District Councils’ Network - annual report to LGA Board 2023

Lead Member: Cllr Sam Chapman-Allen

Lead Officer: James Hood (Director)

Email: [email protected]

Address: 18 Smith Square, Westminster, SQ1P 3HZ  

Website: www.districtcouncils.info/

 

163 District Councils 

4 Unitary Councils

The District Councils’ Network (DCN) is a cross-party network of 167 district and unitary councils. We are a special interest group of the Local Government Association, providing a single voice for all district services.

Our member councils in England deliver a wide range of essential local to over 20 million people – 36 per cent of England’s population. They cover 53 per cent of the country by area. DCN councils are home to 36 per cent of England’s businesses and 30 per cent of national Gross Domestic Product. 

The DCN delivers value for our members by:

• supporting our councils and being advocates for the work they do and the challenges they face
• facilitating collaboration, networking and access to information
• influencing central government and the outside world to deliver the right national policy and funding framework for our councils to deliver the best possible services to residents
• producing evidence-based research on the key issues facing our councils and wider local government.

Over the past year we have significantly scaled up our research, lobbying and external communications.

Our robust lobbying on funding has made clear to the Government the difficulties all our councils face and won some important victories including:

• average 5 per cent  increase in district core spending power in the Local Government Finance Settlement, including the 3 per cent funding guarantee and greater council tax flexibility.
• Government proceeding with its proposal to increase fees by 35 per cent for major applications and 25 per cent for minor ones.
• new £63m support fund for leisure centre pools. 
• higher-than-expected cap for social housing rent increases.

We continue to lobby on behalf of districts on other matters, including:

• reiterating our serious concerns about the Government’s proposed waste consistency reforms – securing high-profile national media coverage.
• securing amendments to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to protect the sovereignty of district councils in Combined County Authorities.
• regularly engaging ministers and senior officials to highlight housing issues and wider concerns on asylum and resettlement for district councils.
• showcasing the work that all our members are doing to respond to cost-of-living pressures and help the most vulnerable.
• flagging concerns over resource for revenues & benefits teams as they continue to deliver vital cost-of-living support schemes.

Our research has included:

• Driving Better Health Outcomes, produced with The King’s Fund, which sets out how districts can play a full role in Integrated Care Systems.
• Districts Deliver, our market research report produced with analysts BritainThinks, which offers ground-breaking new evidence for the trust our residents have in their councils and their belief in the value of our services.
• Fit for the Future, which puts a price on the immense value that district wellbeing and leisure services offers to the health service and wider society.
• Mapping a Route to Clean Local Growth, produced with thinktank Localis, which demonstrates that properly empowered councils can deliver net zero and help bring about a much-needed gear shift in the British economy.

Support and development for members

• DCN relaunched our highly valued Staff Development Programme, open to all our members as a huge opportunity to support rising star officers. The 2023 cohort consists of 85 officers. During the programme DCN invites SDP attendees to four training days and hosts a number of webinars.
• We launched our Innovation Spotlight to showcase our member councils’ bold solutions to the challenges they face.
• Developing a free financial modelling tool with CIPFA and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Events

• We held our Annual Conference in February 2023, welcoming over 200 attendees.

We ran a series of high-quality webinars and roundtables for our members throughout the year.