Support for councils at all stages of their improvement journey
The LGA is delighted to announce its updated sector support programme, primarily funded by the UK Government, which offers wide-ranging support to local authorities to realise local ambitions, address challenges and deliver better outcomes for residents.
As in previous years, the programme is informed by our sector-led improvement approach. It draws on expertise and direct insight from local government to ensure that local authorities have the support they most value and need.
This year’s offer features a number of new and existing programme elements, both virtual and face to face, that will help councils drive improvements and respond to live issues that emerge.
As agreed with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the programme for this year will cover areas including governance, leadership, finance and workforce.
It will also feature a brand-new offer on transformation, being shaped through direct engagement with councils.
This will provide direct support and advice, as well as varied learning and development opportunities, to help local authorities deliver on their own internal transformation priorities, across a range of areas and needs, such as improving services and delivering greater efficiencies.
Following the recent local elections, councils that have experienced a change of control or leadership are encouraged to consider the options available through our post-elections support offer. This includes mentoring, top-team development and a range of wider bespoke offers provided by expert peers and regional teams.
Post-elections support helps to deliver greater leadership capacity, improve governance and smooth political transitions: 94 per cent of councils receiving post-elections support in 2022/23 said this had helped their council.
Our ‘Changes in political leadership’ hub provides more details on the tools and resources available (see www.local.gov.uk/our-support/sector-support-offer/changes-political-leadership).
Peer challenge remains a cornerstone of our wider governance offer. This year’s programme will support councils to meet their improvement priorities by providing corporate, governance and finance peer challenges.
Additional peer challenge offers – covering areas including children’s services, adult social care, cyber, culture, planning, and communications – will continue as part of our wider sector support offer.
This covers programmes such as Partners in Care and Health (adult social care), Children’s Services, One Public Estate, the Planning Advisory Service, and Cyber, Digital and Technology. See www.local.gov.uk/our-support for more.
“It is important that councillors and officers have the skills to deliver on local priorities.“
Corporate peer challenges (CPCs) remain a well-renowned tool for improvement, with 100 per cent of councils that received a challenge in 2022/23 reporting that it had a positive impact on their authority.
The integration of CPC reports, action plans and progress reviews has helped to enhance the CPC process and better provide assurance in recent years. Our sector support programme will contribute further to this picture this year by developing a support and assurance framework for local government (see ‘Mapping an assurance framework for councils’).
LG Inform – the LGA’s freely available, award-winning data platform – is a crucial part of the assurance infrastructure and our growing governance offer (see www.local.gov.uk/lginform). This powerful benchmarking tool uniquely integrates thousands of local-level data items in a single system, which allows councils and the public to compare performance against other authorities, including those with similar characteristics, such as the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s ‘nearest neighbours’.
LG Inform delivers data for informed decision-making by providing comparisons and themed reports that are configurable for each authority.
These reports can be viewed on the LG Inform website and include a variety of data across issues such as finance, health, deprivation, housing, and education, as well as service areas, including adult and children’s services. Further reports are set to be added throughout the course of the year.
During what are increasingly challenging times for the local government sector, it is important that councillors and officers represent the communities they serve and have the skills and knowledge needed to deliver on local priorities.
Our well-established councillor development programmes, including Leadership Academy, Leadership Essentials and Next Generation, will remain as flagship elements of our programme, continuing to help councillors to deliver their responsibilities.
This year, in collaboration with the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (Solace), we will also be introducing a package of new and updated support to develop and grow the pipeline of officer talent.
This includes new training and development opportunities for chief executives and a new campaign, co-produced with Solace and the sector, to attract new talent and market local government as a career of choice, highlighting the infinite variety of roles that it has to offer.
With capacity issues representing an ongoing challenge for the sector, we are offering an even wider range of programmes to help councils meet demand.
Our National Graduate Development Programme, which allows councils to build capacity by placing high-calibre graduates within local authorities, is increasing its annual cohort this year.
Meanwhile, our workforce programme is introducing a new skills shortages offer, alongside existing apprenticeships support, to help councils address capacity challenges in key demand areas.
Further bespoke and targeted help is available to councils facing complex challenges. This includes workforce support, including mediation and specialist HR and employment law advice from our workforce experts, plus targeted finance support provided by experienced finance associates (all of whom are current or former chief finance officers).
Our comprehensive regional support programmes provide an even wider range of options, including direct help to address performance issues. There is also mentoring and councillor and officer peer support, to help local authorities build resilience, as well as political and managerial capacity.
The sector support programme provides tools and resources to local authorities at all stages of their improvement journey.
The high levels of take-up and positive feedback from recipients of support have underlined the value of the LGA’s offer and the various ways in which sector support continues to help councils deliver on their priorities.
According to the most recent research, 99 per cent of chief executives and 91 per cent of council leaders say that LGA support has had a positive impact on their local authority.
- See www.local.gov.uk/publications/sector-support-offer-local-authorities-202324 to view the full details of the new LGA’s sector support programme. For further information about any aspect of the programme, please contact the LGA principal adviser for your region (see www.local.gov.uk/our-support/lga-principal-advisers)