Truth about Local Government

Today I sat down with Sam Fox, a Chartered Town Planner with 30 years’ experience of working in local government, currently providing consultancy and interim services for the public sector.

Sam has extensive knowledge of how local government operates, which provides him with invaluable insights into how to run services, and how to successfully secure investment and grant funding within the sector.

Today we discussed:

“How to balance the need to encourage inward investment with the constraints of the planning system to deliver effective place-shaping.”

The solution is bringing these competing roles within local government and central government together. This is something Sam has been grappling with throughout his 30 year career and he draws on some examples of this, from the local to the national level.

The key topics we cover in our discussion are:

· Working positively with innovators

· The importance of holding onto what is right but being flexible if change is needed.

· Strong local leadership is key

· The importance of micro and small businesses

· Nationally significant projects – the importance of team work - from No 10 to the local level!

Victoria Camp is Director - Climate at Local Partnership LLP. We are exploring solutions to the challenges that face parents who work. We discussed:

Is work/life balance possible?

How do you find your voice as a new parent?

Victoria's career journey and how Local Partnerships and local government support families (and also some lessons learned) - when people are more important than policy!

Playing to your strengths as part of many teams - team family, team work, and team YOU.

Let's talk about guilt.....

An interesting and highly relevant episode, as many of us wear more than one hat.

Simon Fletcher wants to see a disruptor mentality utilised in local government to provide fresh new solutions to the problems the sector is facing.

We explored the need for continual investment in culture as a starting point. The need to try a new approach when a solution previously utilised no longer works and then the need for the regional and national inter council collaboration to push projects and sector improvement plans forwards.

Great to sit down with Colin Copus, to discuss a new financial model for local government in the UK: a reflection on the sorts of financial and taxation powers commonplace for local government overseas, but lacking here.

Is it time for a revolution of local government finances?

Today we sat down with Alex and Louise Jelley, who are Directors at Alpine Planning Ltd. We discussed how local authorities can properly resource planning functions to deliver on their large scale development and regeneration programs.

The key points we covered were:

• The importance of political buy-in, and how to get it
• Proactivity. Looking for solutions not problems. Problems are easy to identify. Getting over hurdles and finding answers is the tricky bit
• Dedicated resource to specific projects
• External support and funding (TCPA New Communities Group, for instance)
• Use of consultants – planning, landscape architects, transport, legal
• Planning Performance Agreements - mean the Council isn't paying over and above for consultants. It washes its own face! It can cover most of if not all of the consultant fee to work on the scheme and this means that council money can go on other things such as grow your own planners, training for newly qualified staff etc. Win – win
• Regular update meetings with applicant so they feel advised and in the know
• Available by phone or email every day
• Trust between council and consultant is key. Need to build reputation and relationships. Consultants can help improve performance and provide support
• Ability for planning officers within the Council to focus on other priorities. The council tells us what they want
• Councils get what they pay for in terms of experience and the ability to deal with majors. Major apps need specifically experienced planners. Skills are learned over years not months
• Talk about successes – make sure the wider community understands the infrastructure being delivered as a result and doesn’t just see road works and lost fields

Today we sat down with Polly Cziok, Executive Director, Change and Innovation at the London Borough of Merton.

We discussed organisational challenge and the values that under pin this, specifically looking at value retention, culture change and ED&I integration.

We then explored the true meaning and purpose of transformation and the solutions to the challenges affecting recruitment into the local government sector.

I admire the honesty and insightful nature of Polly’s answer.

Thank you to our sponsors RPNA, for supporting the podcast.

Today we sat down with Martin Walker, Senior Director Place, Local Partnership LLP to discuss: ‘In the midst of a housing crisis, and facing severe financial pressures, how can councils best respond to these challenges in their areas?’

Our conversation explored three broad areas:

• Considering options to help manage the spiralling demand (and therefore cost) of temporary accommodation in their areas, through measures to boost affordable housing
• Reviewing progress made by councils’ own delivery vehicles which have been set up to bring about housing delivery in their areas
• Councils’ own delivery programmes for housing, through their Housing Revenue Accounts (which for many councils means considering whether to reopen them)

Local Partnerships have created some great free tools for local authority leaders, links of which are below.

• Temporary Accommodation Model: Temporary accommodation model - Local Partnerships
• Housing Delivery Vehicle Toolkit: Housing Delivery Vehicles Toolkit (localpartnerships.gov.uk)
• Prioritising Housing Pipelines Toolkit: Prioritising housing pipelines - Local Partnerships

I sat down today with Charmaine Leech, Senior Director, from Risk, Compliance and Governance Consulting Ltd to answer one important question.

"How do you provide robust assurance of ongoing sustainability of a local government against their budget?"

Chris Perry is a former Director of Social Services for South Glamorgan County Council, a former Non-Executive Director of the Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust and a former Director of Age Concern Hampshire.

Chris wrote an article on how as a society and as a local government sector if we tackle income inequality and poverty to reduce pressure on the NHS.

Thoroughly enjoyed sitting down with Mark Tweedie - Managing Director Brimhams Active. We discussed why now is the need to pivot to active wellebeing.

Mark is an accomplished executive level leader with over 25 years experience in the education, sport and leisure industry.

During the last decade of his career he has specialised in organisational transformation to increase efficiency and profitability, whilst redesigning services to increase impact across the domains of health, education, employability and social services.