Our partners - the LGA group

The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice for local authorities and works alongside a range of partner organisations to promote better local government:

• Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA) - http://www.idea.gov.uk
• Local Government Employers (LGE) - http://www.lge.gov.uk
• Public Private Partnerships Programme (4ps) - http://www.4ps.gov.uk
• Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS) - http://www.lacors.gov.uk
• The Leadership Centre for Local Government - www.localleadership.gov.uk

The LGA Group works with and on behalf of the local government sector, and looks to councils for leadership. We are politically led, politically active and cross party and we work as one to assist councils and their partners to improve public services and strengthen local democracy.

We seek to support the sector to:

• become more self-determining;
• enhance its responsibilities and reputation;
• be free from disproportionate central government regulation;
• act self confidently in pursuit of local authorities;
• work effectively with the public and in partnership with government and others.

Each organisation has a distinct and unique role with individual expertise and specialisms, but all have a common purpose: to work together to offer comprehensive and affordable programmes to help build local government capacity and address the challenge of improvement. An overview of the work of the LGA Group is available in our LGA Group leaflet (PDF, 2 pages, 113KB)

The LGA and central bodies are committed to working together to support local government more efficiently and effectively. We are driving out inefficiencies in the way in which we use accommodation and organise internal support. Last year we made significant savings by reducing the number of buildings used for the six bodies from five to two.

Many of the back-office services - such as finance, human resources, procurement, publishing and production, and information technology - are now shared and other services are expected to follow. This approach underpins our determination to provide streamlined and accessible services - a real benefit to local government. 

Visit the www.local.gov.uk website for more information on the work of the national local government organisations. This also provides more information on the work carried out by the National Youth Agency, National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education and the National Foundation for Education Research.