The Government should give local authorities more financial powers to improve public services across the country, according to a new report by Localis.
The think tank’s report said that ‘reliable, consistent and long-term funding’ was required to provide the certainty that councils needed to plan local services.
Localis chief executive Jonathan Werran said: ‘In the course of our research, which involved seven regional roundtables with local authority chief executives and senior directors, we heard an open and palpable desire from our place leaders to continue to innovate to deliver responsive neighbourhood services as the foundation of prosperous places in all corners of the country.’
Councils should receive a single ‘placemaking’ budget that includes the levelling up funding currently allocated through capital pots, the report said.
On devolution, it said that deals should be more flexible and should ‘include provisions to fund both the delivery of neighbourhood services and the capacity of councils to strategically coordinate provision across service lines to prioritise upstream prevention’.
The report, which was developed with consulting, digital services and software business Capita, also said that councils and the private and third sectors should work together to ensure that residents’ concerns were prioritised.
Andy Foster, strategic partnerships director, Capita, said: ‘The relationship between public, third and private sectors has never been more important, and this report reinforces how the whole eco-system of public services needs to work closer than ever to lead and define what levelling up means locally.’
The report recommended that subregional centres that collate and analyse public service data should be set up, to be used by councils to plan improvements to their services.
It also called for core training for policy professionals about the form and function of local government.
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