I know that Conservative councillors across the country will be campaigning hard on the doorstep.
While the weeks and months following May are unlikely to be on people’s minds, I did want to remind councillors of the support they can access through the LGA’s Conservative Group as part of our ‘change of control’ support offer.
Primarily, we know that many Conservative councillors may go into new positions of leadership for the first time, for example, becoming a cabinet member, committee chair or a new group leader.
The LGA Conservative Group can provide mentoring for those councillors with another Conservative councillor from our member peer pool, who has lots of knowledge in that subject area.
All Conservative group leaders going through elections have been briefed on the specific tailored packages of support they can receive, but as a reminder, for any enquiries on support, please contact the LGA Conservative Group Office or your regional peer.
The English Devolution Bill continues to make its way through Parliament and is currently in its ‘ping-pong’ stage between the Commons and the Lords.
Our Conservative Peers, working with our Conservative councillors, have managed to secure several important amendments to the bill in the Lords.
With thanks to Lord Jamieson, former LGA Chairman, a Conservative amendment, ‘Brownfield land priority’, was voted through – which means a mayoral combined authority may not designate green spaces for development unless it is satisfied that no more brownfield sites exist locally.
“We can provide mentoring for… Conservative councillors in new positions of leadership”
The LGA Conservative Group is also backing our Leader, Kemi Badenoch MP, in supporting the campaign to encourage local authorities to issue strong advice to school governing bodies to establish specific policies within schools to ban the use of social media in school time.
This will empower teachers to crack on with the job in hand of educating the next generation.