Officially, the Local Government Association launched on 1 April 1997, but work to merge its predecessors – the Association of County Councils (ACC), the Association of District Councils (ADC) and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities (AMA) – began the previous year.

Brian (later Sir Brian) Briscoe began as inaugural chief executive in 1996, when all the predictions were that it would never succeed. He says of the early days: ‘It was the most difficult 15 months of my professional life. There was a lot of conflict.'