (e.g., Andrews et al., 2009 ; Walker, Andrews, Boyne, Meier, & O’Toole, 2010 ; Poister, Edwards, & Pasha, 2013 ; Elbanna, Andrews, & Pollanen, 2016 ). The findings have been mixed, but generally support a positive strategic planning-performance link.

However, as laid out by Poister, Pitts, and Edwards ( 2010 ), the link between strategic planning and performance needs further investigation. As noted, research indicates that strategic planning generally, though not always, leads to better performance. The mixed findings are likely due to a number of factors. First, performance in the public sector is notoriously hard to operationalize. This task can be very difficult in municipal and state governments, where departments and agencies have different purposes and different measures of performance. Obviously, many different types of performance should be taken into account beyond fiscal measures (Poister, 2003 ).

Second, a theoretical link between strategic planning and performance has not been well established. Poister, Edwards, and Pasha ( 2013 ) use goal setting theory originated by Locke and Latham (see Latham, 2004 ). However, this theoretical link needs more fleshing out, which leads to a third observation: there are likely to be a variety of direct and indirect links between strategic planning and performance.

Some studies have emphasized the importance of intermediate outcomes, such as participation (see earlier citations), visioning (e.g., Helling, 1998 ), situated learning (e.g., Vigar, 2006 ), and communication and conflict management strategies (e.g., Bryson & Bromiley, 1993 ). Very few studies have focused on equity, social justice, transparency, legitimacy, accountability, or the broader array of public values (Cook & Harrison, 2015 ; Beck Jorgensen & Bozeman, 2007 ). Clearly, attending to a range of outcomes and how they are produced would be very helpful.

What Contributes to Strategic Planning Success?

Research indicates that organizations can face significant barriers before and during strategic planning that can potentially outweigh any benefits. First, public sector organizations need to build the necessary capacity to do strategic planning. The skills and resources to do strategic planning in the public sector should match the complexity of the processes and practices involved (Streib & Poister, 1990 ). Necessary resources include, for example, financial capacity (Boyne, Gould-Williams, Law, & Walker, 2004 ; Wheeland, 2004 ), knowledge about strategic planning (Hendrick, 2003 ), and the capability to gather and analyze data and to judge between potential solutions (Streib & Poister, 1990 ).

Additionally, leadership of different kinds is needed in order to engage in effective strategic planning. Process sponsors have the authority, power, and resources to initiate and sustain the process. Process champions are needed to help manage the day-to-day process (Bryson, 2011 ). Transformational practices by sponsors and champions, as well as the groups they engage appears to help energize participants, enhance public service motivation, increase mission valence, and encourage performance information use (e.g., Moynihan, Pandey, & Wright, 2013 ), all of which are important for strategic planning.

Broad participation generally can also improve the process, as well as the resulting plan by giving various stakeholders a sense of ownership and commitment. We know that different perspectives can enrich any analyses and the eventual implementation of the plan (Burby, 2003 ; Bryson, 2011 ). Several studies demonstrate that citizens can help throughout the process by educating government staff about issues and with decision making about solutions (Blair, 2004 ). Including citizens has the additional benefit of reducing citizen cynicism about government (Kissler et al., 1998 ). Likewise, employees from all levels of the organization may need to be included in strategic planning for their input and knowledge about their respective areas of the organization (Wheeland, 2004 ; Donald, Lyons, & Tribbey, 2001 ). That said, we also know that there is great variation in how stakeholders are included, and at least two studies show that participation of key stakeholders (internal and external) often remains shallow and elitist (Vigar, 2006 ; Vidyarthi et al., 2013 ). Moreover, inclusion and broad stakeholder participation may not always make sense (Thomas, 1995 ). There do not seem to be any strategic planning studies indicating when it might be advisable not to include stakeholders in public-sector strategic planning, but one hopes such studies will be forthcoming.

Finally, integration with other strategic management practices can improve strategic planning. Poister ( 2010 ) writes that integrating strategic planning and performance management more closely will likely improve performance and decision making about planning. For example, Kissler et al. ( 1998 ) found that this link improved the strategic plan for the US state of Ohio because planners had a better idea of where the state stood in terms of social and financial performance. Plan implementation also improved because plan progress was linked to measurable outcomes making it easier to monitor progress. However, performance is not the only area for integration. It is also known that strategic planning should be integrated with budgeting, human resource management, and information technology management, although exactly how is unclear. One survey of local government practices in the United States found that many governments do some integration between strategic planning and other resource management practices but are not very sophisticated in how they do it (Poister & Streib, 2005 ). That said, there is evidence that strategic planning can help inform budgetary and human capital allocation (Berry & Wechsler, 1995 , 2010).

