As hard as it may be to fathom now, over 20 years ago, Whitehall negotiated with not one English local authority association, but three – representing the districts, the metropolitan authorities and the counties, respectively. In the early 1990s, with local government reorganisation underway and 46 new unitary councils set to come on-stream from 1996, the associations began to ask whether they might be more influential as a single, merged body.

Geoffrey (now Lord) Filkin, a former council chief executive who was appointed the last secretary of the Association of District Councils (ADC), was asked in the interview for his job what he thought of the idea of a single association.

He recalls: ‘I said it wasn’t sensible to have separate associations. The sector needed a single voice to address the media and government. There were many issues that the associations had in common.’ Lord Filkin’s view was supported by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities (AMA) chaired from 1992-1997 by Newcastle Labour leader Jeremy Beecham and by the Association of County Councils (ACC).

AMA secretary since 1990, Rodney (now Sir Rodney) Brooke, was formerly chief executive of Westminster LBC and also a fervent supporter of a single association. He says now that having three separate bodies ‘fractured the argument’ and offered a less united front to government.

Lord Filkin adds: ‘Jeremy [now Lord Beecham] was the champion of having a single association. Discussions started in 1993. At the time the reorganisation process was just underway. At one level, reorganisation helped the move because if we were to have unitary councils then it was more sensible to have a single association.’

The problem was that reorganisation was proving to be particularly divisive. In Scotland and Wales, a new unitary structure was simply imposed from 1996, but in England the Conservative government under John Major decided any new unitaries must only follow after what proved to become a controversial and increasingly acrid judicial review process.

Not only did it pitch shire districts against counties, as each tier lobbied for unitary status, but the review also provoked dissension among Tory backbench MPs who campaigned for the local authorities within their constituencies, often in opposition to each other.

Inevitably, the strains were felt within local authority associations. As Lord Filkin remembers: ‘Reorganisation was a challenge to the status quo. But the reorganisation debate also set districts and counties against each other, which made the move to a single association more difficult as members and officers took great chunks out of each other.’

The ACC then decided not to join a single association. Lord Filkin says both the AMA and ADC stood firm on their plans and adds: ‘When the new secretary of state John Gummer [appointed in 1993] announced he was scaling back on reorganisation, the ACC then decided after all it didn’t want to join a single association. The ADC and AMA refused to blink and said they were going ahead anyway, whatever happened, so eventually the ACC came on board.’ Sir Rodney jokes in hindsight that ‘a lot of the counties were nervous about fraternising with the lower ranks’.

In June 1995, Sir Rodney wrote a two-page article in the then Municipal Journal (now The MJ) ‘On the verge of a single voice.’ In the article, he said that ‘almost every independent voice in local government has been advised in favour of the principle’. Describing the negotiations, he wrote that the three associations ‘bend over backwards to reach a consensus’ and that ‘differences of principle on major issues are few and far between’.

He said the alternative was separate associations, which might even divide on party political lines, weakening their negotiating power. He concluded: ‘The formation of the LGA could be the most significant step for local government this century, and will form a proper foundation for the next.’ (Municipal Journal, 9 June 1995)

As negotiations concluded and a date of 1997 was set for the launch, a key decision was the appointment of the single body’s first chief executive, and whether the postholder should come from one of the existing associations or be a completely new appointment. Lord Filkin, tongue firmly in cheek, now says that ‘although the three existing association secretaries were close to perfection’, he and his opposite number at the ACC, Robin Wendt, ‘felt it was helpful for the new association to have new leadership’.

In the end, Sir Rodney decided to throw his hat in the ring, but the successful applicant was Brian Briscoe, then Hertfordshire CC chief executive, who was offered the job in January 1996. The first chair of the LGA was the AMA’s Lord Beecham.

Ironically, 22 years later, Sir Rodney – who subsequently chaired the General Social Care Council from 2002-2008 and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, as well as many other bodies – is more critical about the single association. He believes spending cuts since 2010 have fallen heavily on Northern metropolitan councils that relied on specific grants, and less so on better-off southern English councils.

In contrast to his 1995 comments that separate associations such as the Labour-controlled AMA would weaken local government’s lobbying power, he now tells The MJ: ‘I’m certain that had we still had the AMA, it would have been more vigorous in opposing cuts than has the LGA. It’s because a fair number of the LGA’s members haven’t been so badly affected. Maybe the answer is more vigorous sub-bodies.’

Lord Filkin spent his last 18 months at the ADC drawing up what would become best value – a system for local authority services subsequently introduced by the Blair government to replace compulsory competitive tendering, while retaining competition. He was made a Labour peer in 1999 and became a junior minister, later setting up the New Local Government Network and the 2020 Public Services Trust. In 2013, he became chair of the Centre for Ageing Better and resigned the Labour whip.

Lord Filkin has had little contact with the LGA since its launch in 1997, but believes that as a single association it has been far more effective than its predecessor bodies. He says: ‘It’s not the birth pangs you worry about, but whether it realises its potential. It’s clearly more sensible to have a single association. It may not get 10 out of 10, but it’s a lot better than the three out of 10 we would have if we’d stuck to separate associations.’

He also dismisses fears that with its constituent district, county and metropolitan bodies, the LGA is somehow slipping back into the old ways. Lord Filkin tells The MJ: ‘The key point is the groupings don’t undermine the single voice. We’ve still got the LGA as the only voice in town.’

Michael Burton is editorial director of The MJ Group