Blog: Friday 20th December 2024 - Deborah Evans, LLG CEO

All I want for Christmas….

Here at LLG we have our annual Christmas list running. For the past few years, the following have been top of our wish list: Decision Making in Remote Meetings in Local Government & Stronger accountability for elected members in the standards framework.

First to arrive gift-wrapped was the consultation response on ‘enabling remote attendance and proxy voting in local authority meetings’. Oh, the joy. Our response is already lodged.

More recently, buried at the end of the English Devolution White Paper was the next item on the LLG wish list - the intention to consult on a new standards regime. Many years have passed since the proposals from the Committee on Standards in Public Life. But now, we will see a consultation around mandatory codes of conduct, standards committee, a national body to deal with the worst offenders, powers to suspend and even disqualify…. we are hopefully going to be able to cross some things off our list in 2025.

As well as standards, the paper promises, in the words of Take That, to ‘Relight the Fire’ of the economy and ignite growth in every region through moving away from centralised power to a devolved model creating Strategic Authorities with regional mayors - mayors with ambition and vision for their area, who know best the needs of the local community and will strive to create jobs, build affordable new homes, and effective transport systems. Indeed, this was precisely the message from Andy Burnham at the LLG Governance Conference last week, who evidenced just what a combined Authority is capable of delivering.

Devolution is nothing new - but rather than preceding one deal at a time, devolution is the vision for all. Over time, the local government map will be entirely rewritten as strategic authorities are adopted universally. Yes, devolution is being turbo charged.

But what does this mean for our districts? The aim of devolution is to move from two tier to one tier authorities over time, to achieve cost and resource efficiencies and economies of scale, combined with a vision that spans boundaries. Certainly, there has been mixed response from the districts with concerns that mega-councils will introduce yet more centralisation and take away local decision making and reduce local services. The devil will be in the detail, and we must all resolve in 2025 to ensure the best outcome here.

So now I’m working on a new list. It’s entitled ‘exciting new campaign ideas for 2025’….

Seasons greetings to you all. 

Deborah Evans

CEO 

LLG