Conclusions and an Agenda for Future Research

Strategic planning in the public sector increasingly has been institutionalized as a common practice at all levels of government in the United States and several other countries. There is also reasonable agreement on what it means to be strategic when it comes to planning. There is also reasonably good evidence that public-sector strategic planning generally helps produce desirable outcomes and good research that provides the beginnings of an understanding of why and how that is so.

It is important to realize, however, that public-sector strategic planning is a set of concepts, procedures, tools, and practices that must be applied sensitively and contingently in specific situations if the presumed benefits of strategic planning are to be realized. In other words, there are a variety of generic approaches to strategic planning, the boundaries between them are not necessarily clear, and strategic planning in practice typically is a hybrid. In addition, it is unclear how best to conceptualize context and match processes to context in order to produce desirable outcomes. For example, should context be viewed as a backdrop for action or as actually constitutive of action (Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015 , pp. 121–165)?

These observations lead to a fairly robust research agenda for the field. A list of important questions includes at least the following (see also Bryson, Berry, & Yang, 2010 ; Poister, Pitts, & Edwards, 2010 ; George & Desmidt, 2014 ):

What are the important dimensions of internal and external context that make a difference for strategic planning, and which approaches are likely to work best, given the context? In what ways do internal and external stability or change in these dimensions make a difference? Of particular interest, what are or should be the links between public-sector strategic planning and politics, partisan and otherwise?

What difference does it make whether strategic planning is applied to organizations, subunits of organizations, cross-boundary functions, collaborations, or places?

How should the approach to strategic planning vary depending on the policy field in which it is applied and kind of issue being addressed? For example, what difference does it make if the policy area is education, health, public safety, transportation, or something else (Sandfort & Moulton, 2015 )? What difference does it make if the issues are simple, complicated, complex, or wicked (Patton, 2011 )?

What kinds of resources (e.g., leadership, facilitation, staffing, technical support, political support, and competencies and skills) are needed for strategic planning to be effective?

What are the ways in which participation by internal and external stakeholders make a difference? In other words, in which circumstances do which kinds of participation, by which kinds of stakeholders, and for which purposes make a difference?

What difference do the various artifacts (e.g., mission, vision, and goal statements; strategic plans; background studies; performance measurements; evaluations) related to strategic planning make?

What are or should be the connections both theoretically and practically between the various approaches to strategic planning and the other elements of strategic management systems, such as budgeting, human resources management, information technology, performance measurement, and implementation?

Finally, research questions should be pursued through research methodologies that conceptualize strategic planning in a variety of ways. As noted, public-sector strategic planning is not a single entity. Useful findings about strategic planning have come via multiple methodologies, including cross-sectional and longitudinal quantitative research, qualitative single and comparative case studies, and content analyses of plans. These studies have conceptualized strategic planning in a variety of ways, including as questions with Likert-scale answers, and as processes, practices, artifacts, and ways of knowing. The variety in methodologies is useful, as each helps reveal different things about strategic planning. Given the ubiquity of public-sector strategic planning, additional insights into exactly what works best, in which situations, and why, are likely to be helpful for advancing public purposes.

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1. The next three paragraphs are drawn from Bryson ( 2011 ).

2. This section draws heavily on Bryson, Crosby, and Bryson ( 2009 ).

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How local governments can improve strategic planning

Members of a local government planning strategically.

Everyone within a community has a stake in growing and building their communities to make them enjoyable places to live and a place they're proud to call home. As strategic planning for local government is considered best practices, every community should participate in strategic planning. The size of the government should determine the need and degree of implementation, as well as the frequency of strategic planning. Strategic planning for local government requires two-way communication and an open exchange of ideas. Strategic planning isn't everyone's most favorite activity, so it helps to gear the team up in readiness for the event. One of the big ways to improve strategic planning is to sort out as many of the details before the meeting day and agree on the process for the strategic plan. A second, and important way to improve strategic planning for local government is to use technology to streamline the process and improve communication and transparency.

Remembering Why You Need a Strategic Plan

At the mere mention of announcing that it's time to revisit the strategic plan, it's sure to draw groans from some staff or elected officials in local government. Others might remark, 'We've done that, it never accomplishes anything.' When these types of remarks surface, they provide an opportunity to remind everyone of why the local government needs a strategic plan and that they chose a career in serving the public. As the date for the strategic plan approaches, it also presents an opportunity to shape everyone's mindset around the positive outcomes that result from sound strategic planning. Strategic planning provides a framework that sets the stage for improvement. Because the government is affected by internal and external environments, the plan must be flexible to account for changes. Strategic plans factor the short and long-term needs of the community and build milestones to help gauge progress. A finalized strategic plan helps to balance daily operations with long-term goals. Two important objectives that should come from strategic planning are improving efficiency and effectiveness while being mindful of financial parameters. An upcoming strategic planning meeting should remind everyone that the outcome will present them with new opportunities to meet the citizens' needs.

