It may already seem a long time ago, but I hope you had a chance to recharge your batteries over the summer, ahead of what promises to be another challenging and rewarding year in local government.
It was a pleasure to welcome so many of you to the LGA’s London headquarters in September for our member briefing day and for the first 2023/24 meeting of the LGA’s Executive Advisory Board (EAB).
The briefing day provided important induction support to new and continuing board members, and an introduction to changes to some of our policy boards and their remits, designed to strengthen our response to key issues for councils around the economy and climate change.
The EAB reviewed progress on our plans for a Local Government White Paper, the work of the LGA’s Civility Steering Group, and our lobbying priorities for the coming months.
The latter reflect continuous feedback from our member councils about the most pressing issues, current and anticipated, facing local government – including financial and service pressures, workforce capacity, asylum and resettlement, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, housing and homelessness, special educational needs and disabilities, children’s services, and adult social care.
With the autumn party conference season about to start, we will use our debates and receptions at the Liberal Democrat, Conservative, Green and Labour events to put localism on the agenda.
And with councils in England facing a funding gap of almost £3 billion over the next two years because of increasing demand for services and the rising costs of providing them, we continue to campaign for a sustainable, long-term financial settlement.
The Government needs to come up with a long-term plan to manage this crisis – and this will be key to our submission to the Chancellor as he prepares to set out his Autumn Statement on 22 November.