Strategic Investment Plan – Approved

Following agreement from our Partnership Board we have submitted the plan to the Secretary of State for the Department for Transport with a request for it to be considered as future investment decisions are made.

We would like to thank all of our partners from Local Transport Authorities, National Highways, Network Rail, Senior Officer Group, the Department for Transport and other key stakeholders for your insight and support.

This plan is the culmination of five years of technical work, stakeholder engagement and institutional development. It builds on our Transport Strategy and brings together previously published work including area and thematic studies, with aims to boost the economy and make life better for people, for business and for the environment.

The SIP contains 293 multi-modal schemes and policy interventions that are required to be delivered across the south east over the next 27 years, to realise the vision for 2050 set out in our Transport Strategy.

Councillor Keith Glazier, Chair of Transport for the South East said; “This evidence based investment plan is a once in a generation opportunity to set out a vision for a sustainable transport network that recognises the importance of major transport corridors across the south east; corridors that are fundamental to our economy and our communities.

While £45 billion is a significant sum of money, it isn’t dissimilar to the levels of historical investment in the south east over a similar time period. The plan itself identifies the investment needed to transform the economy in the south east.

However, it also recognises the financial constraints faced by the bodies that would traditionally fund these sorts of interventions. With this in mind, we are keen to work closely with government to explore other potential funding options.

We are currently producing a Delivery Action Plan for the SIP that focuses on the next three years. The plan sets out the current position of each of the proposed schemes, details of what the next steps are and confirmation of the roles of TfSE.

It also lays out whom the delivery partners that are undertaking the next steps are and what resources and analytical tools are available and required.

We will be bringing the Delivery Action Plan to the July Partnership Board.

We will keep you updated via our monthly connections newsletter.

Chief executive’s bulletin

10 March 2023

International Women’s Day 

This year’s International Women’s Day took place on 8 March with the theme of embrace equity. Over 40 women from the local (parish and town) council sector got involved in NALC’s group video which we created to celebrate the day and to recognise the achievements of women in the first tier of local government. Please make sure you watch it and share it with others. And let us know what you or your local council did to celebrate IWD at policycomms@nalc.gov.uk. Huge thanks to all those who got involved!

Standards Matter 

The NALC Standards Matter conference took place at America Square Conference Centre in London on 3 March. Our first in-person event since 2019 was attended by around 120 people including delegates, speakers, exhibitors, NALC staff and our sponsors BHIB Councils Insurance, Blachere Illumination and CCLA. The event – which focussed on improving sector standards across the board – featured a packed programme including a big debate on sanctions, expert views on why reputation matters to councils, sector standards through the Local Council Award Scheme, improving local government and the local government minister, Lee Rowley, MP provided a short ministerial speech by video to end what was a brilliant, positive day. Do check out the NALC Twitter for more highlights from the event. And the feedback so far indicates most attendees rated the event as very good! Click here to find out more about NALC’s other events.

NALC Make A Change and LGA Be A Councillor campaigns 

Colleagues from the policy and communications team met with officers from Local Government Association (LGA) on 2 March to discuss our respective campaigns – Make A Change and Be a Councillor – which aim to get more people involved in councils and becoming councillors. Issues covered included NALC’s election report findings and recommendations, LGA’s research in collaboration with the Young Foundation, co-hosting events, sharing resources, and working with underrepresented groups. We also committed to working more closely and meeting regularly on these important campaigns.

Keeping on the subject of our Make A Change campaign, over 6,000 local councils have elections in May this year, around a quarter are in Devon, Norfolk, and Suffolk. We’ve been working with local media outlets in those areas and have placed adverts in the local newspapers (over 130,000 daily readerships) and websites (around 850,000 weekly unique browser visits). This direct marketing will help reach more people in our communities and raise awareness of the elections. And coupled with activity by councils and county associations themselves, will hopefully lead to more people putting themselves forward and more contested elections. In recent weeks, we’ve also arranged media training sessions hosted by NALC partner Breakthrough Communications for county officers in areas with elections.

On the blog

This week’s blog is written by Duncan Hayes from the Right to Build Task Force. He writes about how the Right to Build Task Force supports local authorities working to deliver custom and self-build homes. The key points and the benefits of custom and self-builds are listed in this blog. Do attend next week’s NALC’s online event: Tackling the housing crisis the local way with custom and self-build homes, if you want to receive more information on this topic.

