Government to review local authority legislation and statutory duties in bid to reduce bureaucracy

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner was due to tell the Local Government Association’s annual conference in Liverpool on Thursday that this would be part of a drive to free councils from “the mountain of admin and paperwork” involved in reporting to Whitehall.

Ms Rayner was also expected to launch a review of the statutory duties councils are responsible for delivering.

The AI will be used to go through the vast range of applicable legislation to see which are still needed and which could be classed as unnecessary burdens.

She was due to say: “For far too long, councils have been weighed down by needless bureaucracy that makes it harder to focus on what matters most - delivering on local people’s priorities.

“We have already taken steps to fix the foundations of local government through our Plan for Change, and now we are going further and starting to tackle the mountain of admin and paperwork that too often holds the sector back.

“Our reforms will mean less pen pushing and more action in our streets and communities, improving local services for years to come.”

Under the plans, capital funding totalling more than £1.5bn will be combined in one pot by merging the Levelling Up Fund, Town Deals and Pathfinder Funds, with the 150 reporting requirements involved reduced to fewer than 50.

Ms Rayner was also expected to announce work to explore pooling budgets between public services focused on crisis prevention, with a small number of pilots to test this.

A new Local Government Outcomes Framework will also be published, with 15 outcomes government will work with councils to deliver - including preventing homelessness and rough sleeping, community safety and child poverty.

This will replace “the micromanaging of councils’s spending” with a framework focused on strategic national priorities.

Mark Smulian