Blog: Friday 27th June, 2025 - Paul Turner, LLG President

Dear All

Another month has flown by.

We started with the LLG Spring Conference in Bristol and the LLG Awards, which was a fantastic event.  There was a real buzz in the room.  It was great to meet new people and renew some old acquaintances.  If you didn’t go, then please do think about it for next year, or come to the Governance conference, which will be held at the end of the calendar year.   It was fantastic to hear about

There has also been a dizzying array of announcements and consultations from the Government. 

The biggest cheer of the conference was when we relayed the government’s announcement that they will give English local authorities the right to meet online.  We haven’t seen the legislation, but fingers crossed it will be in the English Devolution Bill, which - fingers crossed again – will be published soon.  This is something we’ve wanted since they were taken from us in May 2021 after the pandemic.  It may mean that some members will have to brush up on their Zoom skills again, but I am sure we will help with that.

The government also announced a plan to introduce proxy voting at council meetings.  It’s fair to say that this is not something we have campaigned for, but the Government has accepted LLG’s submission that substitutes are a better system for committees etc, though there may be some benefit at having this at full council meetings, where you can’t have substitutes.   There’s a lot of detail that needs to be thought of to make proxies workable, and the Government has promised to involve LLG in those details.

The first reorganisation consultation has been launched – this time, whether the Surrey local authorities should be replaced with two or three new unitaries.

Deborah Evans and I had a really positive meeting with Dee Sekar, our new EDI director, this month to maintain momentum on this important agenda.

As always, there is a lot going on behind the scenes to support our members.

Meanwhile, I hope you are well and if there’s anything we can do to help please reach out.

Paul

president@llg.org.uk