‘Office for Local Government’ to oversee council waste services

The new agency, Office for Local Government (Oflog) will be accountable to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Oflog aims to share local authority performance through the Data Explorer system, which collects a set of metrics agreed upon by local authority representatives to assess the effectiveness of services.

Successes

During his address talk this week at the Local Government Association’s annual conference 2023, Gove highlighted the success of Swindon borough council, who reduced the time taken to clear fly-tipping from eleven days to an average of four days by utilising AI software to process reports and determine the most efficient way for street teams to address them. This innovation resulted in substantial cost savings of approximately £28,000 per year in fuel and staffing expenses.

Gove acknowledged the role of local government in environmental enhancement, waste management, nature conservation, and addressing climate change. He praised local government “as the champion of effective practices and an indispensable ally in these crucial areas.”

Data

The chair of the LGA, Shaun Davies said: “Councils are responsible for shaping their places and to do this effectively they need data about the activities and performance of the rest of the public sector (including central government) in their local authority area. Therefore, the new Local Authority Data Explorer should include a wider set of metrics in future and not just those about council performance.

“Co-production with local government will be important in future iterations of the dashboard, to make it more meaningful locally, and we would urge government to deepen its engagement with councils to identify and define subsequent sets of metrics.”

In addition to waste collection, Oflog will oversee three other council services: adult social care, adult skills, and finance. Gove emphasised that “Oflog would provide targeted data and analysis to promote excellence in local government and identify areas where councils require specific support to improve their services.”