Today’s leaders truly represent their localities. Thanks to the emphasis on place shaping and a convening role for all local public services, a council leader really does represent their place rather than just the public services that their authority might have previously delivered to the locality. What’s more there’s an increased emphasis on the community leadership role of frontline councillors.

The Leadership Centre is spearheading leadership development work with politicians.

We work with politicians in the following ways:

This unique programme is designed to encourage confident, capable and visionary local leadership among local government politicians. It is made up of the following five programmes that promote and support local politicians at each stage of their political lives, helping to reinvigorate local democracy. (more)

Working with local party groups and councils, this strand is occupied with raising the profile of a councillor and promoting their work in order to encourage a greater pool of talent to want to stand and one that reflects more accurately the people it represents. (more)

This flagship, innovative 18-month programme – endorsed by the leadership of the three mainstream parties – is concerned with taking the very best of today’s councillors and developing tomorrow’s local government leaders. (more)

Described by all three political parties as ‘invaluable’, this innovative initiative offers the services of a top political mentor to political groups in authorities where change is likely and where groups would most benefit from external support. (more)

This unique programme has been designed to help cabinet members assess their individual strengths and weaknesses, look at areas for their own development and also to understand more about the way they work together as a team. (more)

We are working with political groups on how to create a distinctive view of place so it’s possible to distinguish a Conservative place from a Labour place and from a Liberal Democrat place. (more)

We are piloting political coaching for top leaders. (more)

Local leadership projects make up the bulk of our work. A local leadership project helps an authority to understand its capacity for leadership, so the leader and chief executive is in a position to determine what it needs to do in order to develop. (more)

We have set up a Practice of place, which is a community of 60 key individuals in local government who, over the next 18 months, will essentially explore what it means to shape place and actually how to go about doing it. (more)

We are working with those authorities who have applied for unitary status, eventually helping them through the most significant transformational change that these councils have ever seen and the obvious repercussions on shaping their place. (more)

We are developing localised leadership approaches designed to deliver excellent LAAs at the request of Communities and Local Government. This work is being carried out jointly with the Improvement and Development Agency, the Local Government Association and the Audit Commission. (more)