The recent LGA Conference in Manchester was an opportunity for the local government sector to set out its own ambitions and vision for a bolder, more independent future local government.

The LGA's work on ‘Rewiring Public Service' sets out an offer and a series of challenges which are designed to help alter dramatically the nature of the relationship between councils and government and with citizens more broadly.

Now, of course, people might say that ambitious long term thinking about such issues as guaranteeing local government's constitutional independence, or a new way of the sector organising itself in respect of funding distribution can seem rather less immediate than the reality of, say, a further 10% funding cut for 2015/16 announced in the Spending Round.

In reality, however, the immediate agenda and the ambitions for local government's longer term future cannot easily be separated.  The position that the sector now faces in terms of the sustainability of our funding model going into the second half of this decade andtheexpectations that our communities might reasonably have of our role are coming sharply into focus now. We arebeyond only focusing on how to achieve short term tactical advantage – important though it is to maintain pressure on all of those near at hand issues.

We are at a point where we need to try and shape for ourselves a more radical shift that makes it more likely that councils can continue to serve their communities effectively.

It is right that we explore what a more independent local government could look like and what it could offer for citizens, communities and, indeed, for government.

It is also right that we look to build radically on the work in various City and County Deal proposals and in the London Finance Commission to consider greater fiscal devolution to local government.

We must seek genuine transformation and reform in public services based around local integration and leadership in order to save money, improve outcomes, strengthen accountability and put the accent on cost effective prevention rather than expensive cure.

If the recent Spending Round was, in effect, setting the 2015 election baseline in terms of political arguments about public spending, it also exposed the scale of the challenge that will need to be faced after the polls have closed and beyond that one year of 2015/16.


It may be that not every idea in Rewiring Public Services will fly; but it is surely right that the sector, through the work that the LGA has started, shows that it has ideas, that it is confident about advancing them for a debate with government, the public and others and that it has a real commitment to finding some answers on behalf of the communities we serve.