Monmouthshire County Council is one of only seventeen councils across England and Wales to be shortlisted as part of the new Creative Councils programme run by NESTA and the LGA.
Another nine Welsh authorities submitted innovative proposals to the programme, and summaries of all 137 council submissions will be available on the web platform www.simpl.co
Steve Thomas CBE, WLGA Chief Executive said:
“This is great news for Monmouthshire and for Welsh local government more generally. The range of submissions from Welsh local authorities demonstrates the innovative and radical approaches to delivering services and responding to the challenges all councils face in the current environment. Welsh councils are leading the way in terms of innovation and transforming services, and this has been evident in councils’ leading role in the Welsh Government’s efficiency and innovation programme.”
The shortlisted councils will work intensively with National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and the LG Group over the coming months to challenge and develop their ideas, before five are selected to receive financial and non-financial support to put them into practice. The seventeen councils are:
1.Brighton and Hove
2.Bristol
3.Cambridgeshire
4.Cornwall
5.Derbyshire
6.Essex
7.London Borough of Havering
8.London Borough of Islington
9.Leicester
10.Monmouthshire
11.Reading
12.Rossendale
13.Rotherham
14.Stoke on Trent
15.Westminster
16.Wigan
17.York
The Creative Councils programme, which launched in April, will support pioneering councils to develop, implement and spread transformational new approaches to meeting some of the biggest medium and long-term challenges facing communities and local services.
The response to the call for applications revealed a significant appetite for innovation amongst councils and a wide spread desire to trial radical new approaches. Over one-third (38%) of all local authorities in England and Wales applied for the programme, amounting to 137 submissions.
Phillip Colligan from NESTA’s Public Services Lab said:
“This is an ambitious programme that has been met with a fantastic response from councils across the country. We know that the scale of the challenges facing local communities and service providers demand radical new approaches and councils are showing that they have the appetite and vision for meeting them in transformational ways.”
“The success of this programme relies on giving these ideas life beyond their immediate areas. We are determined that Creative Councils will not only benefit those areas that we work with directly but will be a source of inspiration and cold hard knowledge that will benefit local government right across the country. It’s in this spirit that we are taking the unique step of publishing information about all of the applications online, providing a platform for people to challenge and develop the ideas and creating the opportunity for new collaborations to emerge.”
Cllr Peter Fleming, Chairman of the Local Government Group Improvement Programme Board, said:
“Local Authorities have a proven track record as the most innovative and progressive part of the public sector. Every one of the 137 Creative Councils entries contains some fresh and interesting ideas, but we believe the 17 authorities progressing to the next round have put forward proposals with the most potential to substantially improve services for local people, while also reducing costs.”
“As a sector we need to carry forward our history of innovation. It is clear that with less money from the centre, councils will have to find new ways of working and delivering services. Innovation comes from sharing and testing your ideas with others. We will work with the 17 authorities and NESTA to bring these projects and ideas to fruition.”
For more information on the programme visit http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/public_services_lab/creative_councils
