Local government reflections from the Party Conference season

As party conference season draws to a close, it’s an opportunity to draw on what we’ve learned and to reflect on the state of play for local and national politics, writes LGIU Chief Executive Jonathan Carr-West.

Of course, at LGIU we have a rolling program of engagement with our members throughout the year, but party conferences are a chance to meet a lot of councillors in one place. Our private leaders’ dinners, conversations around conference, and insights gathered on the fringes — all give a valuable snapshot of the landscape.

As ever in local government, there’s a huge variety of outlooks both between and within the different parties. But if I had to generalise, I would say that we’re in a somewhat liminal state, an in-between phase.

Of course, there’s a lot of activity, but there’s also uncertainty about how that activity will land.

For many in local government, LGR is an existential issue and making it happen a full-time job to be done on top of the full-time job of running a council. We saw a clear focus on the opportunity that new unitaries bring, but also an underlying uncertainty as we wait to see what government will decide about the shape and geography of future councils. We’re continuing to analyse the emerging issues and to provide direct support to councils going through this process.

We’re also waiting to see how the Fair Funding Review plays out. It’s due to be finalised over the coming weeks, but we don’t yet know how the government will respond to representations made in the consultation period or how this will pan out in the pre-Christmas scramble of the provisional funding settlement. We’re continuing to draw lessons from how other countries finance local government and to press the case for fiscal devolution with a major APPG inquiry launching in November.

For much of local government, the biggest long-term pressure remains the cost of adult social care, and here too we are waiting. The interim report of the Casey review is due next year – will this be the point at which we start to see the emergent shape of the much-talked-about National Care Service? We’re doing some excellent work with CIPFA to try and get ahead of this.

Across local government, an unbelievable amount of activity is underway. Local authorities are simultaneously managing ambitious transformation programs while keeping essential services running — often with the same stretched teams.

But there’s an underlying anxiety: how can we ensure that all this effort and innovation genuinely address the big structural challenges facing local government? There’s a risk that the scale of change masks rather than resolves the fundamental issues of capacity, funding, and place-based governance.

Finally, as ever, there’s a disconnect between the realities faced by councils and the narratives that dominate the conference stages. While national politics focuses on high-level positioning and party messages, the real work of transformation and service delivery continues locally — often without the recognition or resources it deserves. National success has local foundations, and the issues that national politics coalesced around this year – growth, identity, climate – can only be addressed if local government provides places and communities with strong and stable foundations. But councils were not part of the conversation.