The Tories have pledged to "reduce the Whitehall headcount" in a bid to cut costs and make local government powerful again.
Shadow chancellor George Osborne said a Conservative government would have much to learn from the way Tory councils are run.
David Cameron's ministerial team should harness the "unique opportunity" of most councils in England now being controlled by the Tories, he said.
In a speech to the Conservative Councillors' Seminar in central London, Mr Osborne said: "While we develop our policies for improving public services in an age of austerity, local councils have got on with doing it.
"When it comes to rooting out waste and cutting costs, or improving services through innovative new policies, Conservative councils are showing us that it can be done.
"In short, Conservative Whitehall will have much to learn from Conservative town halls."
Tory councils were already using new approaches to information and transparency, and reducing unnecessary costs through shared services, he said.
Mr Osborne told councillors the Tories would "reinvent" the role of government.
"So yes we will reduce the costs of central government," he said. "And yes we will reduce the Whitehall headcount. But this is not just a cost-cutting exercise. It is about changing the role of central government - and making local government powerful again."
Labour's instinct was to reach for the "top-down target" - and it had created a "large national bureaucracy of civil servants, inspectors and second-guessers".
