It was wonderful to see so many of you at the LGA’s Annual Conference and Exhibition in Bournemouth in July.
The commitment, resourcefulness, innovation and empathy evident across the local government sector never fails to amaze me.
I particularly enjoyed facilitating an Innovation Zone session, alongside Peter Fleming OBE, that celebrated the essential role of officer and member peers in supporting councils to improve.
This includes the invaluable role they play in delivering the cornerstone of the LGA’s local government support programme – corporate peer challenge.
The ‘LGA corporate and finance peer challenge: annual report 2022/2023’ clearly demonstrates how corporate peer challenge (CPC) is helping to provide reassurance to local leaders, inform organisational change, and support service transformation across the sector.
Key highlights include: delivery of more than 100 CPCs, finance peer challenges and CPC progress reviews; and deployment of 262 officer and member peers who have delivered more than 1,285 days of challenge and support to councils through the CPC programme.
This demonstrates a significant investment by the local government sector in its own improvement.
All respondents to the annual peer challenge impact survey said that the process of preparing for and participating in the CPC has had a positive impact on their council.
All peers who responded to our survey said that taking part in a peer challenge had a positive impact on their own learning and development.
As Chair of the Improvement and Innovation Board, I’m proud of these achievements. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all LGA peers for the tireless work they do to support councils.
The current year (2023/2024) is proving to be another busy one for peer challenge delivery.
We remain committed to working alongside councils to continue to strengthen the CPC process as a tool for improvement and assurance. This includes new training sessions for LGA peers to reflect the new approach.
Alongside CPCs, we are also now offering finance and governance peer challenges in a bid to provide greater assurance on struggling councils.
I am confident that, together, we will continue to support councils through robust, strategic and credible challenge.