Equipping local government to deliver national and local priorities

Councils’ wide remit, local knowledge, democratic accountability, public service ethos, and key roles in working with partners and shaping local places makes them critical to the delivery of the new government’s five missions. The government is committed to wider and deeper devolution. This paper argues why, once a series of key reforms are in place, they should have the confidence to equip local authorities with more power and (when public finances allow) prioritise additional resources to councils, in turn enabling the delivery of national and local priorities. The Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV) at the University of Birmingham has led research on local government for over 60 years. In this paper we highlight three critical issues and recommend short and longer-term actions to address them: financial arrangements, audit and performance management, and community power and participation. The diagram below summarises our key recommendations.