The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) will put more “meat on the bones” of the Office for Local Government (OFLG) over the coming weeks, the minister for local government and building safety has said.
Lee Rowley, speaking at the Local Government Association’s (LGA’s) Local Government Finance Conference 2023, said that authorities need “greater clarity, simplicity and understanding” from central government to achieve a secure footing for the future.
He said: “On the point about greater understanding, it’s clear that having access to meaningful and high-quality data is important for three audiences, for local people, for yourselves, and then for us in central government.
“And I know that many of you are interested in what the government is seeking to do here. We’ve made a series of announcements over the course of the last six months around OFLG. But it is now our responsibility to put more meat on those bones and we’re going to do that over the coming weeks ahead.”
Rowley detailed that OFLG aims to provide another source of information about the overall performance of the local government sector and how well its services are being delivered.
“I know that the sector welcomes transparency and greater knowledge being out there. So, I hope that you will welcome in principle, the desire for us in central government to be able to help that transparency be available,” he added.
In June 2022, levelling up secretary Michael Gove first announced the creation of OFLG, which he said would aim to benchmark and drive performance in councils. He highlighted that the new body would help to overcome a lack of transparency and accountability on local authority performance.
We’re conscious of the need to give greater clarity. And so that is why we are trying to ensure that we give you (local government) funding for primary services, which we know are creating challenges.
Clarity for the long-term
On his point on “greater clarity”, Rowley acknowledged local government’s call for multi-year financial settlements to enable authorities to “set long-term budgets and model effectively for the future”.
He highlighted that the local government finance settlement announced on 19 December “hopefully made a step forward” on this call as it included some information about the future funding outlook for councils.
“We’re conscious of the need to give greater clarity. And so that is why we are trying to ensure that we give you (local government) funding for primary services, which we know are creating challenges with costs and rising demand. And that’s one of the reasons why we’re bringing in around £2bn in grants for social care in 2023-24,” Rowley added.
He also highlighted that the local government finance settlement has made an additional £5bn in funding available to councils to help resolve some of the issues they face, which is a 9% cash terms increase.
“It includes a one-off funding guarantee, which makes sure that every council will have at least a 3% increase in core spending power for the financial year ahead before you make decisions about council tax and local revenue rating,” Rowley continued.
Simplicity on finances
In his speech, Rowley also emphasised the need for central government to bring simplicity to the sector’s finances. “We are aware that government funds now number well into the hundreds, with many different rules, with many different approaches and many different processes for obtaining them.”
He stated that the government is looking into opportunities to streamline funds where it can and has already started, with some grants and funds for 2023-24 being rolled into the overall wider grant.
“We (DLUHC) are looking at what else we can do over the long term and some of the things which have been announced on devolution in recent weeks have demonstrated our willingness to do that, Rowley said.
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