Getting Organized for a Productive Planning Meeting

One of the preliminary steps in preparing for a strategic planning meeting for local government is clarifying who needs to participate in the process. The type of local government structure will determine who needs to attend. The executive leader should attend whether that person is the CEO, CAO, mayor, or local government administrator. In addition, it's important to invite the various department heads, key department staff, a member of human resources, IT, municipal counsel, and any other stakeholders, as appropriate.

Agree on the Strategic Planning for Local Government Process

There are a number of different ways to conduct a strategic planning meeting. It's less important which method a government uses than to agree on one specific process. There are many different components to strategic planning, and it all tends to go better when everyone is on the same page. It pays to take the time to sort out all the details of the process so once the meeting starts, it doesn't have to stop to deal with issues of protocol. Strategic planning for local government should address decision-making, the level of participatory involvement, communication, and timeframes. The group will make many decisions during the strategic planning meeting, so it's vital that they decide how this will happen up front. Will the elected officials be the only ones voting on the vision, goals, objectives, and action plans, or will the entire group be allowed to vote? Will the group vote by ballot, a show of hands, or something else? Make a list of who should be involved in the process and set timelines for meetings and workgroups. The group should spend some time in discussing plans for communication. Will the group expect progress reports from workgroups? If so, how often? Will teams be writing the progress reports or the group leader? How will they communicate progress? As progress occurs, how will the group communicate progress? Will citizens be able to check in through a website? Will there be some other media such as a newsletter or other print media? Who will field questions by the media?

How to Get the Most from Strategic Planning

It's customary to do an internal and external assessment as sort of an environmental scan. This is easily accomplished by taking inventory of the government's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, which is also known as a SWOT analysis. An internal assessment should take stock of the present opportunities and mandates. It should present an accurate picture of what services the government currently provides. Identify the recipients of the local government's services. Consider whether the government has met their needs in the past and if not, how they can improve their services moving forward. An external assessment will focus on who the government's customers are, what is important to them, and if the government is serving their needs. This is a time to look at the current government mandates and gain understanding of how well they've delivered the services they've promised. The assessment should also consider how to meet needs while staying within the financial, legal, and governmental parameters.

Five Parts to Every Strategic Plan

Be sure to encompass all five parts to the strategic plan including the mission, the vision, the goals, the objectives, and the strategy. The strategic plan should center in and around the government's mission and vision. The mission is how they communicate to stakeholders, why the government exists, and how citizens benefit from the government or are impacted by it. The vision is what the team wants to see in the future, which requires working with and listening to citizens and acquiring an understanding of what services they want and need from their government. Goals should be broad statements of policy or intention which represent various aspects of the vision. Along those lines, objectives are the specific products or services that the team needs to attain the stated goals. The strategy outlines all those things and identifies the action steps that the team will need to make to fulfill the strategic plan.

Using Technology to Improve Local Government Strategic Planning

Efficiency begins with taking advantage of technology to streamline processes and keep the public informed of progress. iCompass, a Diligent brand, offers a Meeting Manager program that automates much of the work for agenda planning and taking minutes. This provides a central electronic platform for the pre-planning process for the strategic plan and documenting all the details for the meetings. Meeting Manager also stores the agreed format for the strategic and puts it in writing. Transparency and accountability are equally as important in strategic planning as regular council meetings. With a Transparency Portal by iCompass, which is an extension web page of the local government website, you can keep citizens informed on the progress around the clock. If you don't currently have the right technology to bring you into the future, it's time to plan strategically to incorporate it at the next meeting.

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Strategic Planning

One of the most important roles for councils in the strategic planning process is to guide the community in identifying major issues, understanding how these issues may impact on the community and how these issues might be addressed. The Integrated Planning and Reporting Manual and the Councillor Guide both provide resources designed to assist councils.

Key Information

This includes information, tools and tips to support councils in their strategic planning activities, incorporating the quadruple bottom line of civic leadership, social, environmental, and economic pillars.

  • Click here for links to the Community Strategic Plans developed by NSW Councils.

Some of these publications may appear to be out of date as they relate to pre-reform legislative requirements. However, the key concepts contained within them remain valid.

  • NSW State Plan
  • Community Strategic Planning Indicators Resource – discusses what community indicators are, and how councils might apply them in the strategic planning process. This resource also considers how the Community Indicators Victoria model might be applied in the NSW context, and suggests a framework for NSW councils to utilise.
  • Environmental planning (DECCW)  – provides references to environmental planning information for local government
  • Metropolitan and regional planning

Before starting any planning process it is important to identify what planning may have already occurred. Councils are required to give due regard to State and regional planning processes, which can inform local planning activities, and assist in identifying local priorities.

