The first Nolan Principle: “Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.”
There’s a narrative that sometimes emerges when people leave local government – especially those who once held senior roles. It often arrives dressed in the language of liberation, of freedom, of being untethered. It can sound bold, even romantic – as though the machinery of public service were some grey, bureaucratic swamp that stifled brilliance until escape was finally achieved.
But this is a myth. And one worth challenging.
There is no red tape in local government that prevents expression. There are rules, certainly. Systems of governance, public scrutiny, checks, and balances – all of them essential in any organisation that holds public money, public trust, and a duty to democratic fairness. But these are no barriers to creativity. They are the context in which creativity must work. And the best public servants know exactly how to rise to that challenge.
Expertise in local government
Because, across the country every day, brilliant people in local government are doing just that. They’re not waiting to be ‘freed.’ They are designing services with empathy, leading with conviction, shaping policy with care, and engaging communities in ways that are authentic, ambitious, and transformative. These are individuals who understand that working within a civic framework doesn’t mean surrendering creativity, it means giving it purpose.
Some of the most powerful public campaigns, social innovations, and place-making strategies in recent years have come from within councils not despite them. Public health teams that delivered world-class messaging during a pandemic. Local authorities that turned neglected high streets into community spaces. Council-led partnerships that gave voice to marginalised groups. None of that required escaping ‘red tape.’ It required leadership, imagination, and a belief in public service as a platform not a prison.
So when someone claims that only by leaving local government have they truly found their expressive voice, it invites a different kind of reflection. If you held a senior role with a mandate, resources, and a platform and yet struggled to express ideas, vision or direction, was the system really to blame? Or was it a failure to lead?
Public service, an honourable profession
Too often, ‘red tape’ becomes a euphemism. It stands in for all the things that make public service difficult: accountability, compromise, political reality, the need to build consensus.
But difficulty is not the same as suppression. And to conflate the two is to overlook what genuine civic leadership requires: the ability to communicate, to inspire, to build support for change, within the framework of public life not outside it.
Let us also be honest about the privilege inherent in these post-exit narratives. Not everyone gets to leave with a speaking slot or a consultancy title. Thousands remain, dedicated to the work not because they are trapped, but because they believe in the purpose. They believe that good governance matters. That public service is honourable. That local democracy is worth the struggle.
Those people don’t see local government as a barrier to expression they see it as a stage on which it matters most.
Expression isn’t about escaping rules. It’s about using your platform to say something meaningful. To offer ideas that can be tested, shaped, challenged not just admired. If your creativity only emerged once you no longer bore responsibility, perhaps the issue wasn’t ‘red tape,’ but a reluctance to lead in the spotlight.
Local government is not a cage. It is, and always has been, a canvas. For those who step into it with courage, integrity, and imagination, it remains one of the most powerful spaces for public expression in our national life.
And to all those dedicated public servants, I salute you.
