The Rwanda Act (2024)
This week our Vice Presidents in the House of Lords worked hard to improve the Rwanda Bill before it became law on Monday night, set against an unmoving Government. Thanks to all our peers in the Lords for their untiring scrutiny of this flawed bill. Whitehall’s own Spending Watchdog, the Audit Office, has calculated that this plan to remove 1 per cent of the asylum seekers will cost in the region of half a billion pounds, or £1.8m for each of the first 300 refugees. The Rwanda Venture is expensive, and we may find only after the general election, that flights do take off and people still try to cross the Channel. The LGA is in close contact with the Home Office, ministers and regional representatives discussing key issues, including giving councils more powers to determine which sites can be used for asylum accommodation. The LGA has collated the advice for you on Council support for refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied children. Your local authority will also be involved in the ‘Regional Strategic Migration Partnership (RSMP)’ working together to provide advice and assistance. Your regional contacts can be found on the same page.
New Planning Guidance
Also just announced is new guidance for dealing with big planning applications (ENSIPS) to make them faster and to raise more funding to pay for the process. Developers do their consultation before submitting the application, so the developer can gage the opposition or otherwise and make a few changes. The comments from the public are not directly passed on to the planners, so the public do need to register and put their strongest case to the Inspector who puts the case to the Secretary of State for a politician’s decision. Here’s how to register to access the process.
Deposit Return Scheme
Our group has been particularly vociferous in calling for a good deposit return scheme to reduce litter and waste and worked on the plans through our think tanks. This week the Government announced the new scheme across the UK would be delayed to October 2027, a total of four years! You can join the webinar on 30 April from 11-12.30pm. Many of our councils already have attractive bins for cans and plastic and commercial shops that refill personal containers. Is there more we can do locally to save waiting years? The Extended Producer Responsibility is expected this month and will include glass, so producers will be charged for its disposal.
Celebrating Earth Day 2024
On Monday we celebrated Earth Day with the theme for this year of ‘planet vs. plastics’. More than 50 countries already have called for an end to plastic pollution by 2040 and a landmark treaty on plastics is planned by the United Nations later this year. Earth Day organisers are calling for a 60 per cent reduction in the production of plastics by 2040. Earth Day has produced a map where you can register your own clean-up event or find another, on any day, not just earth day!
Similarly, you can nominate a local “litter hero” with Keep Britain Tidy as part of the Great British Spring Clean, before the deadline of 31 May.
Changes in political leadership after the local elections
Our National Lead Peer, Councillor Adam Paynter, has this week contacted all our valued member peers about the possible changes of control, no overall control and/or changes to councils’ portfolio holders and leaders, following next week’s elections. All our member peers are ready to respond to forthcoming requests for peer mentoring and the LGA has updated its own information page, covering every type of scenario that may unfold. Useful guides include the ‘The 12 components of effective coalitions’ and ‘New council leader – a practical checklist’.
Newly elected councillors
To welcome newly elected councillors, the LGA, with the Group Offices, will be hosting a virtual event on Wednesday 19 June from 2pm until 4pm. If you have new members elected this coming week, do let them know and encourage them to attend. More details will be made available shortly.
A short guide to the LGA Independent Group, May 2024
To be sure you are not missing out on any of our offers, the Group Office is about to publish our latest up-to-date guide for our newly elected councillors after next week’s local elections. The guide is for you and gives an overview of the Local Government Association and our Independent Group. If you would like a copy as soon as it is available, please get in touch!
Shaping LGA policy
Have you joined our new LGA Independent Group Discussion Forum yet? This is the place to go if you are a member of one of our ‘Think Tanks’ which feed into each of the LGA Policy Boards, shaping what the LGA is promoting to Government and the media. Please get in touch with the Group Office for login details.
My special thanks go to Councillor Jon Hubbard for taking the time and effort in creating this forum for the group, better than the current e-mail groups. Jon has very kindly offered to host two information sharing sessions for members wishing to know more. Please get in touch with the Group Office to register.
LGA Annual Conference 2024
There is still time to register for this year’s LGA Annual Conference in Harrogate, from the 2 – 4 July, with much planning and preparation being put into place. Alongside our political group sessions and plenary session, the Independent Group will also be holding its Annual General Meeting from 10am on Tuesday 2 July. You can attend for free - just register with the Group Office. Any motions for the Independent Group to consider need to be sent into the Group Office before the 18 June. All prospective motions are reviewed by the Independent Group Executive and if taken forward to the AGM, the proposer must attend in person or via a substitute to speak to the motion.