Long term financial planning is a key component of the Resourcing Strategy for councils’ community strategic plan. Included below is information, tips and tools to support councils in the following areas of their financial planning: economic development, investments, rates and revenue, loans, grants, tendering, capital expenditure, and procurement. This information is supported by the  Promoting Better Practice Program

  • Community economic development self help modules  (Business NSW)
  • Your community, your future  (Business NSW)
  • Regional Tourism Plans  (Tourism NSW)
  • Business support programs  (Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water)
  • Circular to Councils 08-48 – Revised Ministerial Investment Order
  • Circular to Councils 07-38 – Council Investments
  • Circular to Councils 06-70 – Investment Requirements For NSW Councils
  • Circular to Councils 96-52 – Use of Credit Unions/Building Societies for Banking Facilities and Investment
  • Guidelines for the Preparation of an Application for a Special Variation to General Income 2009/10
  • Council Rating And Revenue Raising Manual – January 2007
  • Circular to Councils 09-14 – Variation of General Income 2009/10
  • Circular to Councils 09-07 – Applications for Ministerial approval for a special variation to general income
  • Circular to Councils 03-11 – Consumption Based Pricing for Council Water Supply and Sewerage Services – Guidelines for Special Variations to General Income
  • Stormwater Management Services Charge Guidelines
  • •Circular to Councils 09-21 – Ministerial Borrowing Orders
  • Circular to Councils 08-29 – Proposed Borrowing Return 2008/2009
  • NSW Local Government Grants Commission (DLG)
  • Building the Country funding program  (Business NSW)
  • Community Builders grants page
  • NSW Environment Trust grants
  • Tendering Guidelines for NSW Local Government
  • Circular to Councils 00-14 – Information Regarding Tendering and Other Requirements for Construction Projects
  • Circular to Councils 99-12 – Tendering – Financial Assessment of Tenderers
  • Practice Note No.8a – Code of Practice and Code of Tendering for the Construction Industry
  • Local Government (State) Award 2007
  • Guidelines on the Procedures and Processes to be followed by Local Government in Public-Private Partnerships
  • Circular to Councils 05-51 – Public Private Partnerships Legislation and Guidelines
  • Collaboration and Partnerships between Councils – A guidance paper
  • Circular to Councils 10-34 – Capital Expenditure Guidelines
  • Capital Expenditure Guidelines, December 2010
  • Circular to Councils 06-07 – Procurement In NSW Local Councils

To appropriately plan for Council’s future, a clear asset management strategy and plans must be in place. The information below includes tips and tools to support councils in asset management planning and the valuation of assets at fair value.

  • Local Government Asset Accounting Manual
  • Promoting Better Practice Program – Self-Assessment Checklist: Assets & Finance
  • Stormwater Management Service Charge Guidelines
  • Best practice management of water supply and sewerage guidelines (DEUS)
  • Evaluation of integrated water cycle management scenarios (DWE)
  • Total Asset Management Services and Systems (TAMS NSW) – NSW Public Works can provide experienced professional staff, on a fee for service basis. They have particular strengths in asset management and financial modelling as well as strategic planning
  • Circular to Councils 09-09 – Recognition of certain assets at fair value
  • Circular to Councils 08-07 – Valuation Of Property, Plant & Equipment At Fair Value
  • Circular to Councils 06-49 – Guidelines for the compulsory acquisition of land by councils in NSW
  • Local Government Code of Accounting Practice and Financial Reporting
“Change may focus on goals, structures, resources, or people – or any combination. It is rarely easy or simple but often messy, difficult and challenging.” (University of Luton)

Change is inevitable, and councils are in a strong position to manage change positively for their communities. The introduction of the integrated planning and reporting framework may be a catalyst for significant change for some councils.

  • Workforce change, culture and innovation – articles
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  • Managing organisational change – competency checklist
  • Managing organisational change: how to guide – Queensland Health
  • Organisational learning and change management
  • Change management – articles and case studies

Includes information, tips and tools to support councils in their annual and other reporting activities to their local community.

  • Local Government Code of Accounting Practice and Financial Reporting Guidelines (with worked examples)
  • Environmental Guidelines: State of the Environment Reporting by Local Government
  • Accounting Practice and Financial Reporting information
  • Quarterly Budget Review Statement for NSW Local Government

Includes information, tips and tools to support councils to identify and manage risks that may arise during their planning and reporting processes.

  • Local Government Code of Accounting Practice and Financial Reporting – provides information about financial risk management
  • Councillor Guide – see 2.5 for risk management information
  • Internal audit guidelines – page 52 discusses specific risks to consider during planning processes

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strategic planning process for local government

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  • Office for Local Government (Oflog): draft Corporate Plan 2024 to 2027 for consultation
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Office for Local Government (Oflog) draft Corporate Plan – 2024 to 2027

Published 15 February 2024

Applies to England

strategic planning process for local government

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Introduction

Purpose of this corporate plan.

Since our launch in July 2023, we have been in discussion with a wide range of sector colleagues about what they think Oflog should do, should not do, how and how not. Those conversations have been invaluable in shaping our plans.

