‘Re:Imagining the Local State’ conference 2025

​In less than a year, English Local Government has been plunged into a dramatic era of change. 

​Strategic Authorities are to be rolled out across every part of the country. Dozens of councils will be broken down and remade into new forms as structural reorganisation is mandated for every remaining ‘two-tier’ area. Revisions to the planning system, shifts to the local finance model, deployment of streamlined ‘integrated settlements’ to a growing group of Combined Authorities – the list goes on.   

​In the midst of the most comprehensive programme of reform for decades, significant opportunities emerge – as do risks. The cavernous democratic deficit that afflicts the legitimacy of the local State could be made worse by a new, larger-scale two-tier system – or addressed as that system becomes more transparent and more committed to neighbourhood working. The enormous promise of place-based public service reform could be baked-in to new structures as they are established – or be left as an afterthought.  

​The third annual Reimagining the Local State conference will bring together experts, policy professionals, and decision makers from across local and national government to reflect on an era of change, and to look ahead to the longer-term challenges that the sector still faces.  

​The conference will be free to attend.