Improvement and innovation bulletin

16 February 2026

Sector support offers

Integrating performance, finance and risk

The LGA has published new guidance on how performance, finance and risk can be managed and reported in an integrated way, with the aim of supporting good decision making as well as better monitoring and oversight.  Designed to be useful for both officers working in these fields and elected members who are portfolio holders, committee chairs and on scrutiny and audit committees, the publication includes links to council case studies and top tips.

Sign up to Impact before the 27 February deadline

Councils are still able to sign up too the LGA’s flagship graduate programme before the deadline to recruit talented graduates that can meaningfully contribute to strategic projects and support host authorities to be future-focused through change.

A record number of applications were received from graduates keen to kickstart their careers in local government, creating a real opportunity for councils to take part and maximise placements. Get in touch via impact@local.gov.uk.

Pathways to Planning

Are you facing resourcing challenges in your planning and/or surveying teams? The Pathways to Planning programme offers a diverse talent pipeline of high achieving graduates to work as planners, construction project managers and surveyors in local authorities. Each graduate comes with an educational bursary to fund their study on a part-time master’s selected by the employer, fast tracking their professional development. A limited number of salary bursaries valued at £40,000 are also available to authorities with high need who cannot fund graduate posts due to financial constraints. Applications for funding are considered on a rolling basis, with a deadline of mid February 2026. Contact Emma Roberts: emma.roberts@local.gov.uk or find out more on our website.

Council Housebuilding Support Service (CHoSS) – supporting councils to build with confidence

The Council Housebuilding Support Service (CHoSS) provides free, tailored support to councils across England to help build capacity, capability and confidence to deliver more council homes. The programme is now in active delivery, working with councils at different stages of their housebuilding journey and offering practical advice and support on delivery routes, land and pipeline development, governance and leadership.

Councils that have not yet engaged are encouraged to complete the Expression of Interest (EOI) form or contact choss@local.gov.uk  for an initial, no-obligation conversation.

Golden Triangle development events

We are running a series of in-person events and online webinars starting in January 2026 for Chief Executives, S151 Officers and Monitoring Officers to support you in your collective role in maintaining the corporate health and effective financial and ethical governance that ensures councils can deliver for the local community. The events will bring together the distinct roles to support your building of a good governance culture, identify practical tools and actions to embed back at your organisation, and benefit from peer-to-peer networking and learning.

Sign up via the Golden Triangle registration form and email virginia.ponton@local.gov.uk with any questions.

Webinars and events

Changes in political leadership

Monday 23 February 2026, 10.30am-12.30pm

Join this virtual session to hear from experienced local government peers on preparing, scenario planning, and responding to a change of political leadership, focusing on the responsibilities and best practice of Golden Triangle teams. We recommend all Golden Triangle roles attend from the same authority, although this is not essential.

Book now: Changes in political leadership

LGA transformation conference: Delivering effective change

Now in its third year, the LGA Transformation Conference: Delivering effective change returns in the spring. The programme will focus on the realities of driving change in local government, with sessions covering key themes such as change management, resilience through change, local government reorganisation, benefits realisation, prioritisation, and the role of AI and emerging technologies.

Book now: Transformation conference

Building a greener future: Transforming housing energy efficiency

Tuesday 3 March 2026, 10.00am-11.30am

 
This LGA virtual event will provide delegates with the opportunity to explore how the sector can influence and improve the energy efficiency of housing with the aim of reducing carbon emissions. The session will highlight practical case studies for delegates to learn from and potentially replicate in their authorities.

Book now: Building a greener future: Transforming housing energy efficiency

Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS) annual conference

Thursday 12 March 2026

The CfGS annual conference will take place on Thursday 12 March 2026 in Birmingham. The event will enable members and officers to share insight and expertise on delivering excellence in governance and scrutiny and explore how to respond to the changing landscape of local democracy.  Bookings before 31 December secure a 20 per cent discount. 

