Sector Support annual review shows high impact programmes at low cost

The Local Government Association’s wide-ranging sector support offer is delivering high impact, low-cost programmes, a new report highlights, with the success of the past year being used to further enhance this offer for councils in the future.

The LGA’s annual review of sector support delivered in 2023/24 shows positive impact scores from participants across all areas, including the Sector Support programme (covering governance, leadership, finance, workforce and transformation) and programmes such as Children’s Service Improvement, Partners in Care and Health, One Public Estate (OPE), Planning Advisory Service, Procurement, Sustainability, Communications, specialist graduate programmes, and Cyber, Digital and Technology. In 2023/24 these offers reached 100 per cent of councils from across England.

The LGA’s highly valued peer challenge programme, which provides councils with effective insight, guidance, and challenge to enable continuous improvement and offer assurance to local leaders, provided 1,500 peer days and challenge at no cost to recipient councils, contributing to at least £1.5 million of savings to the sector.

Every council which had a corporate or finance peer challenge said this has had a positive impact for their authority and 95 per cent report feeling more confident about their council delivering its priorities. 100 per cent of Member and officer peers say that their involvement in a peer challenge has had a positive impact on their learning and development. 

Building on these foundations, the focus of the programme is now on: 

• improving the rigour, robustness and consistency of CPC; 
• ensuring all English councils have a CPC every five years; 
• improving the preparedness for delivering CPCs to high-risk councils;
• continuing to improve the training and development of both LGA Member peers and officer peers; and 
• improving the robustness, impact and consistency of CPC reports.

These developments are part of the ongoing programme of work to strengthen focus on assurance within the wider offer, helping to ensure councils have the tools and support they need to deliver good governance and address current challenges. This means the sector support offer from the LGA is more needed than ever, given the financial and service pressures councils continue to face.

The report highlights publication of a new improvement and assurance framework as a critical aspect, providing councils with a framework to check they have the right controls in place and identify where they need to become more effective. Over 160 senior officers and members engaged in the framework consultation and mapping exercise. Elsewhere, 182 local authorities attended regional scrutiny networking sessions, achieving an overall satisfaction rating of 100 per cent. 

The LGA offers a wide range of learning and development opportunities for officers and members – shown to have significant positive impacts for individuals’ professional development; and ability to deliver for their authorities. More than 2,800 councillors accessed political leadership programmes in 2023/24, with more than 13,000 accessing these programmes since its inception. This legacy includes more than 70 serving MPs, who have benefited from the LGA’s programmes. 

The LGA also launched a new Chief Executive Programme with Solace - including a new Chief Executive Development Framework, featuring a first of-its-kind training offer, specifically designed to help chief executives respond to the most pressing challenges.

In the context of 230 councils holding elections in 2023, the LGA’s post-elections support programme, led by expert peers, regional teams, and political groups, offers a critical source of support to help smooth political transitions for the 111 councils which experienced a change of control or leadership, ensuring that members and officers had access to the support and resources they needed.

The offer provided wide ranging support to respond to demand pressures, including dedicated support to deliver transformation and help improve workforce capacity; as well as support spanning service areas including children’s services, adult social care and planning. 

The LGA also piloted a new local government recruitment campaign to attract new talent to the sector, to be launched nationally this autumn, as well as setting up new graduate programmes for finance and planning. These programmes sit alongside the LGA’s flagship national graduate programme for local government, recently renamed to Impact, which attracts thousands of applications from graduates across the country each year; and in 2023/24, recruited its largest cohort of graduates, as well as achieving the highest number of councils taking part in the programme to date.

Findings also highlight the LGA’s offer of intensive and dedicated support to those councils most in need, including bespoke support to help address and mitigate governance and finance challenges. 

With nearly all councils reporting ongoing challenges across areas such as finances and service demands, access to ongoing sector support remains crucial. 

Informed by direct insights from local authorities, underpinning the 2023/24 report, the LGA regularly reviews and strengthens programmes to ensure all support is tailored to best meets the needs of the sector.

Cllr Abi Brown OBE, Chairman of the LGA’s Improvement and Innovation Board, said:

“Sector support has played and continues to play a vital role in supporting councils to respond to the toughest challenges facing local government, delivering highly-impactful programmes at low cost.

“Our offer is informed by councils, for councils and directly addresses their needs – whether it be providing greater assurance, achieving transformation priorities, dealing with workforce challenges, changes of leadership or political transitions.

“This report demonstrates what a council-led approach can achieve by drawing on skills from within local government. LGA peers provide local authorities with unmatched experience and a trusted source of support, and bring learning back to their councils, which strengthens the knowledge base within the sector.

“Learning from 2023/24 has enriched our 2024/25 sector support offer. By continually enhancing our offer, we continue to help councils respond to new challenges and harness opportunities, now and in the years ahead.”

Notes to Editors

LGA improvement support - annual report 2023/24

The Sector Support programme, Children’s Services Improvement, Partners in Care and Health, Cyber, Digital and Technology, One Public Estate (OPE), planning (PAS and Pathways to Planning), procurement, and sustainability programmes are funded by UK Government departments. Culture, tourism and sport, is funded by Sport England.