Local government’s resilience and agility will see us through 2025
As a council leader, I know that our role is one that requires time, energy, and heart all year round.
After a busy year, however, I hope that you and your teams found space to relax and recharge with loved ones over Christmas.
In 2024, no council was immune to rising cost and demand pressures on our services, wider economic and international shocks, the climate emergency, or political change following the general election.
Just as when facing significant cuts in our funding, COVID-19, or the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, local government rose to the occasion and demonstrated a resilience and agility for which you should all take credit.
And last summer, when far-right racist disorder tried to divide communities, it was councils as place-leaders and shapers who helped bring people together, convene the recovery, and learn and share lessons with each other.
Throughout the year, too, the LGA worked tirelessly on your behalf to secure £1.5 billion of additional grant funding for 2025/26 (£880 million for social care), as well as a further £3.7 billion in other revenue funding.
This included significant additional monies for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), homelessness, and the Household Support Fund’s extension.
We also secured £20 million for councils that joined our collective action against Visa and Mastercard, and represented councils in England and Wales at the UK COVID-19 Inquiry.
We welcomed the creation of a Leaders’ Council, answering the central call in our Local Government White Paper, published last June, for a new, equal partnership between national and local government in England.
We also earned a range of policy successes, from the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and Renters’ Rights Bill to more control over local buses and a temporary extension of the asylum move-on period.
Plus, with a dedicated safety liaison officer forming part of a £31 million package for councillor safety across all police forces, and the Government announcing that councillors will soon no longer have to publish home addresses, our Debate not Hate campaign went from strength to strength.
“Our collective weight and voice remains our most powerful tool in lobbying for positive change for our residents”
I hope that you and colleagues were also able to make use of our extensive events, leadership and graduate programmes, Corporate Peer Challenge programme, national recruitment campaign, and, of course, our fantastic annual conference in Harrogate last October.
We have so much to build on and, across councils and the LGA, I am grateful to members and officers for their dedication in helping us to achieve what we have.
Our collective weight and voice remains our most powerful tool in lobbying for positive change for our residents and showcasing good practice, and in leading the system for sector-led improvement.
Thank you all for your efforts – please do continue to share case studies of your work and complete our surveys so we can keep making the argument on your behalf as the national voice of local government.
Looking ahead to 2025
It is no secret that 2025 will be a challenging year for councils, and I know that some members will enter this new year feeling uncertainty, even trepidation, about what the future may hold.
As your member-led organisation and your Chair, I want you to be assured that the LGA knows, understands and recognises this – and as a council leader serving both a rural and urban area on its own devolution journey, I myself appreciate the depth of feeling and range of views across the sector.
As I said in December in response to the Government’s English Devolution White Paper, local government reorganisation should be a matter for councils and local areas to decide.
We will engage proactively across the country on the white paper, and I will be holding sessions with members of our Leaders’ Council, special interest groups, the LGA Board and members across regions.
Crucially, we are stronger as a sector when we act together, so we will also be working with parliamentarians to ensure we get the best possible legislation on your behalf.
To do so, we want and need to hear from you: please do send your reflections to your LGA principal adviser.
Following our initial response to the provisional local government finance settlement, I know that balancing the books will also be high on your agenda.
While the extra funding next year will help meet some – but not all – service pressures, we remain concerned about the impact of the rise to employers’ National Insurance contributions.
We will shortly seek further evidence from members to help strengthen our case, but, in the meantime, please do share your views and data via your principal adviser.
While 2025 will no doubt bring challenge and change, I cannot think of a sector whose track record stands it in better stead to navigate that course together, for the people and places we serve.
It is therefore fitting that we start 2025 with so many in our local government family recognised in the King’s New Year Honours – my congratulations to them all.
In this spirit, I look forward to continuing to work with you across all tiers, regions, parties (and none) in 2025, and I wish you all a happy and, above all, healthy new year.
- To find out more about the work of the LGA, please visit local.gov.uk