Improvement and innovation bulletin

June 2025

Welcome to June's improvement and innovation bulletin.

Sector support offers

The Innovation Zone at LGA Annual Conference

Tuesday 1 – Thursday 3 July 2025 | ACC Liverpool 

The Innovation Zone at LGA Annual Conference offers a vibrant, creative space within the LGA’s Annual Conference, which enables councils to showcase their new ideas and solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing local government.

This year’s programme will include more than 40 engaging sessions from across the country, showcasing work on key issues of significance for the sector – ranging from social services, and digital technologies, to public health and workforce.

We will share excellent practice that all delegates can learn from and utilise to create tangible, positive impact in their own councils and communities. 

The Innovation Zone will once again be using headsets as part of the session delivery. For delegates with additional needs, we have a limited number of hearing aid compatible headsets available for use. Please ask an Innovation Zone staff member for more information.

Support after the local government elections

The LGA's comprehensive support offer for new and existing councillors includes our councillor hub. The hub provides a whole host of support and resources to help councillors learn more about the work of the LGA and how we can support councils, including political support. We also offer support to all councils where there is a change of political control, including help with leadership transition post-election, and mentoring for new leaders and portfolio holders. To support new councillors in their roles, the LGA has produced an overview of the information, resources and details of support on hand for new councillors.

Peer ambassador communications toolkit

The newly launched peer ambassador communications toolkit provides member peers with tools to help communicate and promote the values of sector led improvement and peer challenge. we strongly encourage peers to share your experience of delivering peer challenge and other peer support across your networks, including social media networks. Peers are at the heart of the peer challenge process, providing a 'practitioner perspective' and 'critical friend' challenge. Find out how to contribute to local government improvement and become an officer peer or member peer. 

Enhance your finance team’s workforce resilience with the LGA’s workforce planning support

The LGA is offering a targeted, fully funded workforce planning support package for up to 30 council finance teams through its Finance Workforce Hub. This initiative is designed to help finance officers tackle recruitment and retention challenges, build long-term workforce resilience, and align staffing strategies with service transformation goals. Participants will gain access to expert consultancy, peer learning opportunities, and a suite of practical tools and templates to support strategic workforce planning. Don’t miss this opportunity to future-proof your finance workforce and drive sustainable service delivery. The application deadline is 31 July 2025 at 5pm. Learn more and express interest via the LGA website. 

Webinars and events

LGA Annual Conference and Exhibition 2025

Tuesday 1 - Thursday 3 July 2025, Liverpool

Join us in Liverpool for the biggest event in the local government calendar, where we’ll be discussing the latest issues affecting the sector - as well as learning more about the latest big ideas and innovations through sessions at the Innovation Zone.

LGA Annual Conference and Exhibition 2025

LGA Sustainability Action Network knowledge exchange: Exploring local government finance

Wednesday 9 July 2025, 10.00am – 11.30am  

These knowledge exchanges provide members of SAN with a space to come together and discuss those critical topics, projects and programmes that matter to them between quarterly SAN meetings. This session will focus on how councils are developing and delivering green finance roles. Colleagues must be members of the SAN and complete an expression of interest form to sign up.

How do you get things done? An introduction to council governance for new councillors

Thursday 10 July 2025, 2.00pm – 3.30pm 

This webinar will support attendees to understand how councils are governed and the different roles and responsibilities of councillors and officers. The aim is to help new councillors to contribute to decision-making and scrutiny of decisions in order to deliver good outcomes for local residents. 

How do you get things done? An introduction to council governance for new councillors

LGR support: LGR for new members post 2025 elections

Tuesday 15 July 2025, 2.00pm – 3.15pm

This virtual event will be an opportunity to hear about the Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) process for new, existing, and returning members. It will feature speakers reflecting on their role as elected members going through the process, along with explainers on key elements, concepts and timelines involved in LGR. The session will feature presentations from councillors, and time will be allocated for questions and discussion.

LGR support: LGR for new members post 2025 elections

Understanding local government audit committees

Wednesday 16 July 2025, 1.30pm - 3.00pm

Designed for newer or less experienced councillors, this virtual event is intended to provide councillors with useful information and insight into the role and purpose of the audit committee in local government. The event funded by Government will look at both internal and external audit processes and consider the purpose, function, and effectiveness of audit committees. It will look at topics such as financial and wider reporting processes, accountability, risk management, internal control, and the work programme of the audit committee.

Understanding local government audit committees

Greenhouse gas emissions reporting for local authorities

Thursday 17 July 2025, 10.00am - 11.30am

This virtual event will provide an overview of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Accounting Toolkit and the Waste Emissions Calculator and the latest updates to both. Hear from users of both tools, demonstrations, and how this has supported organisational and projects’ emissions reporting.

Greenhouse gas emissions reporting for local authorities

Local government's role in biodiversity and nature recovery roundtable

Thursday 11 September 2025, 10.00am - 11.45am

Recovering our biodiversity and restoring thriving ecosystems is not just an environmental imperative; it underpins our food security, water quality, climate resilience, and public wellbeing. Councils stand at the forefront of this area with the introduction of Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs) and Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements.

Local authorities are uniquely positioned to drive tangible nature recovery on the ground. This roundtable will explore how local government can effectively take up a leadership role and champion the implementation of biodiversity and nature recovery initiatives as a key partner.

Local government's role in biodiversity and nature recovery roundtable

Finance without numbers: An introduction to local government finance

• First session: Monday 29 September 2025, 2.00pm - 3.30pm
• Second session: Thursday 9 October 2025, 6.00pm - 7.30pm

This Government funded virtual event will provide an overview of local government finance without any numbers – focusing instead on roles and responsibilities, key terminologies and processes. It will give you an understanding of both what you need to be aware of in your role as a councillor and what you need to understand about your authority’s role, and is aimed at newly elected members or those just looking for a refresh.

The session will cover:

• a member’s role in finance
• how finance decisions are made
• some key financial issues and terminology.

Transformation action learning workshops

• Workshop 1: Wednesday 8 October 2025, 9.30am - 12.00pm
• Workshop 2: Thursday 27 November 2025, 9.30am - 12.00pm
• Workshop 3: Tuesday 9 December 2025, 9.30am - 12.00pm

The LGA transformation action learning workshops are half-day development opportunities for councillors and officers to explore possible solutions in an action learning based environment to work through shared obstacles in their transformation programmes. You will be matched with councils with similar challenges to collaborate and benefit from enhanced networking and cross-sector learning. For further information and to sign up, please visit the LGA website.

Transformation action learning workshops

LG Inform and LG Inform Plus

The LG Inform app: Coming soon

We are excited to announce the launch of the innovative LG Inform app, which will be available for download at LGA Annual Conference. The app gives you quick and easy access to key data about your council and how it compares to others. Providing a snapshot of 110 metrics over 11 topic areas, we developed the app to complement the popular LG Inform website. It will be available to all on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, for those who want up-to-date data at their fingertips. Please do keep an eye out at conference for those attending at the LGA Solutions stand, otherwise we will include a link to download in July’s newsletter!

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.

Yours faithfully, 

Cllr Abi Brown OBE

Chair LGA Improvement and Innovation Board