Good luck to all candidates
In closing, we have 2,500 council seats being contested in 107 authorities. To all who are standing in the local elections on Thursday, the best of luck to you. These final days are probably the most important and I know you will be flat out connecting with as many residents as possible! Thank you for standing up for what you believe in and for your determination to make life better for residents. I look forward to the many positive results as they come in!
Celebrations
April holds celebrations in the Christian calendar with Easter on 1 April, Islamic with Ramadan ending on 8 April and the Jewish Passover completing on 30 April. Happy celebrations to you all!
Last call: NGDP Finance Graduate Scheme
The National Graduate Development Programme (NGDP) Finance Graduate Scheme is a specialised stream within the NGDP, offering a four-year programme dedicated to developing future local government finance leaders. We worked on an initial London-only pilot but are now exploring whether there is sufficient interest to expand the scheme nationally for cohort 2, to start employment with councils in summer 2025. If your council is interested in taking part, please let us know by completing the expression of interest form by the end of April. If you have any questions about the scheme please contact ngdpfinance@local.gov.uk.
Building safety levy
On 26 January 2024 Lee Rowley MP, Minister of State for Housing, Planning and Building Safety, wrote to council chief executives about the Building Safety Levy – a new levy that will be imposed on developers for new residential developments requiring building control approval in England. The Government intends to designate local authorities as collection and administrative agents for the levy. If you have not already done, please send details for a point of contact to the Building Safety Levy Team by Friday 26 April. Officials will be in touch in due course to discuss preparations with you.
Elect Her – Join their Independent Councillor Focus Group
Over the past year, Elect Her, in partnership with 50:50 Parliament, has been creating party handbooks as a resource for women to utilise when they step forward as candidates for local, regional, devolved or national elections. With the help of our friend, Councillor Cathy Lisles, we now want to create an Independent guide for those women who choose to run as an Independent. We are looking for a diverse group of female councillors from different backgrounds and lived experiences to share their knowledge and expertise on standing as Independent candidates with us. If you have the capacity to volunteer just one hour of your time to join one of our focus groups, we’d love to learn from you as we create our Independent Handbook. Plus, you'll get to meet other cool Independent councillors in the process!
The dates and times for the focus group will be as follows
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Tuesday 30 April, 7- 8 pm and Wednesday 1 May, 11 am -12 pm
If you are interested in joining one of Elect Her's focus groups, please get in touch with the Elect Her Community Team .
Dates for the Diary
Make a difference, work for your local council – A national recruitment campaign for local government (virtual event)
Tuesday 30 April 2024, 10:30am – 12:00pm
A national recruitment campaign for local government has been co-produced with local authorities and Solace: ‘Make a Difference, Work for Your Local Council’. This event will present the campaign, the findings from a pilot delivered in the North East, and the ambitions for a national roll-out.
Time Management for Councillors
Tuesday 21 May 2024, 1:00 – 2.30pm
This virtual event, funded by UK Government, will take a look at the busy and changing world of the local councillor. It will discuss how to deal with the ever growing and varied time pressures placed upon councillors and the stress points that can occur, such as being new to the role of a councillor, taking on additional or leadership responsibilities or the challenges of being a ‘multi hatter’. It will provide ideas and suggestions for the effective prioritisation of tasks and time, how to decide between ‘important’ and ‘urgent’ tasks, deal with concerns and set out some coping strategies. This is a virtual event run on the Zoom platform.
Leadership Essentials Sports and Physical Activity : An introduction to physical activity and sport for new and developing portfolio holders
Thursday 27 June, 10:00am – Friday 28 June, 4:00pm | Warwick Conferences, Scarman House, Coventry
Join us in Warwick for the launch of a new 2-day residential event! In partnership with Sport England, the LGA are pleased to announce a programme that will support 30 new portfolio holders with the responsibility for Sport and Physical activity. The programme will introduce Councillors to explore dynamic approaches to systems leadership to encourage development in their role to become better leaders and tackle barriers to sport and physical activity in their place. The cost of attending this programme is fully subsidised, accommodation and meals are included. To book a place, please email Grace Collins.
LGA Annual Conference and Exhibition 2024 (in-person event)
Tuesday 2 – Thursday 4 July 2024 | Harrogate
Join us in Harrogate for the biggest event in the local government calendar, where we’ll be discussing the latest issues affecting local government.
Best wishes,
And finally…
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