Solace blog

“In the 1990s and early 2000s we increasingly saw a renewed role for local authorities in civic leadership.

“Local authorities increasingly stepped forward as leaders of place, convening the institutions and sectors of a place to plan for its prosperity, alongside what had since the second world war been seen as its primary purpose: the provision of essential services. And as concerns grew about a perceived deterioration in community relations, so did expectations that local authorities would take a lead role in building and maintaining good community relations for their places.

“The duty of care and wellbeing, enshrined in the Local Government Act 2000, is the most explicit expression of this. Taken at its most basic it gave a local authority the power to do whatever it determined (within the law) would best create prosperity for the people of a place, in the immediate and long term…”

Click here to read the full article by Kersten England, former Solace lead policy spokesperson for Resilience, in the LGC.