LGA improvement support: Annual report 2024/25

Year in review: Our support to the local government sector in 2024/25

This report provides an overview of highlights from our sector support offer. This includes our sector support programme, funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (formerly, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, DLUHC); as well as wider improvement programmes, covering children’s services, cyber, digital and technology, the Joint Inspection Team, One Public Estate (OPE), Partners in Care and Health (adult social care), planning (PAS and Pathways to Planning), procurement, and sustainability, which are also funded by UK Government departments; our culture and sport support offer, which is funded by Sport England and Arts Council England; and communications support.

The LGA has a proven track record of delivering high impact, low-cost programmes.

The sector support programme alone saves the sector tens of millions of pounds annually, including through delivering significant economies of scale and through using a peer-based approach.

In 2024/25, 100 per cent of English councils engaged with at least one type of LGA support, with most councils accessing multiple types of support – and evaluations carried out showed positive impact and satisfaction scores across support programmes.  

Further detail on our support record for 20242/25 is shared below.  

To find out more about the support we provide, please contact the LGA principal adviser for your region.

Our highly valued peer challenge programme provided councils with effective insight, guidance, and challenge to enable continuous improvement and provide assurance to local leaders.

In 2024/25, we launched our strengthened programme of peer challenges and peer support, including Corporate Peer Challenges (CPCs), CPC peer team led Progress Reviews, Finance Peer Challenges (FPCs), and Governance Peer Challenges (GPCs).  

CPCs are at the heart of our sector support programme, offering a focused look across the five core elements that help support councils to harness opportunities and drive improvement: local priorities and outcomes, governance and culture, organisational and place leadership, financial planning and management and capacity for improvement. The peer challenge programme is delivered by expert member and officer peers and regional teams who support councils to deliver the best for their communities.  

In 2024/25 1,800 peer days of peer challenge and support were provided at no cost to recipient councils, providing savings of around £2.2 million to the sector.

Testimonials

"It was an invaluable experience learning from other peer members as well as from the local authority. Areas such as corporate governance arrangements, performance management use of Power BI, and member engagement such as ward walks were all areas of learning."

"The discipline of preparation provided a real focus for the organisation in being self-reflective; the challenge from the Corporate Peer Challenge team about how transformational our change programme is was difficult to hear but entirely valid."

"We welcome LGA Corporate Peer Challenge as an integral part of our performance management framework, providing an external assessment of the council's performance and suggested areas of improvement, and the opportunity for cross organisational engagement in both the preparation and on-site visit."

In 2024/25, our far-reaching regional support programme engaged with all councils in England, helping to ensure that councils had access to highly valued support to harness opportunities and address challenges.

Our regional support programme - led by expert regional teams, supported by the LGA’s political group offices and vast network of member and officer peers - provided councils with wide-ranging support, including councillor and officer peer support, mentoring and development sessions (including top team development), and bespoke/tailored support and advice.  

Underpinned by strong relationships within the sector, regional teams continued to have incredible reach. In 2024/25, they engaged with all councils – with more than 280 councils then accessing support.  

Impacts of support were wide ranging and many cases related to preventing challenges from escalating, or responding to enhanced challenges where escalation had happened. Helping councils to prepare for and respond to changes following elections was also a key focus of the programme, with more than 100 councils having elections in 2024.

Testimonials

"[An officer] from the LGA has supported senior officers and the Cabinet with multiple away-day strategy sessions to plan and confront some challenging issues for the council - predominantly in meeting medium term savings targets through decision making around reductions or changes to council services."

"[Top team sessions] gave us the time and space to discuss strategic key issues. Provided effective challenge."

"My mentor has been a great support for me during this time and I value his time and guidance during our sessions. He has allowed me to pose problems and support me to resolve them via his examples of how he undertakes his role."

Case study: Regional support

Following all out elections in May 2023, a district council saw a change in political leadership to a new shared administration, in the context of a no overall control environment. Working with the council, the regional team instigated a programme of support for the council that has been successively built upon over the last two years, following a series of political changes at the council.  

This activity commenced with a Top Team programme that provided members of the Cabinet and the senior leadership team with an opportunity to take stock of the progress made to date, opportunities available, and challenges to overcome, and to use these insights to collectively agree their priorities as a new administration. Crucially, the Top Team sessions provided space for the senior political and officer leadership team to spend time together as the collective ‘top team’ and to further develop their working relationship away from ‘day-to-day’ activities and across portfolio areas. The programme provided the foundation for the creation of the council’s refreshed corporate plan, which is operational today, providing the council with a collective consensus and clarity of direction.

