Tag Archives: local government association

Sarah Osborne

We should ban disposable single use vapes

By Sarah Osborne | Thu 28th September 2023 - 7:31 pm

As the LGA Liberal Democrat Group’s spokesperson on health issues, I am very pleased that we may be seeing a successful outcome to the call by LGA and councils to ban disposable single use vapes. The government have just announced that they are looking at bringing in legislation to ban single use vapes.

In consultation with our Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP I have successfully called for the Local Government Association to back a ban, especially given the plethora of alternative vapes available for smokers to use as an aid to quit. Evidence shows that there is an alarming increase in the number of children vaping and of the detrimental impact of disposable vaping products upon the environment.

I am not anti-vaping as I recognise for some it can help people cut down on smoking but single use vapes blight our streets as litter, are a hazard in council’s bin lorries, are expensive and difficult to deal with in our recycling centres in addition to the health hazards. Their colours, flavours and advertising are appealing to children and are a risk to the health of young people.

As Liberals we try to avoid banning things – but in this case it is about preventing harm especially to children. Re-usable vapes will still be available for those wanting to quit smoking.

It is important that a ban is brought in as soon as possible. Disposable vapes are an inherently unsustainable product, meaning an outright ban will prove the most effective solution to this problem.

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Mary Reid

LGA Lib Dem elections

By Mary Reid | Thu 8th June 2023 - 10:09 am

The Local Government Association is the national body that represents local authorities in England, and in Wales through the Welsh Local Government Association. Councillors are well aware of its work, though other party members probably less so.  There are four party groups within the LGA – Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Independent.

The Lib Dem Group is currently going through its biannual election process, with places open to councillors in England. The Group has just announced that the Group Leader Joe Harris and the Deputy Group Leader Bridget Smith (pictured) were both elected unopposed.

All the other positions are being contested. These include the Group Chair and Group Whip, plus members of various Boards within the LGA, such as the Children & Young People Board, the Community & Wellbeing Board and the Fire Services Management Committee. Ballots open tomorrow and close on 20th June, with the results being announced on 23rd June.

If you are wondering whether you can vote – the electorate in this case consists of nearly 2800 English Lib Dem councillors in district, county, metropolitan and unitary authorities, plus London boroughs.

Congratulations to Joe and Bridget, and good luck to the other candidates.

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Mary Reid

An “existential crisis” for English Councils

By Mary Reid | Wed 16th November 2022 - 3:45 pm

It has been many years since Councils have felt they had enough funding to provide the services that their residents need. For most of this century they have been cutting many non-essential and non-statutory services, such as youth clubs, and they have been outsourcing some essential services to cheaper and, in some cases, inexperienced and inadequate providers. And the cuts have happened year on year, so what seems unthinkable one year becomes a reality the next.

The core Council services are around housing and social care, for adults and children, plus a number of environmental services such as recycling and waste collection. Social care supports the most vulnerable, from essential care for the elderly and those with disabilities, to support for families in crisis and providing for looked after children. Most Councils also support an active volunteer sector with its increasing provision of food banks, as sure indicator that all is not well with society.

Throughout all this the Westminster government has been adding extra responsibilities to local government, but not the funding needed to meet them, all the while passing the blame onto Councils.

Councils get the bulk of their income from Council tax, business rates and central Government grants. The latter consists of the main revenue support grant, plus ring-fenced grants which simply pass through the Councils accounts and directly out to recipients, such as housing benefits and school funding. The formula for allocating the revenue support grant is shrouded in mystery, but seems to be based on historical assessments of need rather than current need.  It has also reduced on average by 50% in recent years, and some Councils get precisely zero in revenue support.

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Simon McGrath

The most important elections you have never heard of

By Simon McGrath | Mon 7th June 2021 - 9:42 am

Today, Liberal Democrat Councillors in England and Wales will be getting an e-mail to vote in the elections for a number of positions on the Liberal Democrat Group on the Local Government Association (LGA). These include the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group (also a Vice Chair of the LGA), Deputy Leader and a number of members of LGA Boards. A full list can be found here.

All of the positions receive an allowance, ranging from £36,769 for Group Leader to £2,919 for Board members.

The most interesting and important contests to my mind are those for Group Leader and Deputy Leader.

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Mary Reid

Lib Dem Council leaders slam decision to end remote meetings

By Mary Reid | Thu 1st April 2021 - 4:01 pm

During the pandemic local Councils have been permitted to hold formal meetings online, and this has enabled them to carry on Council business through lockdowns and other restrictions. The Government has now announced that this ruling will be withdrawn after 7th May and Councils will have to meet in person after that date.

