Blog: Friday 19th December 2025 - Paul Turner, LLG President

Hello Everyone

Welcome to my bonus second December blog.  It’s been quite the year.

I am absolutely sure that our members working in London and the metropolitan areas have been very busy and dealing with lots of things but this year, for those in two tier or DPP areas this has been an extraordinary year of dizzying complexity with more plot twists. Sometimes I have started work on a Monday morning feeling like I need a recap of last week like you get on some TV shows. 

It’s seen proposals to create a very special and beautiful new type of legal entity which is apparently a ‘Mayorless Mayoral Combined County Authority’ and the CLG legislative draftspeople have Olympic level legal gymnastics skills. This year has also seen three sets of elections in large parts of the country potentially postponed which I think is also a new first and one upon which I am sure historians will reflect.  It is difficult for elections officers as the one thing they need, it turns out,  is certainty.  They haven’t had much of that this year.

We also saw a positive and long-awaited announcement relating to future legislation relating to remote meetings – where we have no legislation, but there are Lords amendments to the English Devolution Bill which would see them introduced  - watch this space perhaps? There were also welcome announcements on strengthening the standards framework, where LLG are working with CLG to try and influence the legislation when it comes, which we are assured it will.

Personal highlights of the year are that I managed to

• swim in the North Sea twice in December – previously I’ve only made it to November. I don’t plan to try January or February -  this month’s swims were so cold that I had to remind myself I was meant to be doing it for fun.
• work out how to put on the LLG chain of office in a car parked in an Essex railway station car park.

LLG and AMO are YOUR organisation and we really need people to get involved in running it.  Yesterday I recorded a VLOG with Helen Bennett talking about my year (so far) as President.  We are looking for people to stand for election as Deputy Vice President – a four year programme, culminating in you being President in the third year.  The LLG Board is friendly and it’s a fantastic way to be involved at a national level.   If you want to have a conversation you can reach out to the LLG office or you can just email me at president@llg.org.uk. 

Finally it turns out that last week’s my seasonal message was slightly premature as I didn’t realise I would have the honour of writing this  blog two weeks in a row.  Nevermind, it just means I need to repeat that I again wish you and all LLG Members a brilliant break and, if you’ll be celebrating, have a great time!

Thanks for reading.

Paul