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There are 6 item(s) tagged with the keyword "local communities".
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- 1. Time to grow our own to tackle skills shortages
The UK is facing some stark skills shortages, exacerbated by Brexit, and as a result of the pandemic, many of the foreign nationals we have relied upon over the past decades to fill important roles, that keep the economy moving, have returned home. We are struggling to replace them with homegrown labour that either doesn’t have the skills, or the interest, in some of the more mundane but very necessary jobs in a functioning society.
For local government this means that many of the services it provides are struggling to recruit and retain workers to provide care, feed people or ensure the cleanliness of facilities and areas. For these services they are in a real battle with supermarkets and retail distributors, who are prepared to pay more for often simpler job roles. This is an increasingly uphill struggle.
In construction and building maintenance it’s not only tradespeople where there are growing shortages but increasingly councils struggle to recruit architects, surveyors and planners. Local authorities are forced to pay hefty premiums to others to supply these services or to agencies.
From HGV drivers to social workers, we are facing up to the fact that there simply aren’t enough qualified people to go around. Combine this with some of the seismic challenges society faces in a covid recovery, particularly within the care economy and the need to crack on with climate change mitigation and adaptation, then it becomes clear that the only way forward as a nation is to once again ‘grow our own’, but this of course will require enormous investment through the right mechanisms.
- 2. It's time for the rehabilitation of local government
As we await the recovery and devolution white paper from Government, it will be interesting to see if the summer speeches from ministers that invariably promised ‘putting an empowered local government at the heart of the economic recovery’, will be borne out in reality.
Successive governments have denuded local authorities of powers, finance and resources; stripping the sector back to an emaciated shadow of its former self. If ministers really want councils to play a key role in the recovery of the nation then we need to see more than warm words, we need to see a full-blown rehabilitation of local government in the national psyche.
To do this there needs to be proper recognition of the role of the local authority as the undisputed leader of place, the key actor in helping to deliver a better tomorrow for local communities. When we take the issue of planning for example – a responsibility that is fundamental to driving better outcomes for local people - powers need to be restored not reduced. How can you steer and stimulate a local economy or transform town centres at the very heart of local place if there is continual deregulation of your planning powers?
The upcoming comprehensive spending review represents a great opportunity for ministers.
- 3. Let's show some sensible behaviour in our Parks this Easter
As we approach the Easter weekend local authority’s parks services will be in sharp focus and will be bracing themselves for what will be a major test of public behaviour as we reach the peak of the curve of COVID-19.
APSE carried out a survey of council parks managers on 8 April to assess what is happening on the ground, with over 90 responses received from across the UK.
To date Government advice has been to keep parks open to allow for exercise, so long as people comply with social distancing guidelines. The survey shows that almost all parks and urban spaces remain open and almost all are keeping at least some of their country parks accessible at present.
In relation to social distancing 79% are saying that nearly all visitors are observing social distancing. Some are experiencing some problems with certain groups, with 63% saying groups of youths have been occasionally problematic, although smaller percentages saying issues have also arisen with exercise groups, cyclists and families.
- 4. Time for Ministers to trust councils to deliver for communities
The country recently elected a new parliament to Westminster, so what will the public want to see at the top of ministerial in-trays?
It’s very timely that Survation has just completed APSE’s annual polling of public opinion on local government services. What it finds is that satisfaction with services is starting to drop and people are noticing a decline in their locality. They are also saying they want to see more of the tax that they pay given to councils to spend in their local area.
If the new Government want to demonstrate that the decade associated with austerity has passed then the public clearly want to see visible improvements across their neighbourhood services. This means investment across everything from public realm to affordable housing. Social care also remains important in public opinion but this is balanced against these wider priorities.
A consistent trend is that trust is continuously increasing in councils and councillors to get decisions correct about their local area and to deliver services directly to local people.
- 5. Turning up the volume on climate change emergency
The prevailing issue that has exercised the minds of those in local government for the last decade has been dealing with the impact of austerity. Whilst rumours of its demise may be somewhat premature it is likely to be overtaken by something that may have an even more fundamentally profound impact on councils, dominating almost every decision they make over the next decade – that of climate change.
Whilst many councils are alert to this agenda, with dozens declaring climate change emergencies, particularly in response to high profile public protests by young people, it is easy to move the date you expect to be carbon neutral forwards by ten years or so, but unless you focus on deliverables then achieving such aspirations could prove to be difficult in practice. The clock is ticking. There is an urgent need to move beyond strategising and rhetoric to making significant progress.
- 6. Local government should be the key arbiter in shaping place
Many ingredients go into making a community a place where people are proud to live and work, so is there a danger of eroding local government’s ability to place-shape effectively as a result of a series of policy decisions and funding cuts?
Previous governments’ strategies for neighbourhood renewal seem a distant memory, alongside the levels of accessible funding that went alongside them. Whilst criticism existed of approaches being overly centralist, ‘funding with strings attached’, local government remains at the mercy of central government policy decisions and delivering budget cuts is the only thing in which it seems to have more freedom.
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Promoting excellence in public services
APSE (Association for Public Service Excellence) is a not for profit unincorporated association working with over 300 councils throughout the UK. Promoting excellence in public services, APSE is the foremost specialist in local authority frontline services, hosting a network for frontline service providers in areas such as waste and refuse collection, parks and environmental services, cemeteries and crematorium, environmental health, leisure, school meals, cleaning, housing and building maintenance.
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