Book Now: CfGS annual conference

The best kept secret in local government: Unlocking revenue with location data 

Wednesday 18 March 2026, 2:00pm-3:30pm

Join our upcoming webinar to explore how linking address and street data across services can uncover missed revenue, speed up repayments, and improve cross department efficiency. Rachel Antcliffe from Leeds City Council will outline the value of unique property and address identifiers and how integrated systems enhance accuracy in Council Tax and Business Rates. Steven Harris and Laura Loughrey from Surrey Heath District Council will share their experience improving coordination between revenues and benefits, including identifying missing revenue and reducing delays. The session will conclude with a Q&A featuring all presenters and representatives from GeoPlace.  

Book now: The best kept secret in local government: Unlocking revenue with location data

National recruitment campaign for local government: insights and impact

Tuesday 31 March 2026, 11.00am-12.00pm

The Make a Difference, Work for Your Local Council campaign, which is being delivered in January and February 2026, aims to inspire individuals to explore career opportunities in local government, and build positive public perceptions for the sector. 

This event will share the learnings and insights from the campaign’s evaluation, how councils have used the materials, and the impact on councils’ recruitment efforts.

Book now: National recruitment campaign for local government: insights and impact

Scenario planning for May 26 elections

We will be running a series of virtual events for chief executives to help plan for the May 2026 elections. This will include hearing from speakers who have experience in scenario planning and working with changes in political leadership.

The next events will take place on:
Tuesday 24 March, 10.00am-11.00am
Wednesday 25 March, 10.00am-11.00am

The events will be virtual and closed. If you are interested in attending then please contact Rajpreet.Khera@local.gov.uk or your Principal Adviser for more information.

Additionally, you might be interested in...

Culture and library peer challenge opportunities

Arts Council England and the LGA are offering fully-funded culture and library peer challenge opportunities to councils across England throughout 2026. These peer challenges can provide useful insights that can directly contribute to strategic work focused on devolution, income generation, economic growth, public health and wider cross-cutting priorities. For more information visit our culture and library services programmes page.

Recruitment and Retention Reset programmes

The LGA’s Recruitment Reset and Retention Reset programmes offer councils a fresh, practical, and evidence led approach to tackling today’s workforce challenges. Designed to help you rethink how you attract, retain, and engage talent, they provide hands on support, peer learning, and proven tools that help deliver real improvements across your organisation. The next cohort will now begin in April, giving councils additional time to plan and secure their place.

You can find more information and hear how previous participants benefited by visiting the recruitment reset and retention reset webpages, or by contacting david.drewry@local.gov.uk.

LG Inform and LG Inform Plus

LG Inform Plus Subscription Renewal 2026/27

We are delighted to see councils already renewing their subscriptions for LG Inform Plus for 2026/27. Your support is very much appreciated and has enabled us to continue to improve and develop how we support councils.

Here's what Derby City Council had to say about their use of LG Inform Plus Natural Neighbourhoods: “Using the Natural Neighbourhoods functionality within the LG Inform Plus Tool has been really helpful to produce data and profiles for potential options and scenarios when looking at Local Government Reorganisation. The Natural Neighbourhoods functionality has enabled us to build a new area using current boundaries at local authority level (or smaller geographical areas) and save this as a new area type.

This area can then be used within the LG Inform Plus reports, for example to look at population data for a group of authorities; the area is created and then existing reports like the census population profile reports can be generated for this area. The new area is also available within the data explorer and search function to select for other metrics available in LG Inform Plus (where data can be aggregated at that level) and can be used to visualise data in tables, maps or within the reports. The tool has been simple and quick to use and can help in understanding the demographics of combined areas.

More LG Inform Plus benefits include:

• create your Information Asset Register (IAR), as well as your Record of Processing Activities (RoPA). Check out our best kept secret
• over 16,500 different metric types from over 50 different sources and 260 collections all updated within 5 days of publication
• all new Authority boundaries up to date
• ready made local reports by ward
• ready made local reports by LSOA
• regular webinar training included, and bespoke support by specialists
• add local data and create new local maps in My Local Assets
• no limits on the number of users per authority.
• Popular Application Programming Interface (API) direct data feed - which provides easy access to over 2.4 billion data values and the ability to import directly into local reporting systems such as Power BI.

For information on LG Inform contact us at lginform@local.gov.uk, or to take advantage of the benefits of subscribing to LG Inform Plus contact lginformplus@local.gov.uk.

www.lgafirst.co.uk

Yours faithfully,

Cllr Jane Scullion
Chair of the LGA Improvement Committee