Agenda item

The Chairman and Juliet Whitworth introduced the report which invited members’ comments on the proposed second phase of evaluation of sector-led improvement and the LGA’s support offer.

The Chairman commented that four years takes us into the next general election, at which point the LGA will need a substantive piece of work such as this to demonstrate its value added to improvement in local government. Further, Juliet Whitworth stated that there will be a 2 year interim report to gauge the success of the approach , a balance of internally and externally led research, and a full spectrum of research carried out in order to draw useful comparisons.

The board members made the following comments:

·         Focus on recipients of the support and their perceptions of its value, as well as factual data around the support offer.

·         Focus on outcomes. The research should focus more on what has been achieved on the ground through the LGA’s improvement and leadership programmes, and emphasise outcomes. It is important to be able to demonstrate the difference the support has made.

·         There should be a strong element of external independent rigor to the programme – with a balance between perceptions and data.

·         Our ability to draw in member peer support in our improvement work is unique and we should consider how to evaluate the success of this contribution.

·         Diversity in local government. The Leadership programme’s diverse outreach strategy should be commended, although some clarification on where local government is on bringing more diversity into local politics would be welcome.

·         The research needs to be flexible enough to reflect the diversity of improvement needs across the country.

Action

The Research and Information team will progress the research project taking the board’s comments into account.