With a General Election due by early 2025, it’s time to listen to our communities and let them shape the agenda
The LGA’s Annual Conference and Exhibition returns to Bournemouth from 4-6 July – and I’m very much looking forward to seeing many of you there for three days of discussion and debate.
As usual, we have a plethora of high-profile national, local and international speakers (see below), to help us reflect on and learn from the key issues facing local government.
What’s the long-term outlook for adult social care and support? Should growth be a statutory responsibility? Do we need to change the way we travel?
These are just some of the questions delegates will be asked in a series of conference sessions covering everything from housing quality to supporting asylum and resettlement, tackling the crisis in children’s social care to the future of waste services, and devolution to strengthening financial wellbeing and resilience.
Meanwhile, councils at the forefront of innovative thought and practice will be showcasing their projects in the conference’s vibrant, creative and interactive Innovation Zone – fuelled by free, professionally brewed coffee, courtesy of Newton, the zone’s sponsor.
We will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of One Public Estate, the winners of the Local Government Challenge and the work of the LGA’s member and officer peers.
I hope you also find time to catch up and socialise with colleagues.
We will, of course, be meeting ahead of a General Election that could be called any time in the next 18 months.
The LGA has already begun work to influence the political parties’ manifestos on behalf of local government, and we will be launching a new report at conference setting out the changes our communities want to see.
‘Make it local’ makes the case for listening to local communities and outlines recent polling showing our residents already have clear priorities for the General Election.
These include growing the economy, improving our health and care services, acting on climate change, tackling the rising cost of living, building more houses, improving life chances for all children, making our communities safer, and building strong local politics.
Councils are integral to getting these issues right for residents. Homes, jobs, and basic public services, such as roads and parks, are all core to what councils provide for their communities.
“There is an opportunity now to fully empower communities through local government.”
Councils touch the everyday lives of people and places and have experienced first-hand the way in which national and international pressures impact on communities – arranging accommodation for those fleeing conflict in Afghanistan and Ukraine, supporting people and businesses through the pandemic, and planning for climate resilience.
Local leaders also understand that you cannot build a safe and thriving high street from a desk in Whitehall; you cannot tackle multi-generational health and income inequality through departmental silos and short-term funding pots; and you cannot drive prosperity and growth without power and resources aligned to the different opportunities and challenges of England’s towns, cities, and villages.
Councils shape their local areas but they are also providers of key services.
As we all know – and as ‘Make it local’ sets out – public services can be delivered faster, better and more efficiently at a local level.
For example, local climate action could hit net zero by 2050 while saving taxpayers around £140 billion when compared with national approaches – and return an additional £400 billion in wider co-benefits.
There is an opportunity now to fully empower communities through local government. This would mean trusting that communities, through their local councils, are best placed to take decisions on how frontline services are delivered.
However, if national government wants to tackle these challenges we all face and achieve the ambitions of the electorate, it must reset its relationship with local government.
Our delivery offer to central government requires a new central-local partnership in which local government can work to its full potential.
It requires fully empowered local government, a resetting of Whitehall culture, and a new approach to funding and resources.
‘Make it local’ sets out some of the specifics of this. For example, devolution needs to go further, and councils should have a statutory right to convene national public services delivered locally.
We need a new code for ministerial advice that asks ‘what do our local frontline services say?’ before embarking on new initiatives.
And we need to save money through fewer initiatives and by ending the costly and fragmented funding regime.
National policy alone cannot make effective change.
It is only at a local level – with local knowledge – that services are effectively delivered and that we can make a difference to the lives of our communities and deliver on their hopes for the future.
See you in Bournemouth…
The LGA’s annual conference kicks off in Bournemouth from 4-6 July, with a host of speakers from across local and national government, other public services, business and the third sector, addressing more than 1,400 delegates.
It’s not too late to book your place. You can also download the conference app via the App Store or Google Play (search for ‘LGA events’). And you can follow events on Twitter using #LGAconf23, or online by visiting www.local.gov.uk.
In addition to councillors, elected mayors and chief executives from across local government, this year’s conference speakers also include:
- Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
- Sir Keir Starmer MP, Leader of the Labour Party
- Sir Ed Davey MP,Leader of the Liberal Democrats
- Gillian Keegan MP, Secretary of State for Education
- Sir Robert Chote, Chair, UK Statistics Authority
- Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman
- Alice Tai MBE, Paralympic Swimmer
- Kwajo Tweneboa, Housing Campaigner
- Lord Amyas Morse, Interim Chair, Office for Local Government
- Lee Rowley MP, Minister for Local Government and Building Safety
- Kerry McCarthy MP, Shadow Minister for Climate Change
- Clive Betts MP, Chair, Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee
- Lord Timothy Clement-Jones CBE, Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for Science, Innovation and Technology
- Dame Christine Lenehan, Director, Council for Disabled Children
- Jo Bibby, Director of Health, The Health Foundation
- Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, NHS Confederation
- Jane Gratton, Head of People Policy, British Chambers of Commerce
- Gillian Cooper, Head of Energy Policy, Citizens Advice
- Chris Skidmore MP, Chair, Net Zero Review
- Sunder Katwala, Director, British Future
- Steve Gooding CB, Director, RAC Foundation
- Tom Hawthorn, Head of Policy, Electoral Commission
- Sue Bridge FRTPI, President, Royal Town Planning Institute
- Beverley Tarka, President, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services
- Please visit the LGA website to join us at the LGA’s annual conference, the local government event of the year. If you can’t make it, you can follow the conference on social media at #LGAConf23 or online via our website.