As the County Council Network Conference fast approaches and 2023 draws to a close, I can’t help but wonder what 2024 will have in store for the sector. Conferences always give time to reflect on the key challenges of the day, share the pressures (in a cathartic way!) and seek solutions through discussion and debate.
At a national level, the Cabinet has been shaken and stirred in readiness for a national election. I suspect there will be an increasing moratorium on major change as the rhetoric of electioneering starts to ramp up. All this comes at a time when change is so very sorely needed across local government. Many Councils are experiencing financial hardship, upper tier authorities, in particular, are feeling the pressures of increasing costs for children’s services, home to school transport and general inflationary pressures. It’s highly unlikely that the answers will come from central government, so local government will need to be the change for itself in order to balance the books. The sector has absorbed so much and is still very much recovering in a post pandemic era. So what more can be done to reduce, delay and defer the additional demand and costs? Perhaps the conference will start to draw out more innovative solutions? At Peopletoo we are looking forward to leading a workshop on strategic commissioning. With spend on third party organisations increasing year on year, we have to look at how we can more effectively manage the value derived from external spend. Over £70 billion is spent across local government each year so there have to be opportunities to apply transformation techniques to extract further value. Peopletoo are offering to run free ‘Ideas Exchanges’ with organisations to draw out innovative solutions to trickly problems. So, if you are looking for new ideas on how you can ‘Be the Change’ please do get in touch.