CCN Conference 2018 Round-Up

The network had a variety of high-profile speakers at the event, including the Communities Secretary James Brokenshire, Minister Rishi Sunak, Shadow Communities Secretary Andrew Gwynne, Homes England’s chief executive Sir Edward Lister, Ofsted’s Yvette Stanley, and Leo Johnson from PriceWaterhouseCooper (PwC).

 

At the event CCN launched our new campaign, ‘A Fairer Future for Counties‘, with the network releasing new research on the increasing costs of caring for adults with severe learning disabilities. Read more on that here.

CCN also released new research on the rising costs of delivering home to school transport for pupils with special educational needs – with councils’ expenditure rising by 30% in just four years. Read our research here.

The campaign seeks to ensure that local government receives additional resources in next year’s Spending Review, and that county authorities receive a fairer share of funding from the conclusion of the fairer funding review.

Click here to download CCN chairman Cllr Paul Carter’s conference opening speech, which launched the campaign and set out a future vision for county authorities.

As part of the campaign, you can watch Communities Secretary James Brokenshire say that he ‘wants to work with counties as we look ahead to the Spending Review and social care green paper’ – watch a video of him at the conference below.

Below, you can watch Shadow Communities Secretary Andrew Gwynne say that ‘local government is in financial crisis’ here.

We are conducting a survey of the conference, and would appreciate your feedback. Access it here – it takes less than five minutes.

The Monday morning began with Cllr Paul Carter’s opening speech, and he rounded off the session by saying: “We must have sustainable, sufficient, and fair funding. We are here to improve public services. Empower us.”

Delegates then heard from PwC on their emerging findings from their forthcoming report, produced for CCN, before a session looking towards the social care green paper featuring Paul Burstow of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, David Pearson of Nottinghamshire County Council, and Steven Phillips of Newton Europe. View slides from the session here.

The Communities Secretary delivered his speech mid-morning, which you can read here. He said last month’s Budget was ‘a Budget for counties’ and said 2019 will be a ‘turning point’. Delegates then heard from Will Tanner, from the thinktank Onward, and Anthony May, chief executive of Nottinghamshire County Council, on counties as ‘strategic authorities’ and how to reboot devolution. Following that, Yvette Stanley explained Ofsted’s latest inspection framework and how children’s services inspections are finding positive trajectories nationally.

In the evening, the political sessions took place – featuring the Liberal Democrats’ Wera Hobhouse MP, Labour’s Andrew Gwynne MP, and the Local Government Association’s Lord Porter.

The first session of the following day saw the Guardian’s Patrick Butler, BBC’s Alison Holt, and the Financial Times’s Andy Bounds explain local government’s perception in the national media, and how delegates can work with counties to secure the right coverage.

This was followed by Rishi Sunak MP’s keynote speech, where he had warm words for counties. You can read his speech here.

Delegates then heard from Homes England’s chairman Sir Edward Lister who told counties: “come and talk to us” to work together on the housebuilding agenda. This was followed by an economy session, with input from the National Infrastructure Commission, Cllr Kevin Bentley from the LGA’s Brexit taskforce, and Simon Ridley, director general at the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government.

Last but not least: CCN Conference 2018 was rounded off by a session on prevention in the social care/public health agendas, with sessions from Phil Swann of Shared Intelligence and Jim McManus, vice-president of the Association of Directors of Public Health. Download slides from that session here..