This Corporate Plan covers the period 2024 to 2027. It shows how we will deliver the remit given to us by the Secretary of State in his letter of 15 February 2024 .

The purpose of Oflog

Local authorities impact every citizen’s life. They are generally highly impressive organisations, but there are sometimes exceptions. It is in everyone’s interests that we help make local government perform as well as possible. Everybody benefits from local authorities’ services, and council taxpayers deserve for their tax bills to be kept down and spent wisely.

After 2010, the government moved away from central oversight of local government performance, towards a system of localism and sector-led improvement. The government, and we, remain committed to those principles. The stripping away of some of the excesses of central oversight pre-2010 was, and remains, welcome in our view. But in recent years we have seen three gaps in the current system.

First: it is currently too difficult for most people to find and interpret data on how well a particular local authority is performing relative to its peers. This prevents local citizens, local media and local civil society being armed to ask the right, probing questions of their authority. It also means that local authorities themselves often do not know where they most need to improve, or which other authorities they could best learn from. Oflog will therefore inform: increasing understanding about data on the performance of local authorities.

Second: we have seen a small but significant number of cases of serious failure of leadership, governance or culture in local authorities. Some of these could have been avoided if the problems had been identified and addressed at an earlier stage. Oflog will therefore warn: helping to identify authorities at risk of serious failure who have not already raised the alarm themselves.

Third: local authorities have told us that they worry they are missing opportunities for organisational improvement. In particular, many say that they spend less time than they would like learning from other authorities, and that they are not making the best possible use of data to manage their authority. Oflog will therefore provide support to help local authorities with organisational improvement.

What Oflog will not do

We are acutely conscious that now is a challenging time for local government, with many sector leaders concerned about their ability to meet increasing service demands and calling for more funding from and join-up within central government. Oflog will only succeed if we recognise that context in designing our offer. But it is also important to be clear what Oflog will not do.

Oflog does not have a mandate to lobby central government, Parliament or political parties on how government should change policy on the expectations, regulation or funding of local government.

Oflog will not arbitrate in disagreements between a local authority and government about levels of funding for individual authorities.

Unlike the Audit Commission, Oflog will not conduct routine inspections, nor issue summary scores for a local authority.

Oflog does not have powers to intervene in a local authority, in the manner of a regulator. Those powers will remain with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), under the Best Value framework.

Oflog will not make policy to improve the system of external audit of local authorities; that rests with other parts of the system, including DLUHC and the Financial Reporting Council (FRC).

Independence

Many sector colleagues have asked us how Oflog can have the confidence of the sector unless its judgements are independent of ministerial sway. We more than understand that concern. It is why the government committed in the Levelling Up White Paper that Oflog would be independent.  For now, we remain part of DLUHC, but ministers have asked us to act with a spirit of independence and have committed not to exercise influence over our outputs (other than approving our recommendations for new metrics). We look forward to Oflog’s increasing independence.

Our integrity is assured through the independent oversight of Lord Morse.

Working with others and evolving our plans

Oflog is a very young organisation, and our precise plans are continually evolving as we test, learn and get feedback from colleagues in the sector. Oflog can add the greatest possible value to local government only if we are in continual dialogue with colleagues in the sector about what we should do and not do.

We are also highly conscious that Oflog is an addition to an existing ecosystem of information-sharing, warning, oversight and support. It will only succeed if it works closely with – and dovetails effectively with – the other actors in that ecosystem, including the Local Government Association (LGA), government departments, auditors and regulators.

We are excited to continue to build an organisation that genuinely helps make local government even better.

Lord Morse, Chair (Interim)

Josh Goodman, Chief Executive

1. Oflog will help make local government even better. We will increase understanding about the performance of local authorities, warn when authorities are at risk of serious failure, and support local government to improve itself.

Our purpose

2. We seek to strengthen, not replace, the existing systems that support English local government to get better. In particular, we think that a primarily sector-led self-improvement system is the right one and want to make it stronger.

3. We will make it easier for everyone – citizens, civil society, central government and local government itself – to understand how each local authority is performing. Oflog will support local transparency and scrutiny by the media.

4. We will help identify local authorities at risk of serious failure who have not already raised the alarm themselves. If they are not already subject to formal intervention or inspection from DLUHC, we will help identify the type and degree of risk and make recommendations for improvement.

5. We will support local authorities to improve. Over time, we will become a centre of excellence in ‘what works’ in local government. We will identify, celebrate and encourage good practice. We will become a centre of expertise in the use of data in managing local government.

6. In doing all of these, we will work in close partnership with local authorities. Collaboration is central to our ethos.

7. Our values underpin everything that we do.

We continually seek innovative ways to make things better – including experiments that may not work.

We work with agility, proactivity, pragmatism and pace.

We collaborate with, listen to and learn from each other and the local government sector – remembering always that everything we do is to help the sector not ourselves.

