MIMI ASHER, a single mother living on the Myatt’s Fields housing estate in south London, was horrified when she learned that her son had joined a gang. She asked a local council officer for advice on what to do. The response, she remembers, was a curt: “leave it to the professionals”.

That retort now seems not just daft but a relic of a more complacent, richer era. Lambeth council’s budget has been sharply cut since the financial crisis, forcing the local authority to question its monolithic role. Inspired in part by Ms Asher, who ignored its advice and set up a successful programme to get people out of gangs, the council is now giving locals the resources they need to solve their own problems. A youth co-operative, for example, will soon take on responsibility for social clubs and playgrounds, as well as a slice of the council’s budget.

Local government is stirring. In 2010 the coalition government cut overall funding by 28% over five years, with further reductions now likely. Councils first complained. Then many buckled down and concocted innovative ways of meeting residents’ needs. Some, like Lambeth, are rethinking the role of government. They are influencing other councils and, increasingly, Westminster politicians too.

Conservative-run Barnet Council is one such laboratory. It pioneered a no-frills approach to services, earning the label “easyCouncil”—a reference to easyJet, a proudly miserly airline. Barnet has gone on to graft this stinginess onto a drive for more volunteering, following David Cameron’s call for a Big Society (the resulting hybrid has been called “The Big Easy”). “If you want your road gritting, we’ll give you the grit”, explains an official. The council now takes volunteering into account when allocating scarce public housing. It has launched a website enabling residents to gather squads of helpers for neighbourhood-improving projects.

As Barnet does things its own way, three Tory-led councils in west London have set out to share £300m ($486m) of services. In its first year the “Tri-borough” managed to cut the total number of senior and middle managers by half. Two of the councils now share a single chief executive. But with trial comes the risk of error. Suffolk County Council proclaimed that it would outsource almost all its services and become a “virtual” authority. It had to retreat following a public outcry. The council failed to make a proper political case for such radical change, argues Localis, a local government think-tank.

Islington, a Labour-run council in London, has done plenty of that. It set up a cross-party “fairness commission”, which held a series of public discussions on how to foster greater equality when money is tight. The council has duly axed a snazzy Green Living Centre, which dispensed environmental advice. It has protected free school meals and cut the ratio between its highest and lowest paid staff. Andy Hull, the commission’s co-chair, says a clear definition of fairness has helped explain and justify such measures.

It is no coincidence that Barnet, Islington, Lambeth and the Tri-borough councils are all in London. The capital contains several catalysts for big thinking. Crime, poverty, education and health problems are more extreme. There is a greater churn of residents and much more ethnic diversity. The demands on local government are thus more complex than in, say, Hampshire. Sir Merrick Cockell, head of Kensington and Chelsea council and of the Local Government Association, thinks the presence of a charismatic city mayor helps, too. Councils have to develop bold ideas if they are to grab attention from the quotable Boris Johnson.

London calling

And the capital exerts a magnetic pull on ambitious career-makers from across the country, points out Tony Travers of the London School of Economics. A 2010 census found that only 18.5% of England’s local councillors were under 50. In London, though, the proportion was 32.8%. London councillors are more likely to hold a degree and are more motivated by political beliefs than their counterparts elsewhere. Their proximity to the city’s public-relations firms, national newspapers and think-tanks makes it easier to create and spread complex ideas. Terms such as “easyCouncil” and “John Lewis Council” (like Lambeth, the popular department store runs on co-operative principles) are increasingly common parlance.

Local authorities elsewhere often look to the capital. On September 14th Mr Hull from Islington fielded questions from a group of other Labour-run councils keen to learn from his borough’s experience. In the wood-panelled chamber in Sheffield’s Victorian town hall, the talk was of developing a “national fairness agenda”. Barnet has become an important case study for Conservative councils: Shropshire and Blackpool both recently dispatched fact-finding delegations. Lambeth is the hub of a Co-operative Councils Network. As Steve Reed, the council’s leader, explains, this resembles a “think-tank that actually does things”.

National politicians are increasingly curious, too. Barnet’s plans for volunteer-run services have won its Conservative councillors invitations to Whitehall. The west London Tri-borough is piloting the government’s new cross-departmental “community budgets”. Islington and Lambeth, both home to many figures in or close to Labour, have caught the eye of senior figures in the party. The Fairness Commission—and in particular its focus on low pay—is a concrete example of the “pre-distributive” policies now championed by Ed Miliband, Labour’s leader.

Councils have played this role before. In the early 1980s Wandsworth pioneered privatisation policies that subsequently transformed the British economy. In a 1988 pamphlet, the Thatcherite environment secretary, Nicholas Ridley, called on all Conservative councils to follow its example. But two decades of comfortable economic growth and increasing political centralisation tended to temper wide-eyed innovation.

The revival of experimentation is welcome. Councils are close to the people they serve; they know where money is well spent and where it is not. They are, in short, well-placed to think up new ways of doing things. Too often, says Alex Thomson, head of Localis, these voices of experience are drowned out by the babble of national politics. Bubbling with intellectual flair and PR savvy, the laboratory councils are changing that.