Council Leader updates new Local Government Secretary on city’s ambitions

Liverpool City Council's Leader has written to the new Local Government Secretary, Angela Rayner MP, with an update on the improvement journey and the wider ambitions for the city.

Liverpool City Council’s Leader has written to the new Local Government Secretary, Angela Rayner MP, with an update on the Council’s improvement journey and the wider ambitions for the city.

The Government intervention at Liverpool City Council ended in June 2024 after the Commissioners concluded the Council is now “a well-governed, improving organisation, with ambitious leaders who are committed to long term change”.

To ensure the improvements are fully embedded, the Council has set up an Improvement and Assurance Board, chaired by Mike Cunningham, who had been the lead Commissioner.

In his letter, Cllr Liam Robinson writes: “I was pleased that the Lead Commissioner, Mike Cunningham, was able to recommend to the previous Secretary of State that Commissioner-led intervention should come to an end, as it did successfully on 9th June 2024. But our transformation as a council was never motivated by the desire to shake off government intervention. We owe a deeper responsibility to the people of Liverpool, to create an outstanding council delivering excellent services, and supporting the city to grow into the future. We are therefore committed to continued transformation, and indeed to accelerate our pace of improvement now that we have taken back full responsibility for our own future.”

Cllr Robinson highlights the work of the Strategic Futures Panel, chaired by Mayor Steve Rotheram, which identified opportunities for development across an “arc of opportunity” to the north of the city centre, including substantial housing growth; the opportunity to become a driving force for innovation in health and life sciences; and the need for radical reform of public services, through a new Office of Public Service Innovation with a trailblazer programme in North Liverpool.

He adds: “We and our local partners remain committed to take forward these recommendations, and indeed to go further to make a major contribution to the new government’s missions. Steve and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you in more detail and welcome you to visit Liverpool as soon as practical, to see the opportunities first hand.

“Congratulations once again on your appointments. You can be assured that Liverpool stands ready to make a major contribution to the transformation of the UK, and to work with you closely in the years ahead.”

The full text of the letter can be found below:

Dear Rt Hon Angela Rayner MP,

LIVERPOOL’S IMPROVEMENT JOURNEY

Many congratulations on your appointments as Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. I, and the whole City of Liverpool, are excited at the difference the new government will make to our communities, our growth and our future.

Amongst the most challenging issues facing you in your new roles is the crisis in local government; both generally because of the unsustainable financial pressures facing the sector, and in relation to specific councils who face financial, service or governance failures. You will be receiving urgent advice from your officials on the specific circumstances of each council. I therefore wanted to waste no time in providing an update on the situation in Liverpool.

I don’t need to rehearse with you the serious failures that gave rise to the previous government’s intervention in Liverpool City Council, the imposition of Commissioners and the radical programme of political, governance and service transformation underway. From opposition, you were both strong supporters of Liverpool’s improvement journey, and stood with us as we took the tough but necessary decisions to pull our council back from the brink. Since I took over as Leader in May 2023, our progress accelerated. I was pleased that the Lead Commissioner, Mike Cunningham, was able to recommend to the previous Secretary of State that Commissioner-led intervention should come to an end, as it did successfully on 9th June 2024.

But our transformation as a council was never motivated by the desire to shake off government intervention. We owe a deeper responsibility to the people of Liverpool, to create an outstanding council delivering excellent services, and supporting the city to grow into the future. We are therefore committed to continued transformation, and indeed to accelerate our pace of improvement now that we have taken back full responsibility for our own future.

In order to support this process, we agreed with your predecessors to establish an Improvement and Assurance Board, to provide an effective “step down” from Commissioner-led intervention until March 2025. Mike Cunningham was invited stay on as its independent chair. Michael Gove
took the “minded to” decision to underpin this Board with new statutory directions, on which there was a short consultation.

However, the early dissolution of parliament meant these were never laid. While we had no objection to new statutory directions, if it helped provide the additional assurance that Mr Gove at the time required, in our view they were unnecessary. We have since demonstrated our commitment to support an Improvement and Assurance Board by establishing it without the need for statutory directions, with active support and involvement from your department, and with Mike and other independent members in place.

We have established a work programme which picks up all the issues identified as requiring the most significant progress; by the Council itself, by Mike in his last report as a commissioner, and in the draft statutory directions.

We hope you will support the continuation of the non-statutory arrangements we now have in place, without the need for further intervention. We have asked Mike to lead an independent report on progress as part of the Board’s work programme. I would expect the department to continue to seek his independent and up-to-date assessment of progress, and for one of your officials to be an observer to the Board. On this basis, you can be assured that the improvement journey is well set, and that Liverpool can now be regarded as an exemplar of successful transition from intervention.

As you know, alongside the intervention in the Council, previous ministers asked Steve Rotheram to chair a Strategic Futures Panel into the growth potential of Liverpool. Steve and his colleagues produced an excellent report in March 2024, focused on: the opportunities for development across an “arc of opportunity” to the North of our city centre, including substantial housing growth; the opportunity for the Liverpool City Region to become a driving force for innovation in health and life sciences; and the need for radical reform of public services, through a new Office of Public Service Innovation with a trailblazer programme in North Liverpool.

We and our local partners remain committed to take forward these recommendations, and indeed to go further to make a major contribution to the new government’s missions. Steve and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you in more detail and welcome you to visit Liverpool as soon as practical, to see the opportunities first hand.

Congratulations once again on your appointments. You can be assured that Liverpool stands ready to make a major contribution to the transformation of the UK, and to work with you closely in the years ahead.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Liam Robinson, Leader, Liverpool City Council