As 2020 draws to a close, very few will be lamenting the loss of a year that has seen the UK plunged into the double whammy of health and economic crises. It has been a tough year – and local government has risen to the occasion.
At the end of February, The MJ gathered our columnists together for our annual contributors' lunch – our opportunity to say thank you to those who give their time and expertise to us throughout the year. The event always includes a customary conversation, going round the room to ask what our experts think the coming year will bring.
Just four weeks before lockdown, only one of our columnists – pollster Ben Page – raised the prospect of coronavirus impacting on the fortunes of local government. It was not that we disagreed, it just wasn't high on the radar.
2020 has seen local government challenged at every level. Shielding vulnerable residents, protecting local businesses. Harnessing volunteers, enforcing restrictions. Caring and communicating. Testing and tracing.
So hats off to those who have worked tirelessly on the frontline of the pandemic. All the social care and public health workers dealing with the health emergency. The refuse collectors who cleaned up after us. Those in communications who have had to make sense of the mixed messages – eat out, and stay in.
There are those who have picked up the pieces of broken lives, in housing and benefits departments – working with social care and domestic abuse.
There are those who have picked up the pieces of collapsed businesses. Holding together the fragments of the local economy, battered and bruised by lockdown.
And there are all the people redeployed from their day job, thrown into a new world – helping to glue the fabric of communities back together. To all those people – and all the others I have missed – we thank you. The efforts of the past year have been nothing short of heroic.
It's not over. As we enter 2021, with the prospect of further lockdown, COVID-19 is spreading rapidly. There is an epidemic of destitution – unemployment, homelessness, food poverty. There is an economy to be rebuilt, a climate crisis and the uncertainty of Brexit. All on the back of a decade of austerity, with another decade to come.
It may sound bleak, but I have never been more confident in the ability and ingenuity of local government. This is a sector that will always rise to a challenge.
Never have local authorities been so ambitious, so innovative and so committed. Never have they worked so well with partners, or been so determined to improve the lives of their local communities.
As The MJ winds down for 2020, we wish everyone who can take one a well-earned break – and our thanks to those who will carry on. May 2021 be the year that local government thrives.
- Tell us about your remarkable achievements in 2020. Enter The MJ Awards https://awards.themj.co.uk/
