It is never easy for any organisation to admit its weaknesses, and the LGA deserves credit for recognising its limitations and asking Lord Best to report back on how they might be addressed. Lord Best has duly met his brief, and delivers three clear conclusions. The first is that while the LGA might be respected on a national level and its leaders feted in the corridors of power in Westminster and Whitehall, its influence wanes outside London, and it needs to ‘reconnect' with its members. This is not as surprising as it seems. The strength of local authorities, and their diversity, also makes them difficult to target as members, since they are effectively some 388 separate units with their own priorities and traditions. There is a particular challenge for the LGA in representing the views of districts, belatedly recognised through its District Sounding Board. The Government's recent agenda has tended to focus on issues of concern mainly to upper-tier councils to which the LGA has had to address itself, at the expense of uniquely-district worries. The London-based LGA also set out from the start to win influence where it counted, in central government. At the time – in 1996 – this was by no means guaranteed. Those with long memories of its predecessors, the AMA, ADC and ACC will recall the scepticism that one association could fuse these three quite different organisations into one powerful lobbying unit. That this has been achieved is rightly noted by Lord Best in his report, but until recently, it was a priority above membership concerns. The report makes two other key observations. Lord Best recommends that the LGA ‘family' – IDeA, 4ps, LACORS and LGE – present themselves strategically under ‘a common banner' and a single group structure under the LGA, which may cause a few ripples. The third recommendation is the inevitable need to raise local government's image among the public, in particular, by using its membership. An entire thesis could be written on this topic alone, and we have seen the challenges it poses with the recent hysterical media coverage of council tax and Lyons. It is unlikely to be solved by the LGA itself. Michael Burton Editor, The MJ
