A ‘Local Government Outcomes Framework’ and new initiatives to tackle bureaucracy were among the announcements in Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s speech to the LGA’s annual conference.
Housing was also a key focus, with the launch of a new government-funded Council Housebuilding Support Service, to provide help for council housebuilding programmes see ‘Support service for council housebuilding launched’.
A year on from the general election, Ms Rayner said the Government had delivered £5 billion of new funding for local services, a £4 billion uplift to adult social care, £1.6 billion for local road maintenance, and doubled direct investment in preventative children’s social care services.
She said the Government was “rolling back the era of micromanagement”, with simpler and more flexible funding, and would “radically simplify the funding and reporting regime” that underpins councils’ work.
“Through a new Local Government Outcomes Framework, we will move together to a completely new way of measuring performance,” Ms Rayner told delegates in Liverpool.
“This will be focused on delivering what we know matters most – outcomes like kids learning to read and write, people living healthier lives for longer, and communities feeling safe.
“It means prioritising the long term, instead of getting caught up in the nuts and bolts. The aim is that it frees you up to deliver meaningful outcomes and facilitates a shift towards prevention.”
Alongside the outcomes framework, the Government will be launching a “comprehensive review” of “unnecessary regulations and needless asks” and harnessing its artificial intelligence team to “unlock efficiencies”.
The Deputy Prime Minister also pledged to make good on her promise in Opposition to fund councils on the basis of need, with a “full-fat” Fair Funding Review. “Government grant will be allocated based on the drivers of need in your area in a fair and transparent way,” she said.
“We will replace the decade-old data and, for the first time, properly take into account factors such as deprivation and poverty, the cost of remoteness faced by rural communities… temporary accommodation and the impact of daytime visitors on major cities and coastal towns.”