We act with independence, objectivity and integrity, led by the evidence.

We create a supportive environment to ensure that all colleagues develop and flourish.

Our strategic objectives 2024 to 2027

8. Oflog’s strategic objectives for this period address the three parts of our vision: inform, warn, and support.

Inform: increase understanding - among citizens, civil society, central government and local government itself - about data on the performance of local authorities

9. It is currently too difficult for most people to find and interpret data on how well a particular local authority is performing relative to its peers. It may be possible for an individual expert to find this out, but only if they are very well versed in finding and manipulating the right data.

10. To tackle this problem, we will conduct user research into which products our various users (citizens, civil society and local government) will find most useful, and how we can maximise their awareness and usage of those products. In parallel, we will build and evolve relevant products.

11. We have begun to develop the Local Authority Data Explorer (herein referred to as the Data Explorer). Both the content and the functionality of the Data Explorer will evolve significantly over this period, and we may add other new products targeted at specific audiences.

12. The Data Explorer is intended to make it easy for a non-expert user to see how data about a particular local authority compares to similar authorities. We want to include data on outcomes, outputs, inputs and – in time – efficiency. We will present all data with clear explanations about its limitations.

13. We are clear that data alone is rarely enough to assess a local authority’s performance and often needs context via further investigation, including talking to people who understand the local area. We are making that clear to all users of the Data Explorer, to prevent them over-interpreting the data. In parallel, we will seek to develop new analytical approaches that will help users to interpret the data effectively and help them ask the right questions of local authorities.

14. We will seek to avoid creating new burdens for local authorities, so are presently only using data that is already collected.

15. We will continue to work closely with the local government sector to seek views on every aspect of the Data Explorer as it evolves. We aim that by mid-2025 the Data Explorer will cover all the main services offered by local government and will offer a considerably more exciting and insightful user experience than at present.

16. The Data Explorer, and potentially other products, will include Combined Authorities (CAs) and Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs). We will seek new ways to show how the performance of an MCA compares to others.

Warn: help identify local authorities that are at risk of failure but have not raised the alarm themselves

17. We have seen a small but significant number of cases of serious failure of leadership, governance or culture in local authorities. Some of these might have been avoided if the problems had been identified and addressed at an earlier stage.

18. Oflog will create an early warning system to identify local authorities at risk of serious failure who have not already raised the alarm themselves. If the local authority is not already subject to formal intervention or inspection from DLUHC, we will help identify the type and degree of risk and make recommendations for improvement.

19. Our early warning system will have two principal components. The first component will involve desk-based collection and analysis of data and soft intelligence, seeking to identify which local authorities might be at risk. The second component will involve ‘Early Warning Conversations’: discussion with and visits to local authorities identified as potentially at risk.

20. An Early Warning Conversation will involve a team of reviewers with significant experience of leadership and management in local government – typically including a serving or recent Chief Executive, a Section 151 Officer, and the serving or recent Leader of a different local authority. They will review key documentation and interview a range of local authority staff, members and partners, setting out their findings and recommendations in a published report.  That report will set out the type and degree of risks to the authority’s leadership, governance and culture, and make recommendations for improvement and support. The factual content of the report will, where possible, be agreed by the local authority.

21. Oflog’s early warning system will complement and work with (not duplicate nor conflict with) other mechanisms for warning and support in the wider local government ecosystem – including external auditors, the LGA’s Corporate Peer Challenges (CPCs), the work of teams in DLUHC and other government departments, and regulators of particular services such as the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Ofsted.

22. Oflog’s early warning system will evolve as we grow, experiment and learn from feedback.

Support:  support local government to improve performance, productivity, and value for money: championing best practice, improving data capability and rationalising a complex data landscape.

23. Local authorities have told us that they worry they are missing opportunities for organisational improvement. In particular, many local authorities say that they spend less time than they would like learning from other authorities, and that they are not making the best possible use of data to manage their authority.

24. Improvement support for local authorities is already offered by a number of organisations, including the LGA. But there is wide consensus in the sector that there is room for plenty more support.

25. In order to establish where Oflog can best add value, we will assess where there is greatest demand for support that is not being met. We will collaborate with other organisations offering support to ensure that we complement rather than duplicate their work.

26. Oflog will provide support of different kinds:

  • We will identify, celebrate and encourage good practice. This will include webinars, research and reports on best practice, and, perhaps, convening communities of practice. We will seek to use the power of data and analysis to identify and share good practice in ways that were not possible in the past. We aspire to become, over time, equivalent to a ‘what works’ centre for local government.
  • We will help local authorities to use data in their management and governance. This may take the form of consultancy-style support, or the provision of off-the-shelf data tools for local authorities to use.
  • We will work with local authorities and with government departments to encourage the release of public sector data that helps local authorities to act as true leaders of places – while reducing burdens where possible (interacting with the Single Data List).

