Councils are much more than providers of everyday local services. They have a power of community leadership, introduced by the Local Government Act 2000, to lead, influence and support partner organisations to work to common goals to meet the needs and aspirations of their communities. As democratically accountable bodies with wide reaching powers, functions and influence councils are central to the lives and futures of the communities they serve.
Community leadership means defining a vision for the community and working in partnership with a range of public, voluntary, community and private sector partners to fulfil that vision. In practice this is achieved through
- formal partnerships,
- mutually agreed strategies,
- operational arrangements for joint working
- ‘pooling’ of resources, and
- the allocation of resources to priorities.
Councils have a central role on the developing Local Service Boards These boards bring together the leaders and chief executives of the major public service providers, from all sectors, to tackle key service challenges, underpinned by Local Service Agreements to ensure joint activity across sectors.
Councillors’ roles will be also be enhanced with the proposed approach to wider public service scrutiny, allowing them to have a say over all public services delivered within their communities.
Councils have a broad power to promote the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of their area. They also have a duty to prepare community strategies with their partners on behalf of their communities, setting out a long-term vision for their area. Underneath this overarching plan, the council also prepares a number of other strategies, including a Local Development Plan, Children and Young Peoples’ Strategy and a Heath and Well-being Strategy.
Local government is about local people having the means to control their local circumstances – as community representatives, councillors are in continuous dialogue with their constituents ensuring that they have a say over local decisions and local services. In the recent local government policy statement ‘A Shared Responsibility’ the Welsh Assembly Government indicated its intention to develop the role of non-executive members as citizen champions, with a Welsh Assembly Government policy paper on this expected to be issued for to consultation this autumn.
For more information contact: Daniel Hurford