Leadership of place has the potential to fundamentally transform local government, moving it away from pure service deliverytowards a wider remit of convening partnerships, and influencing and shaping the wider locality.

This change requires a fundamental shift in mindset.

We have established a group of 60 key individuals in local government who have started work that we are calling ‘practice of place’ – these people are actively seeking how to go about shaping place and therefore are spearheading the shift in approach that is needed.

The group of 60, born out of a 24-hour exploration session on place that we called a DeepDive, is made up of 30 chief executives from England’s largest authorities, supported by politicians, policy-makers and parts of the infrastructure that support them (the Leadership Centre, Communities and Local Government, the Academy for Sustainable Communities, the Local Government Association, government offices and the Centre for Public Scrutiny).

We are now working specifically on practice of place issues with some local authorities.