Collaborate: work in association with the local government sector

27. In everything we do, we will collaborate closely with the local government sector to ensure we are adding value. This will include regular advisory groups composed of representatives from and of the sector, complemented by a continual programme of engagement with different combinations of colleagues from all types of local authority.

Operating environment

28. In order to succeed in delivering our vision, purpose and strategic objectives, Oflog must tailor its activity to suit the current operating environment for local government, which we know many are finding challenging.

29. The COVID-19 pandemic, and inflationary pressures affecting both local authorities themselves and their residents, have created particular challenges.  Local authorities have described to us the increase in demand they are experiencing for services, both in complexity and volume.  This is particularly felt in children’s and adult social care.  There have also been challenges in recruiting and retaining professionals to deliver some of these services.  Alongside this government has an ambitious levelling up and devolution agenda where local authorities are key to delivering success.

30. We note the calls made by some in the sector itself for increased join up across central government departments, to avoid different data requirements, competitive bidding processes and multiple funding streams, and to develop strategic policy measures in a way that takes into account the breadth of local government’s responsibilities.   We are aware that government has taken steps towards reducing burdens, for example through the funding simplification plan.

31. Not all councils have managed to deal with the circumstances facing them.  Poorly judged decisions taken at a local level by some individual councils have resulted in a small but increasing number of serious failures of individual local authorities in recent years.

32. Central government has stepped in with use of existing powers such as Best Value Powers, non-statutory and statutory interventions to improve and support the capacity and capability of the sector. But this range of corrective measures has often been enacted at the point of crisis.

Oflog business plan 2024 to 2025

33. The following sets out the activities we expect to undertake to deliver our purpose and objectives in 2024 to 2025.

34. We will agree and publish more metrics on the Data Explorer, working towards covering all the main services offered by local government by mid-2025. We will also revisit the metrics already on the Data Explorer to see if they should be improved. Before we make any major additions or revision to our metrics, we will always seek the views of the sector.

35. We will continue to improve the functionality of the Data Explorer, aiming to offer a more exciting and insightful user experience.

36. We will conduct user research on how best to support citizens and civil society to better understand and use data to engage with local government performance.

37. The government has said that it will establish an expert panel to advise the government on financial sustainability in the sector, and that Oflog, alongside other organisations including the LGA will be a part of that panel. [footnote 1]

38. We will continue to publish data on Combined Authorities (CAs) and Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs), which could include metrics agreed for new Trailblazers. We will seek to identify new ways to show how the performance of an MCA compares to others.

39. We will develop the desk-based component of our new early warning system, and we will start conducting Early Warning Conversations with local authorities who may be at risk of failure but have not raised the alarm themselves.

40. We will establish where Oflog can best add value in providing support to local authorities, by assessing where there is greatest demand for support that is not being met.

41. We will establish the best approach to building the capability to identify, celebrate and encourage good practice. Then we will start to put that approach into practice.

42. We will continue a programme of best practice webinars, in which small groups of local authorities of similar kinds can learn from each other. Every local authority will be invited to at least one of these over the course of the year.

43. We will establish how best to help local authorities use data in their management and governance. This will involve close discussions with authorities about what would help them most.

44. We will form a strategy for how best to work with local authorities and with government departments to encourage the release of public sector data that helps local authorities to act as true leaders of places – while reducing burdens where possible (interacting with the Single Data List).

45. We will continue a programme of engagement with different combinations of colleagues from all types of local authority and representative bodies. This will include opportunities for every local authority, and representative body, to discuss with us whether Oflog is on the right track. We will continue to hold regular advisory groups composed of representatives from and of the sector.

Accountability and governance

46. Oflog is an office of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and therefore ultimately falls under DLUHC’s overall finance, governance and accountability arrangements. The Secretary of State is ultimately responsible for the policy, remit and operations of Oflog, and the DLUHC Permanent Secretary is the Accounting Officer ultimately responsible for its use of public money.

47. Once this Corporate Plan has been agreed by ministers, Oflog will be free to deliver this Plan as it sees fit. Ministers will need to approve the metrics published on the Data Explorer (following recommendations from Oflog), and should have sight of reports before publication, but ministers will not exercise influence over Oflog’s outputs, including any reports Oflog publishes on particular local areas.

48. Oflog’s Chair, currently Lord Morse, provides an independent voice to and for the organisation.

49. Oflog will establish a Board, consisting of external members appointed by the Secretary of State. They will provide a degree of external scrutiny of the strategy and operations of Oflog.

50. The department has a senior official sponsor and supporting team within DLUHC’s Local Government Group, responsible for day-to-day liaison and general oversight of Oflog’s work. This team will also negotiate the budgets allocated to Oflog and monitor how well we are utilising the resources provided to deliver our work.