This is quite bizarre in the short term because meetings are not permitted under current Covid rules. According to the roadmap, from 17th May groups of 30 will be allowed to meet outdoors, but only 6 indoors.  The earliest date at which meetings could be held indoors would be 21st June. In stark contrast, Parliament will continue to allow remote attendance until 21st June.

But it is also worrying in the long term, since the current practice has made it possible for councillors and members of the public to attend meetings even when they could not physically attend easily for reasons of health or disability.

Some 90 Lib Dem Council Leaders and Opposition Leaders have signed an open letter to Robert Jenrick MP, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and to Luke Hall MP,  Minister of State for Regional Growth and Local Government. Here is the text of their letter:

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Mark Valladares

7 July 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 7th July 2020 - 10:30 pm
  • Davey: we need a devolution revolution to drive the green revolution
  • Govt decision on arms sales to Saudi Arabia shows lack of humanity
  • Govt green recovery plans do not match ambition of other countries

Davey: we need a devolution revolution to drive the green revolution

Today Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey has delivered a keynote speech to the Local Government Association outlining his plan for a devolution revolution to drive a green revolution.

Ed Davey called for the government to make £45bn new funding available to local authorities over three years alongside a range of new powers so that local government can …

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Heather Kidd

The Liberal Democrats are the party of rural communities

By Heather Kidd | Fri 13th September 2019 - 1:30 pm

For as long as I can remember, the mantra has been that the Conservative Party is the party of the countryside. My question is, why? Have they done anything for rural areas or have they simply taken them for granted?

It is time that we who live and work here in our communities and understand far more about rural issues than our opposition, took on that role. This year, on 2 May 2019, the public in many areas gave us their confidence and elected around 704 new councillors, many of them in rural and coastal areas. We are now in control in 49 councils either alone or in partnership. A clear majority of these are rural or coastal or both.

Now is the time to share best practice and strengthen our policy for rural delivery.

Rural and coastal communities are individual and have characters of their own. How do the Liberal Democrats work with that and make it work?

Campaigning needs to be the same but different to that in urban areas. Liberal Democrats are far better at working on the ground than other parties but in rural areas it’s remembered and valued by constituents.

Knocking on doors across a rural area will pay dividends if you do it year in and year out. Meeting people in the back of beyond where the opposition rarely go, stays with those residents and many repay the work. Knocking on the doors of new residents on the electoral roll is also a winning step.

Regular newsletters touching the whole of the electoral area keep residents abreast of local issues. Your work is of course important in both rural and urban areas, but in many rural areas, residents frequently cannot get that local information easily and you are providing a real service in doing that.

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Keith Aspden

Fire Services: Campaigning in Local Communities and Parliament

By Keith Aspden | Wed 24th April 2019 - 12:28 pm

As one of our lead members at the Local Government Association, I have worked to ensure that our national campaigns are linked to what’s happening in local communities. There are a variety of ways to do this, but I hope this article is a helpful example.

In 2015, the Conservative Government launched a consultation on a ‘joined up’ approach to Police and Fire Services. Nationally, Fire Brigade Union General Secretary Matt Wrack, in January 2016, described the national proposal as a “half baked suggestion” and accused “one or two” PCCs supporting the plan of “empire building”. He told the BBC: “There’s very little evidence, there’s no research been carried out, there’s no support for it among firefighters and there’s no support for it among police officers, there’s no support among local communities and yet the government seems to be intent on forcing it though.”

Here in York and North Yorkshire, these proposals led to the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner spending more than £140,000 on consultants to prepare a business case on and unwanted takeover of the local fire service. We have campaigned in our communities for a fair deal for local Fire Service funding, but the unpopular takeover took place following Government agreement in November 2018.

In order to campaign locally and nationally, I worked with Liberal Democrat peers, including Baroness Kath Pinnock as our national communities and fire services spokesperson, and Baroness Angela Harris, to table a motion of regret in the House of Lords and issue press releases. This debate took place on the 21st November 2018, where peers were asked if they regretted the decision by the Government to agree the takeover of North Yorkshire Fire Authority, following other takeover examples nationally.

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Chris White

Not all hanging together

By Chris White | Wed 8th March 2017 - 11:12 am

Back in the late 1990s, the various local government associations for county councils, district councils and metropolitan authorities decided that it would be best to work together rather than in separate silos: so the Local Government Association was born.

The principle is obvious: local government, unprotected by a written constitution and loathed by much of the press, needs to make its case with central government, which can legislate away its powers and much of its money at the drop of a hat, regardless of the consequences on services or communities. MPs know best, after all, and Whitehall knows even better than MPs.

