Rising to the challenge

Councils ‘in distress’ vary hugely in size and type. And the media spotlight is certainly on them right now for a variety of reasons. The important thing is to focus on what can be done with the tools and funding landscape available.

Reduced funding, governance challenges, lack of senior, permanent resource, insufficient internal challenge from statutory officers and members typify just a handful of operational reasons for “failure”.

Externally, significant demand pressures from the most vulnerable residents, the (true) cost of social care outstripping budgets compounded by a backlog of audits has arguably masked a long-running systemic problem in the making.

No doubt, we’re in a challenging era for local government finance. 

At Local Partnerships we see common themes precursing ‘failure’.  Our experts use this valuable insight to support our clients and inform our resources which are available free to the public sector. We are specialists, experienced in complex problem solving, effective delivery and supporting local authorities to find considered ways through those challenges. 

There is no silver bullet to remediation, but there are various building blocksthat can be put in place to mitigate councils from the ongoing risks and governance failures, for example reviewing the governance structures that can identify problems. Our latest report, LATCos guidance, has a checklist to help with this. It is a tool to help councils ensure they strike an appropriate balance between allowing a company the freedom to manage its activities and ensuring that it is accountable for its actions.

We will be releasing a series of short articles around this theme over the coming weeks. Do watch out for them but also please get in touch with me, or any of my Commercial Team colleagues, if any of this resonates!