51. We will publish a retrospective annual report each year, assessing our progress against our stated business objectives for the year and setting out our expenditure against budget for that financial year. The first retrospective annual report will cover the financial year 2024 to 2025. Oflog will also be included in DLUHC’s more detailed Annual Report and Accounts.

Strategic risks

52. Oflog considers strategic risks to be uncertain events that could adversely impact our ability to deliver the strategic objectives set out in this corporate plan and thereby to meet our fundamental purpose.

53. We recognise that we have more control over some risks than others, and our control measures are articulated accordingly. Where risks relate to factors in the external operating environment that we do not have direct control over, we will work with our stakeholders to influence and shape thinking through our delivery and expansive engagement programme. Where they relate to internal capacity and capability, we have systems, processes and controls in place that help us to directly manage risks.

54. Strategic risks are reviewed regularly by senior officers in the Oflog Executive Team and will be tested with the Board. The strategic risks considered to be the most significant to the achievement of Oflog’s objectives are set out below.

The government has set out, in its remit letter to Oflog, that this panel will: “review councils’ productivity plans covering the transformation of services, opportunities in data and technology, ways to reduce wasteful spend (including through discredited equality, diversity, and inclusion programmes), and barriers to productivity that the government can alter.”  ↩

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Nickel to be placed on critical minerals list, giving WA miners access to $4 billion fund

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Emergency warnings are active for fires burning in Victoria, north of Ballarat. Keep up to date with ABC Emergency

Sunset at a mining operation with a big smoke stack.

Federal Resources Minister Madeline King says she will put nickel on the critical minerals list, allowing nickel miners to apply to access a $4 billion fund.

The minister's announcement on Friday came after mining giant BHP revealed it was considering mothballing its Nickel West division , which could risk thousands of workers' jobs.

Ms King said the move would have "significant ramifications" on the state's nickel industry, with plummeting prices over the past year having already led to several mine closures and hundreds of job losses.

"If Nickel West went into care maintenance, which usually leads into permanent shutdowns, it would be very difficult to restart this industry, so it is a very serious moment," she told ABC Radio Perth.

Miners able to seek federal cash

Nickel's inclusion on the critical minerals list is expected to make it easier for project proponents to apply for funding from the federal government's critical minerals facility.

The loan facility, managed by the federal government's credit agency Export Finance Australia, aims to bolster and develop projects consistent with the Australian Critical Mineral's Strategy.

Last year, the facility's fund swelled from $2 billion to $4 billion.

"This will now make sure nickel can fall within that particular facility," Ms King said.

"The other thing it does is it helps with our international partners too that we move this onto the critical minerals list, so that we can attract some of their investment from their national financing bodies like Export-Import Bank."

The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies was among the lobby groups that called for nickel to be put on the critical minerals list earlier this year.

AMEC CEO Warren Pearce welcomed the move but said it was not yet clear if the support will be be enough for the struggling industry.

Warren Pearce wears a suit and tie outside WA parliament

"I haven't got a crystal ball any more than anyone else has," he told ABC radio.

"The reality is we're in a situation that puts [us at] a critical point where the entire industry is at risk.

"If we lose the concentrator and the smelter ... getting these projects back off the ground and holding on to the value-adding components will be very, very difficult."

Inclusion a 'real folly', analyst says

Resource analyst Peter Strachan said it was a "real folly" to treat nickel as a critical mineral. 

"What's critical about nickel is that they're critically in danger of going broke," he said. 

Mr Strachan questioned the decision to allow the "failing" industry to have access to the critical minerals facility fund.

"How many times have you seen money lent to Australian businesses who then can't repay it?" he said.

"I think the government could find better ways to direct that that funding. We've already seen a lot of government funding being directed at, you know, white elephants."

The independent Perth-based analyst criticised big miners for pushing the industry to unsustainable levels over the past 12-18 months.

Ms King said the industry was in a very different position now than it was several months ago.

"If you make everything a priority, nothing's a priority," she said.

"So that's what I had to balance up and when we finalised the critical minerals list, nickel wasn't in this position.

"What I did make sure I could do, though, in developing this policy, was make sure I could very quickly move something from the strategic materials to the critical minerals list."

Crisis talks held

Last month Ms King held crisis talks with her WA counterpart David Michael, nickel producers, mining peak bodies and unions in Perth.

At the time, both Mr Micheal and Ms King said all proposals — from royalty relief to sweeping royalty reforms — were on the table to support the industry.

Neither could put a timeline on the plan of action but promised to fast-track it.

A person holds a handfull of ground nickel

The meeting was prompted after hundreds of job losses and mine curtailments for WA's Ravensthorpe nickel operation and Kimberley nickel operator Panoramic Resources.

WA billionaire Andrew Forrest's Wyloo Metals was one of the biggest players to take a hit.

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  • Federal Government
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  • Unemployment (Community and Society)

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