NALC Larger Councils Committee 

NALC’s Larger Councils Committee met remotely on 28 February, here are some headlines:

• The Committee held a discussion on mandatory training for councillors as part of the Policy Committee’s review of NALC’s policy on this issue. They agreed that training should be mandatory for all councillors on standards of behaviour, good governance, and best practice, and strongly encouraged for all councillors on other issues. The Committee also recommended county associations should be encouraged to roll out training for all newly elected councillors and training checklists should be factored into the Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR) and the Local Council Award Scheme.
• There was a discussion on the National Agreement on Salaries and Conditions of Service of Local Council Clerks in England and Wales where the Committee identified several issues to be addressed in NALC’s current work on employment and the workforce including extending pay scales at the top end, grading should better reflect the level of responsibility of clerks and the ensuring an effective job evaluation scheme.

• Linda Larter, chief executive at Sevenoaks Town Council, gave a presentation on the Civility and Respect Project and progress on its workstreams, highlighting over 1000 local councils have now signed the civility pledge; the Committee agreed to encourage larger councils to sign the pledge and engage with the project.
• Members of the Committee shared how their governance models work in practice particularly regarding the role of council leaders.
• The Committee’s work programme includes delivering a study tour and good practice visit to a larger council and members were encouraged to attend the visit to Newport Pagnell Town Council on 27/28 June and to promote it to larger councils in their areas.

NALC chair meetings and events 

It’s been a busy week for NALC’s chair, Cllr Keith Stevens, who attended meetings in London and an event in Dorset. On 6 March Keith met with the chair of Natural England, Tony Juniper, who you may recall spoke at our Empowering Communities conference in November (you can watch the event again here, Tony is at 2:22:00). They spoke about the work of our two organisations and identified areas of common interest and where we can work together such as on involving local councils in Local Nature Recovery Strategies, the role of local councils in climate emergency and net zero, access to grant funding and linking Natural England’s local teams with our network of county associations.

The same day Keith also met Andrew Selous MP to follow up on his recent debate in Parliament on unadopted roads which we had provided a briefing on. Andrew is also a Second Church Estates Commissioner and provides a link between the government and the established Church of England, which is why Keith also briefed him on the powers of local councils to provide financial assistance to places of worship. It was good to hear his support for our efforts to amend the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill to clarify this issue and provide councils with the full flexibility to provide support should they choose to do so.

Lastly, they also discussed standards as Andrew has supported the Early Day Motion and Keith took the opportunity to brief him on our wider work through the Civility and Respect Project. Keith and our head of policy and communications, Justin Griggs, were in Dorchester on 9 March at a councillor networking event organised by the Dorset Association of Parish and Town Councils (DAPTC). It was good to see the building of strong links and partnership working between the two tiers of local government as the theme of the event. Keith also presented DAPTC’s Star Awards for councillor development to three local councils – congratulations to them!

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill 

As you know, NALC’s president, Baroness Scott of Needham Market, has tabled several amendments to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. These cover a range of NALCs’ key policy objectives such as remote meetings and standards. Unfortunately, progress on the Bill’s Committee Stage is somewhat slow due to the extensive programme of other legislation making its way through the House of Lords. As a result, two additional Committee dates have now been added in mid-April. We are anticipating some of Baroness Scott’s amendments to be considered next week and I will keep you updated.

Fortnightly meeting with county officers 

At this week’s meeting between NALC and county officers, there was a presentation by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE). They explained how the process for updating ward and division boundaries works, the rules they need to follow and how local councils can make effective representations on behalf of their area. It particularly covered what are and are not valid considerations when determining boundaries. The other main topic was handling audit complaints from members of the public.

And finally… 

We’re looking for a project manager to help us continue to deliver the Civility and Respect Project with our partners the county associations of local councils, One Voice Wales, and the Society of Local Council Clerks. The purpose of the role is to ensure the continuation of the project, which will include working with the current project workstreams and the Project Assurance Board to identify and manage phase 2 of the project, delivering to time and budget, whilst establishing a plan with staff at NALC and SLCC to bring the project into business as usual. More details on the role and to apply can be found here.