Weeknotes 35

Happy Friday everyone! The whole team has been out and about this week in a variety of places, supporting our members. Although we're primarily office based for our policy work, we really enjoy being able to visit our members and discuss and support them in their places.

Highlights

I was delighted to spend the week as part of the Corporate Peer Challenge team in North Warwickshire Borough Council. Our corporate peer challenges look at five core elements

• Local priorities and outcomes?
• Organisational and place leadership?
• Governance and culture ?
• Financial planning and management ?
• Capacity for improvement.

In addition, North Warwickshire had asked us to look at their phase 1 plans for their leisure centres, which is where I came in. It was really positive to see a council taking a strategic look at their provision, and developing their health narrative around them. Still more work to do, but an exciting journey for them.

I was lucky enough to be part of a great team on the challenge - Jackie King , Chief Exec of Epsom and Ewell, led the the group, supported by Cllr Louise McKinlay, Deputy Leader of Essex, and Cllr Anna Smith, Deputy Mayor of Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority, as the member peers; and Sarah Parfitt , S151 Officer and Director of Corporate Services for Gravesham BC, and Tom Dobrashian, Executive Director of Place at Watford BC, provided the senior officer input. We were all excellently supported by James Millington and Raj Khera from the LGA West Midlands team. I think we have all brought back a lot of ideas and insights to our own roles, as well as having helped North Warwickshire with their work. We're looking for more peers, so do consider if you can take part.

We also run free-to-the-council peer challenges on culture and libraries, funded by Arts Council England. Do get in touch if you'd like one, or to find out more.

Meanwhile, Samantha Ramanah , Helen Hull , and Isobel Parkes were hosting a session on Navigating the political landscape for Sport England's North East Places cluster. This looked at how officers and partnerships can work with politicians of all colours towards a common goal of supporting people to be active in the region. Collaborating effectively across politicians and officers, drawing on the strengths and unique aspects of both roles, is absolutely crucial to delivering for residents and communities. Sam and Isobel then went on to join South Tyneside council to look at the great work they have done to grow the user base, and improve community impact, of their leisure centres. The work of our member councils never fails to impress.

Positive progress

• Cllr Louise Gittins, LGA Chair, met Sir Nicholas Serota and Paul Bristow of Arts Council to talk about our shared work. Tackling health inequalities and devolution were top of the agenda, as well as collaboration on data and evidencing impact. We'll also be starting work on the next iteration of our joint statement of how we work together, as the current one expires next year.
• Our Spending Review Submission has been published, aimed at improving the lives of our councils’ residents and helping the Government deliver its missions. However, it also outlines the very significant funding gap and service pressures that councils face as they continue to deliver for communities. From a culture and sport perspective, we were pleased that the submission contains main recommendations from the Active Wellbeing Service thinkpiece, including that the share of total NHS budgets at Integrated Care System (ICS) level going towards prevention should increase annually by at least 1 per cent over the next five years. We also called for urgent support for English Civic Museums, which face a particularly challenging financial outlook as a result of cost pressures and maintenance backlogs.

Things you might like to know

1. We briefed parliamentarians ahead of the short debate on plans to publish a new strategy for public libraries on 12 September. The video of the debate is available online, and was very popular for speakers, with support for a longer debate on libraries. We were particularly pleased to be cited in support of the need for better data on lbraries and their impact.
2. We also briefed MPs for a Westminster Hall debate on the regulation of short-term lets. Rachel Blake MP (Labour, Cities of London and Westminster), referenced the LGA’s calls for a new use class for short-term lets. She highlighted our warning to the previous Government that automatically reclassifying existing dedicated short-term lets into this use class without planning permission would be at odds with the premise and purpose of creating a new use class for short-term lets, as it would give local authorities no say in their location, size and quality. In response, HCLG Minister, Rushanara Ali MP (Labour, Bethnal Green and Stepney), affirmed the Government's commitment to stop short-term lets from undermining the availability of affordable housing.?

Have a fantastic weekend.