Working together to serve better
As your new Chair, I feel privileged, proud and honoured to lead the LGA.
At our annual conference in July, we celebrated what we, together, have achieved through the LGA on behalf of local government and the communities we serve.
Together, we: shaped and influenced legislation; stood up for the sector at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry; told the story of local government through the media nearly 15,000 times; and, through our sector-led improvement work, delivered more than 3,400 instances of support to councils in England.
This is a statement of what we have achieved and what the LGA is proud to have delivered for its members.
That is why 316 out of 317 councils have either reconfirmed or rejoined LGA membership this year – and that confidence has been earned.
I know the value of the LGA’s support because I have seen it from the inside.
As a member peer, I know what it means to welcome a peer challenge team into your authority, and to receive the honest, constructive and supportive feedback that helps you to lead better, serve better and think bigger.
I also know what it means to look at the membership subscription and say, with confidence, this is value for money.
For every £1 member authorities invest in the LGA, we attract a further £7 through external funding, grants, sponsorship and sector-wide investment.
Our improvement support, workforce development, legal services, policy expertise and leadership training save the sector tens of millions of pounds every year; this would cost many times more if we all procured it individually.
My ambition is that the LGA is your first port of call for anything that you need, because who is best placed to support and train our colleagues in local and strategic authorities? It is elected members and officers such as you and me: people who have faced the challenges, made the decisions and delivered for our communities, time and again.
This year’s conference theme – ‘From neighbourhoods to nations: building lasting futures locally’ – wasn’t just a slogan. It asked us to consider how we build a future we can be proud to pass on to the next generations.
With Prime Minister Andy Burnham taking office, we have published our ‘Building lasting futures locally’ manifesto. This seeks a new, modern, mature partnership between the PM and local and strategic authorities, so that we, together, can help shape long-term change through the next general election and beyond.
Because the test of national policy is not whether it sounds right in Whitehall and Westminster, but whether it changes lives in the places people call home.
We are at a moment of huge change in our sector. Devolution and local government reorganisation (LGR) are reshaping the landscape with new strategic authorities emerging.
Wherever you sit on the devolution/LGR journey, what really matters is that every tier of the system is supported in this new landscape.
That is why the LGA is providing tailored support for strategic authorities and, over the next few months, will be deepening our engagement and inviting them to formally join the LGA.
Completing the devolution map means securing agreements that put place first, setting a clear route to further powers, and ensuring every community has the investment, autonomy and collaborative leadership needed to shape its own future.
Fundamentally, the wider public service reform agenda should not be done to communities; it should be done with, and shaped by, communities – not around institutions, boundaries or internal processes.
Local government already knows how to do this. Across counties, districts, mets, towns and parishes, we are joining up services on the ground, delivering impact through prevention, devolution and technology-enabled reform, and convening partners around all of that.
But that local impact can only deliver lasting futures if Whitehall backs it.
For example, adult social care has, for too long, been treated as a secondary issue; a cost pressure; an afterthought behind the NHS. However, through our latest ‘Care where we live’ report, we are making the case that investing in adult social care, prevention and joined-up, community-based support can improve wellbeing, reduce inequalities, support independence, ease hospital pressures and, importantly, build a society that genuinely cares for its people.
With rising demand, constrained finances, and increasing complexity, we’ve all had little space to look beyond the immediate pressures we face.
But imagine what could happen if councils had the funding and the space to step back and ask bigger questions about how we prepare for the world our residents will be living in by 2040 and beyond. Through our LG2040 programme, we are analysing the role and mandate of local government in a changing world (see p20). We consider developing more preventative, user-centred ways of working, and, in doing so, supporting leaders across the sector to understand what’s coming next and the choices that will define our future.
As your new LGA Chair, I will waste no time in getting around the country to visit your town halls and hear about what is, and is not, working.
My commitment to you is that I will bring these insights back to the LGA, to ensure that our voice is genuinely a national one, because the strength of what we do comes from the diversity and the depth of what you do in your local places.
I will work to ensure that your membership has impact, your voice is heard and your successes are celebrated.
Our sector delivers, and this is a moment for local government to speak with confidence about its strength and power.
- This is an edited summary of LGA Chair Cllr Eamonn O’Brien’s speech to annual conference, which can be read in full at the LGA website.
Building lasting futures locally
The LGA’s manifesto for the new PM
Communities across the country need to see government working in partnership to deliver in the places they live: on the streets they walk, through the services they rely on, and in the opportunities available to them.
Confidence in delivery – and in our democracy – depends on every resident feeling the benefit of decisions made closer to home.
That requires a strong, financially resilient local government with the autonomy to make decisions locally and be accountable for them.
Devolution must reach every part of the country and it must be real devolution – power at the level as near as possible to the communities it affects.
This means working with locally, democratically elected representatives to put local places at the heart of any agreement, and setting a clear route to that devolution of powers, ensuring every community has the investment, autonomy and collaborative leadership needed to shape its own future.
Local and strategic authorities want to work with the new Prime Minister to build a modern, mature partnership – one capable of shaping long-term change through the next general election and beyond.
That means responding together to population change, new technology, climate pressures, further devolution and shifting public expectations.
Through this partnership, we can deliver the improvements all communities need. We want to work in partnership with the new Government to ensure that, by the time of the next general election:
- parents have confidence that schools will meet the needs of their child
- young people have hope for the future and a stronger role in our economy
- families have access to safe, secure and affordable homes
- communities feel safe and more united
- everyone can count on the right care and support being there when they need it.
Communities need local government services backed by central government.
The LGA brings the collective leadership, insight and convening power of a sector that touches on every aspect of life.
Together, we can put local experience at the heart of policy, shape solutions, provide trusted challenge and support, and strengthen local leadership.
All of this relies on a local government sector that has the powers and resources to deliver. We want to work with PM Andy Burnham and his team to ensure public sector reform, including local government reorganisation, protects and sustains vital public services.
Our offer is to work with government to deliver visible change – because lasting futures are built with communities, through councils, and in every place.
- Read ‘Building lasting futures locally’ in full on the LGA website.