Conservative-controlled Surrey County Council seems keen on tearing up this approach. Like all shire counties it is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to social care: government grants have been cut, as part of never-ending austerity, while the demand for services rises annually as we all live longer.

The proposal for a 15% increase in the council tax precept drew intakes of (sometimes admiring) breath from around the country but we all suspected that the referendum necessary to approve such a large increase would be lost. It must, we thought, be principally a political move to put pressure on Tory ministers with seats in Surrey.

Amazingly, this cynicism proved to be close to the mark. Accidentally leaked texts showed the Surrey Tory Leader negotiating some sort of deal on behalf of his council (good for his council but bad for other councils who don’t have this sort of access to government). Ministerial denials followed as news got out: and the Government pretended that the contacts were just routine – not specific deals for Surrey.

Sadly the accident-prone Tory Leader of Surrey has been caught out again (see Guardian) because someone secretly recorded the Tory group meeting on 7 February.

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Cllr Terry Stacy

Liberal Democrats celebrate top Councillors and Council Groups

By Cllr Terry Stacy | Sun 28th June 2015 - 11:25 am

Baroness Sal Brinton, Lib Dem President presented the Lib Dem Council Group of the Year Awards at the Local Government Conference in Manchester in June, with awards for Lib Dem Council Groups across the Country who are leading the Lib Dem fightback from the grass roots, these included: 

City of York Liberal Democrat Group – Council Group of the Year Award

–       This group bucked the national trend to win 4 seats

–       They came back after losing seats in the 2011 elections. Key campaigns included:

o   Keeping a recycling depot open, including a 2,700 strong petition, press work and council motion

o   Got the Local Plan revised to deliver housing but …

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Richard Kemp

The Local Government slot: winning with localism

By Richard Kemp | Tue 28th February 2012 - 2:52 pm

It’s very possible to get a bit glum at the moment isn’t it? All the talk is about cuts and the health service reforms with our opponents blithely ignoring the facts that they were a principal cause of the deficits and that they would have had to deal with the growing problems of the NHS.

So when I am down a bit I think of the many good things that have been done by this government and work out how I can take full advantage of them both politically and for my community.

Chief amongst these is the continued drive for localism. …

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Helen Duffett

Local Government Association Lib Dems announce election results

By Helen Duffett | Mon 22nd August 2011 - 4:21 pm

ALDC reports:

The Liberal Democrat Group in the Local Government Association has announced the results of its elections to group positions and the various LGA commissioners, boards and panels. Those elected are listed below with the results available here and the full breakdown of the results by stage available here.

Group Executive

Group Leader – Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Portsmouth (Elected unopposed)
Deputy Leader (Policy) – Chris White, Hertfordshire (Elected unopposed)
Deputy Leader (Political) – Dorothy Thornhill, Watford
Group Chair – Jill Shortland, Somerset (Elected unopposed)
Group Whip – Howard Sykes, Oldham (Elected unopposed)

See the full list of those elected at the ALDC website …

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James Kempton

Opinion: “The Importance of Teaching” White Paper – putting Lib Dem policy into action?

By James Kempton | Wed 24th November 2010 - 3:08 pm

After a year’s work in the run up to the General Election co-writing the Liberal Democrats’ Equity and Excellence education policy paper with other members of the 5-19 Education Policy Working Group, I opened the Coalition Government’s first education White Paper with understandable trepidation.

Nothing can be more important than giving every child a fair start in life, but the education system inherited from Labour offered some young people pretty much the best education system anywhere in the world, while leaving others ill-equipped, under-funded, and lacking the skills needed to get on in life.

The White Paper launched by the government today, called The Importance of Teaching takes as its starting point the unflattering international comparisons of the performance and skills of our pupils. Its critique of where and why the school system is underperforming is one that will be very familiar to most Liberal Democrats. It is a vision for a system based on excellence, underpinned by freedom and fairness: an education system which challenges low aspiration and achievement and where school-level innovation and diversity are seen as strengths to be welcomed.

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Andrew Stunell MP

Andrew Stunell at the Local Government Association conference: putting our ideas into practice

By Andrew Stunell MP | Mon 5th July 2010 - 12:20 pm

Three months ago, if I had said that the Liberal Democrats would be in government, and I’d be a Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, you would have laughed at me. Yet here we are. I’ve fought no less than eight general elections and at the first seven, all we did was tell people what the Liberal Democrats would do if we got into power. This time we get to show them instead.

And with the Local Government Association Conference coming up this week, our priorities on local government will get their turn in the spotlight.

In …

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