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Local Councils
Local Councils are the centre of power in communities, engaging with the council on issues is key to aligning your business with their priorities or understand how your business needs to adapt to local needs.
Local Councils are responsible for making key decision that are relevant to your business like trading standards priorities, planning policy, business rates collection and economic growth. Councils must be transparent about the decision they make and publish all the details of their meetings on their websites under the ‘Your Council’ section of their website.
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Police
Local shops are often subject to a range of different criminal activity from shop theft and anti-social behaviour to violent attacks and burglaries. Therefore engaging with your local police forces at the right level is an important part of community retailing.
The Government has introduced 40 Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in every force area to make police forces more
accountable to their communities. The role of the PCCs is to be the voice of the community and hold the police to account.
They are responsible for the totality of policing. PCCs aim to cut crime and deliver an effective and efficient police service within their force area.However, it may be more effective for business to engage with the neighbourhood policing team that operates in your area first.
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Mayors, Combined Authorities, and Devolution Deals
Many councils have a civic mayor or chairman of the council. They carry out ceremonial duties and chair meetings, but can’t make decisions about council business. 16 councils in England are currently led by directly elected Mayors and they have responsibility for all local services. The Government have also created a new ‘Metro Mayor’ position that oversee combined authorities and may have additional powers through devolution deals.
Combined authorities may be set up by two or more local authorities. They may take on statutory functions transferred to them by an Order made by the Secretary of State, plus any functions that the constituent authorities agree to share. There are new Devolution Deals currently under development by the Government, which are agreements to devolve more powers for local authorities to run services, such as business support services. Existing Devolution Deals include a range of new powers on public health, transport, licensing and much more.
Click here for case studies and to see how to get involved.
