Making a difference? Attracting new generations into local government

The nature of local government work has radically changed over the past fifty years. Local government officers could once be characterised as processing transactional work (e.g. rent collection). However, the changing nature of public services and increasing expectations of citizens have required more transformational and relational work, alongside new roles and skills. This context may now be shifting again. Fiscal pressures may prompt a return to narrow definitions of statutory responsibilities and transactional relationships. We focus here on the implications of these changes for newer generations of public servants, particularly so-called Millennials. Younger workers express a desire to ‘make a difference’ and don’t necessarily see local government as the sector in which to do this. To recruit and retain the best public servants, local government needs to provide a vision of hope for the future and to articulate how it can be the sector where people can make a difference.