Collaboration can support a better Bristol. Notes from a Distinctive Discussion with Tony Dyer
If I had one word to define 2024 - for Bristol and beyond - change stands apart from other choices.
In Bristol, the city’s elected mayor model ended in May, with a Green Party-led administration replacing the ruling Labour group of councillors in the local elections.
Nationally, the first Labour government in nearly 15 years took office, bringing forward measures and reform for the public sector, transport, planning and clean energy.
And internationally, we witnessed Donald Trump’s storming re-election on an ‘America-first’ ticket with implications for the climate, defence, and international trade.
This is the backdrop to Tony Dyer’s first six months as Bristol City Council’s leader. Hectic doesn’t do it justice.
We were delighted that Cllr Dyer joined our latest Distinctive Discussion on 27 November, giving us and attendees a great opportunity to find out more about his priorities for the city.
Here, as spoken, are the key points from the session.
Leading for Bristol
Proudly Bristolian, Cllr Dyer said the role is ‘exhilarating’ and that his focus is firmly on working collaboratively to deliver positive change for the city.
“My role as the leader of the council is slightly distinct from just leading on the Green Party’s political priorities because we are working cross party,” he said.
Explaining that the committee system has ‘taken some time to bed in’, we heard how local changes were barely off the starting blocks before the general election campaign started. He was only in post for a day when a rain-drenched Rishi Sunak set the election date.
“[The election] was a blessing and a curse,” he said.
“It was a blessing because it gave us more of an opportunity to focus and make sure we were getting the processes right. And to be blunt, it gave me the opportunity to have a proper dive into the underbelly of the council’s finances.
“At the same time there was a negative side, which was there were things that we couldn’t really talk about because we were in the pre-election period.”
With the new committee system in place, the focus is on ‘the boring stuff’ of getting processes and procedures fit for the new model, he added.
Looking beyond process, next year’s council budget, which starts in April and needs councillors’ approval, sits on the horizon. The council’s day-to-day finances face a gap of more than £50m, with challenges for its housing revenue account and schools budget adding to the pressure.
“There are some tough decisions to be made over the coming months,” said Cllr Dyer.
Why collaboration is king
Leading an administration without holding a majority in the council chamber makes progress difficult without a commitment to collaboration. I’ve written before that Bristol and the wider region has had a collaboration deficit in the past.
Cllr Dyer said he is committed to collaborating across the city with regional and national partners.
“Collaboration is not just about reaching out to the other political parties, it’s about reaching out beyond the council itself,” he said.
“So that [means we will] carry on with the One City approach, and with businesses in the city. Above all that [we need to] reaffirm links with communities and residents, particularly in areas where people often feel like they’re not being listened to.”
Cllr Dyer also spoke of several major projects – like Temple Quarter, Frome Gateway and Western Harbour. Together, these promise to create many thousands of homes and jobs on sustainable locations in the heart of the city.
But they won’t happen overnight, or even over the next decade. Collaborating with stakeholders and communities and regular communication about progress will play a key role in the delivery process.
One attendee, a property industry professional, asked how the sector could collaborate with the council, to replace piecemeal development with something better.
“I think there is a requirement and a desire for a much closer and transparent working relationship with the development community,” said Cllr Dyer.
“There will be some opportunities coming forward to have forums and we need to make these wider and have honest discussions about development. That also needs to involve councillors.”
Collaborating with government
Cllr Dyer said he has established positive links with ministers and government officials since Labour took office in July.
“I’ve had the opportunity to have face-to-face conversations, with Jim McMahon the local government minister and Matthew Pennycook [housing and planning minister] and several other ministers.
“Part of that has been as leader of the council, but also through working cross party with other Core Cities and other councils like Southwark [on council housing].”
Whilst he doesn’t expect an influx of funding from the government, Cllr Dyer said he looks forward to next spring’s Comprehensive Spending Review, which sets out government departmental budgets until 2029.
“The new government is looking at a 10-year programme for public sector reform and as part of that they are looking at multi-year spending settlements,” he said.
“As long as they are not set at too low a level, those [settlements] will give us the opportunity to think further ahead and plan how we invest.”
Choosing hope over despair
Cllr Dyer offered some heartfelt reflections to hundreds of people at the city gathering in Bristol a couple of days after Donald Trump’s re-election.
At that meeting, he spoke of emails from people concerned about the implications. He told hundreds of people in hall, to huge applause, that he chose hope over confrontation and despair.
“What I was trying to get across in my speech was that there is a danger of us falling into despair and allowing that to generate a feeling that there’s nothing we can do. Then, in turn, we either given up or lash out at other people.
“To a large extent, we are a bit lucky in the UK, and we do have a choice that other people don’t have.
“And the choice I make as someone from Hartcliffe, as a proud Bristolian, is hope. I choose to maintain that hope, but also to generate it in others as well.”
Top five priorities
Attendees were interested in Cllr Dyer’s priorities, with one asking him to share his top five.
Without hesitation, he listed them as:
Priority 1: Putting the council on a sustainable financial footing and avoiding the hardship of further cuts that would follow a Section 114 notice, which effectively declares a council bankrupt.
Priority 2: Providing communities with decent spaces to live, with healthier places and affordable, sustainable homes. “Yes, we have x number of homes that we need to build. But those homes need to be part of communities,” he said.
Priority 3: Delivering good services consistently. “There are some areas that we are not performing as well in as we should do as a council,” he explained, referring to a recent poor rating from the Government’s Regulator of Social Housing as a live example.
Priority 4: Engaging neighbouring authorities – from Monmouthshire, the West of England, and into Wiltshire and Somerset – to support collaboration across local authority boundaries.
Priority 5: Meeting climate and carbon reduction targets. “I’m a Green Party politician,” he said. “We need to take steps to tackle climate change to reduce our carbon emissions, so that we can tackle the climate emergency and the ecological emergency.”
With any lists like this, people are bound to comment on omissions. That’s the challenge of leadership which politicians like Cllr Dyer face. The reality is that if everything’s a priority, nothing is. And if Bristol gets near achieving these ambitions over the next four years, it will be a better city for it.
Creating foundations for success
So, with those priorities in mind, what would success feel like for Tony Dyer two years from now?
“A lot of the things we want to do will take several years to come to fruition,” he said.
“For me, it’s being confident that Bristol City Council is a professional organisation delivering [good] services.”
If they can achieve this ambition, it will enable a more realistic focus on the ‘snazzier’ projects that dominate discourse about Bristol – arenas, beacons, mass transit and so on.
“Would we like an environment where we get lots more funding? Yeah, absolutely. But whatever the environment is, we need to be a professional and effective organisation.”
It may seem counter-intuitive for a comms professional like me to endorse an approach that eschews the snazzy for the day-to-day. But transformation takes time, and I found his focus on hard yards before headlines refreshing.
For me, our discussion highlighted a sense of purpose and commitment to collaboration, which Bristol badly needs. It won’t mean that everything runs perfectly, because nothing ever does.
But Bristol is an amazing place where great things happen, despite the huge challenges it faces. With collaborative leadership, change at a city level is possible.
Huge thanks to Tony and his team for supporting our webinar, and to everyone who attended, engaged and asked questions. If you’d like to catch a future event, sign up to our newsletter to stay in the loop.
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