Special Interest Group annual report to LGA Board 2023
Contact information
Lead Member: Cllr Paul Bettison OBE – Leader of Bracknell Forest Council
Lead Officer: Stuart McKellar – Borough Treasurer of Bracknell Forest Council
Email: [email protected]
Address: Time Square, Market Street, Bracknell, Berks, RG12 1JD
Telephone: 01344 352041
Website: www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk
Membership
- Bath & North East Somerset
- Bedford Borough, Bournemouth
- Christchurch & Poole, Bracknell Forest
- Cheshire East
- Cornwall
- Hartlepool Borough
- Medway
- North Lincolnshire
- North Somerset
- Plymouth City
- Portsmouth City
- Reading Borough
- Rutland County
- Shropshire
- Slough Borough
- Southampton City
- South Gloucestershire
- Stoke On Trent
- Swindon Borough
- Telford & Wrekin
- Thurrock
- Torbay
- West Berkshire
- Windsor & Maidenhead
- Wokingham Borough.
Bedford gave notice of their intention to leave the UCN and are members until the AGM in July 2023.
Aim
To promote, support and represent the aims and ambitions of the Unitary Councils of England.
Key activities/outcomes of work undertaken
Meetings were conducted at approximate monthly intervals and were held virtually on Teams. The chairman of the network, in common with other network chairmen, attended any virtual briefings given by DLUHC/Oflog Ministers and the Secretary of State and attended meetings with the Chairman and senior officers of the LGA, and relevant information was cascaded to UCN member authorities.
Guest speakers have attended at the request of the membership and have included:
- Kay Withers – Levelling Up Director
- Lee Rowley MP
- Richard Holden MP
- Richard Stevens MD of Go South West
- James Jamieson LGA Chairman.
Discussions
- Outcome-focussed ambitions (DLUHC)
- Elected mayors
- Difficulties in delivering capital projects
- Nutrient neutrality
- Competitive bidding and waste of resources.
- Financial settlement
- Unitaries’ pressures on social care and reduced income levels
- Local government reorganisation
- Childrens’ social care
- Skills
- EPR
- Inflation
- £2 fare cap
- National Bus Strategy
- BSIP
- Driver shortages
- Budget
- Funding
- Devolution
- Social Care
- Safeguarding
- Asylum seekers and refugees
- Spokespersons for particular areas of focus (portfolios)
- Survey on rural cost of living
- Chris Skidmore Report (Net Zero Review).
Letters to Government
- Post-16 transport funding
- Net Zero
- Funding for Adult social care
- Skills