Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, has been confirmed as a keynote speaker for Room151’s combined Local Authority Treasurers Investment Forum (LATIF) and FDs Summit.
The event, which will take place in London on 13 September, is regarded as the must-attend annual gathering for local government treasury managers, section 151 officers, finance directors and finance portfolio holders.
In her speech, Hillier will be discussing levelling up and local growth funds, Whitehall budgets and the danger points and challenges for local government.
Levelling up ‘bias’
The PAC recently published a report suggesting that some councils had been disadvantaged by “optimism bias” in the awarding of levelling up funds.
At the time, Hillier commented: “Without clear parameters, plans or measures of success, it’s hard to avoid the appearance that government is just gambling taxpayers’ money on policies and programmes that are little more than a slogan, retrofitting the criteria for success and not even bothering to evaluate if it worked.”
Hillier, the Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, has been PAC chair since 2015. She was previously shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change and was made a dame in 2021 for political and parliamentary service.
Other confirmed speakers at the event include: Clive Betts, chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee; Carol Culley, deputy chief executive and city treasurer, Manchester City Council; Adele Taylor, executive director of resources, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead; Alison Ring, director of public sector and taxation, ICAEW; Alison Scott, president of the Society of District Council Treasurers; and Chris Tambini, president of the Society of County Treasurers.
The Local Authority Treasurers Investment Forum (LATIF) and FDs Summit takes place on 13 September at the etc venues St Paul’s conference centre in central London.
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