LACORS' (the Local Authorities Corodinators of Regulatory Services) Leading by Listening project was designed to give an up-to-date picture of council regulatory services and the challenges they face. It looked at the role of LACORS, asking if the services it provides are still relevant and needed. And it tried to find out if there are any particular issues councils are struggling with and need further support on.

Senior managers from LACORS carried out face-to-face interviews at 65 councils across the UK, talking to officers, heads of services, chief executives and councillors. An online survey targeted the remaining councils, with more than 300 councils in total participating in the project.

Key findings

• LACORS is well-recognised within the sector, with a positive view of its work in general and praise for specific policy and guidance work such as on Foot and Mouth Disease and Licensing.
• Regulatory services are more involved in the delivery of LAAs than in their development, with a lack of corporate interest and lack of understanding of the LAA process cited as major contributing factors.
• There are clear challenges around how LACORS engages with councillors and targets its communications.
• Many councils rated themselves highly on all measures of the Regulation for Excellence model, suggesting that the model lacks the focus needed to identify areas for improvement.

As a result of the project LACORS has set out a number of ‘next steps' to begin to address these issues, including:

• A councillor engagement strategy to reach all relevant portfolio members and advise them on the key issues facing their regulatory services now and in the future.
• The production of a toolkit for council regulatory services to develop and achieve competence and excellence in their service delivery.
• Producing, in partnership with KBA Solutions, a foundation level regulatory services module for KBA's ‘Strategic Leadership and Modern Local Government Programme'. This is aimed at heads of services within regulatory services, giving them a better understanding of the context and environment within which regulatory services work.
• Keeping all authorities updated on the outcome of the LACORS Fundamental Policy Review that is currently being carried out. The Review will ensure we support the most important and relevant policy and improvement areas for, and on behalf of, councils.

Source: LACORS