I hope members have had a chance to take a breather and enjoy the festive season with family and friends.
It provided me with the chance to reflect on what might be described as a rather frantic year in national and local government politics in all corners of England and Wales (and indeed worldwide). 2024 saw dramatic changes in many local councils, and then in July we saw a dramatic change at a National level: with many new MP’s arriving in parliament for their first time, across all parties.
Since the summer, we’ve seen a range of think papers and national ’ideas’ being floated, from varying corners of the cabinet; and major consultations on issues such as the Future of the NHS, not to mention a rather significant Autumn Budget, in which the momentum and wish to drive ‘deeper’ devolution was made loud and clear. it was no surprise the White paper on devolution for England was then released in December. Just before Christmas, our local authorities will have received the news of their settlements and no doubt every Chief Finance Officer is busy working through the net position of the announcements. I think there is hope, that areas which needed the greatest support based in deprivation and need, have received it; but as we already knew, there is still a significant shortfall in many places which won’t be covered initially. So, 2025, will remain very tight for most of us I suspect.
This settlement of course sits alongside the wider sector (or system) impacts from the Autumn budget, and most notably the impact of raising national insurance contributions for lower paid workers. I sense the full impact of this on ourselves and our wider sector of partners is undoubtedly still to ‘play out’: but it has clearly placed pressure on many aspects of local culture, creativity and physical activity provision in our ‘places’. As key enablers in local place, we will need to find new ways of supporting some of the place-based working, so we can continue to engage and encourage participation, but this will further stretch our leadership, resilience and no doubt the impact of what we can do.
As an Executive we will continue our efforts, to represent senior leaders in local government to the national arm’s length bodies and ministerial departments. Overall, of course, we’ve continued to feed into the new government (alongside the LGA) on behalf of senior leaders, for a single and longer-term settlement for local government. This is needed to stabilise places, enable better prevention work to avoid crisis, and ultimately enable places to properly listen to, plan and respond to the needs and ambitions of their residents – to create the kind of ‘place’ which people proudly call their ‘home’. In this same line, we’ve also continued to ask for cohesive ‘place’ based funding outside of this, which truly allows locally led prioritisation and funding allocation across local partnerships in a place (rather than project-based funding on a competitive basis and in singular themes). We are certainly seeing some progress in government recognising our sector benefits, notably in the Get Britain Working White Paper, physical activity and creative health can both reduce NHS and social care demand pressures. As the DCMO states, the evidence is clear: but what we do need is for regional and local commissioning arrangements to adopt and think carefully how they properly resource ‘locally’ created solutions, to truly tackle the stark health inequalities, which are growing in many places across England and Wales.
It may well be, that simplified funding comes in the form of new ‘devolution’ or ‘deeper devolution’ arrangements: with ‘regional’ funding, including all arm’s length-body funding aligned too (Sport England/Wales, the Arts Councils, Heritage funding etc). However, the drive for devolution must be about finding the right approach for a ‘place’. The nature of places is very different; from urban cities, to rural counties and coastal towns, and in between. We wouldn’t want to see just another ‘layer’ for additional decision making, which is as remote as the one in Westminster has become, for so many of us in different corners of England and Wales. Dare we mention, equally important is that a raft of additional responsibilities and ‘empowerment’ to lead locally…is accompanied by suitable levels of funding to do the job! One without the other, is just further austerity.
The work of the National Cultural Alliance, led by Val Birchall, and the work of the Active Wellbeing Leadership Network convened by myself, both working alongside the LGA, continue to develop well: providing a space and place, to debate, challenge, consider and inform more coordinated approaches to the sectors and services we represent. The learning from these discussions will continue to inform ministerial briefings and departmental policy/advocacy. But equally these should also help us share good practice and help each other to continue to support places to have a thriving cultural and leisure offer, reflective of local place and needs.
The LGA has welcomed CLOA executive members to present to the LGA Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee, with evidence from across the membership towards the five missions. This continues in January on the health mission, where we’ll be presenting alongside some wider local authority advocates, the case for both physical activity/active wellbeing services and creative health, both now with strong evidence around their preventative powers, as highlighted at our recent roundtable An Audience with the DCMO Dr Janelle de Gruchy.
Furthermore, we’ve been invited to present case studies and leadership examples to the LGA leadership programme for portfolio holders, and also the parallel officer’s events: these are excellent courses to build capacity in the wider system sponsored by Sport England and Arts Council England. This should help our future leadership capacity to shape services locally, and to think differently for the future. We are increasingly sharing the presentations via our regular fortnightly ebulletin for your use.
In January the executive will meet, and we will begin to consider the approach to the AGM in June. We are also planning on holding an in-person members session on 10th April in London. This is chance for members to meet the executive, but also for us to pick up some areas for discussion in a more personable way. As part of this I’m keen to reach out to a diverse range of senior leaders who might wish to play a more formal role and join the executive in June 2025. If this is you, or you’d like to find out more, please do drop a line to info@cloa.org.uk, and I’ll arrange some informal virtual coffees!
Otherwise, I look forward to representing you in coming months as Chair, alongside our brilliant Vice Chairs and the wider executive. Please do reach out if we can help with anything. Meanwhile, here is to a healthy and successful year for the sector, so every place can truly thrive!
Julie Russell, Chair of CLOA, 2nd January 25
