Minutes:
Hannah Berry, Head of Campaigns and Digital Communications, updated the Board on proposed activity to lobby for greater devolution as part of the LGA’s Spending Review campaign.
Hannah outlined that with the Spending Review as the LGA’s
main priority, there needs to be some wider strands to the campaign
to echo the main strategies and objectives. One of these strands is
devolution, which has been signed off by group leaders.
Hannah informed the Board of the four proposed objectives ahead of
member’s feedback:
1. Raise devolution up the national agenda and ensuring that this aim is not lost
2. Ensure that all areas in the country that wish to pursue meaningful devolution can do so
3. Demonstrate that devolving powers to local government is beneficial for central government and local communities
4. Highlight that councils can provide services that people can rely on and trust to deliver.
Hannah outlined the strategies proposed to achieve these aims:
1. To make the case for devolution that it can be successful in a post-Brexit climate to the two key audiences: the public and national politicians.
2. Consistent messaging is essential. The LGA will therefore focus on outlining what powers should be devolved and re-highlighting what benefits devolving these powers would bring.
3. As with the main campaign, the LGA plans to focus on using statistics and real examples in a national and international context.
4. Focus on how councils can be trusted by putting a face to local government through the use of officers and councillors across the country.
The main question posed to the Board was whether as well as highlighting the benefits of devolution, the LGA should also be seeking to highlight the risks of not devolving these powers.
The following discussion took place with members:
There was a keenness to include greater clarity on what is meant by
devolution and ensuring we have a consistent definition with
government.
There was concern with the structure of devolution not being widely understood by what it could deliver to residents. Therefore, it is important to get the messaging and terminology right in order to achieve this and ensure that local authorities are talking in a language that the public understand.
Decision:
Members of the Board support the objectives of the Spending Review Campaign.