The Top Team programme was followed shortly after by the delivery of a Corporate Peer Challenge, which helped in providing continuity of support and enabling the peer team to build upon the relationships and activity that had already been progressed by the LGA. The CPC itself recognised and praised the significant improvement journey that the council had been on over this period and commended the cross-party approach that had developed, enabling the council to pragmatically capitalise on opportunities. The council has subsequently taken part in a CPC progress review, which recognised that the council has taken on board the feedback from the Corporate Peer Challenge and commended the progress that has been made across the suite of recommendations. Through the CPC and Progress Review process, the peer team encouraged the council to celebrate and communicate the development work that has been undertaken and advances that have been made.  

A further change in political leadership at the council has been supported by a one-off Top Team session to support new Cabinet members to integrate effectively into the collective political and senior leadership team, further demonstrating the value placed on this mechanism of sector-led support.

Our governance and assurance programme delivered a range of guidance and tools to support good governance and provide greater assurance within local authorities, including updates to the Improvement and assurance framework for local government - including a new version for councillors and local authority self-assessment tool. We also published the Leader’s guide on leading good governance and assurance and the Must know guide on risk management.

A new governance and assurance hub hosting the Improvement and assurance framework, guidance, tools and good practice case studies to support councils to deliver good governance and Best Value was launched on the LGA website.

The Monitoring Officer sounding board has continued to inform delivery of the programme, providing feedback and raising awareness of governance issues which required further support.

Further support was provided by the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS), including targeted support to local authorities, regional networks, and training and development sessions.

Testimonials

"Very informative and lots of knowledge provided in a relaxed environment which made it easy to learn. Thank you!"

"[The facilitator was] fantastic... great delivery. I enjoyed the polls and opportunity to hear from colleagues at a range of councils, as it enabled me to gain an insight into their processes and encouraged me to reflect on how we do things... Having the input from a councillor was also useful."

Case studies: Governance and assurance support

The following case studies, provided by the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, demonstrate the impact of support:

• Birmingham City Council
• West Lancashire Council
• Thurrock Council

Our better use of data programme for 2024/25 supported councils to recognise the value of data and make good use of it for decision-making, to bring better outcomes for residents and businesses, and enable efficient working across services and with local and other partners. In 2024/25 our better use of data programme:

• improved the understanding and skills of councillors and officers in relation to data
• helped councils understand what good looks like and how to leverage the value of data
• provided guidance and resources to support the proactive development of a data-informed culture
• promoted the benefits of data transparency and accountability
• worked with other organisations where we identified data work that may impact on the sector, to ensure this work meets councils’ needs.

The 2024/25 Workforce Research and Data focused on delivering projects including quantitative and qualitative data on pay, capacity and HR indicators.

LG Inform

Our free award winning local area data benchmarking tool, LG Inform, continued to support councils to increase their service delivery capabilities and champion data-informed decision-making – providing more than 12,500 metrics of council performance that can be analysed within its system.

Being able to access and analyse research and data on council performance, demographics, and live trends and issues, is critical to ensuring high quality services and informed decision-making in local government.

In 2024/25, LG Inform, provided through our research and data programme, supported councils to access the tools and resources they needed to analyse research and data on council performance, demographics, and we launched new LG Inform themed data reports in response to live issues.

Attracting talent

We continued to offer a range of programmes to attract and foster talent within the sector, including to support councils to address capacity challenges.

Our attracting talent offer comprises a range of programmes that delivered impact for the sector in 2024/25, including established programmes such as ‘Be a Councillor’ and Impact: The Local Government Graduate Programme, as well as programmes including Impact Finance, Pathways to Planning and ‘Make a Difference’, the national recruitment campaign.

Be a councillor

Be a councillor is our national campaign to raise awareness of the councillor role, help people to find out more about becoming a councillor, and ensure better representation in local government - with the increased diversity of skills, experience and knowledge brought by the new talent attracted to the role.

This year’s campaign has focused on improving representation from underrepresented groups and working with a range of partners to deliver a wide range of engagement events, as well as providing bespoke support to councils.

Testimonials

"[My] experiences at a ‘Be a councillor’ event, run by a local council, helped to crystallise [my] decision to stand."

"The various areas of support provided by Be a councillor had enabled [me] to run as a councillor in [my] local area."

"Though [I] already had a very high level of political interest, knowledge and willingness to get involved, it was the Be a councillor campaign that helped [me] to gain confidence and realise that running for council was accessible."

Impact: The Local Government Graduate Programme

Impact: The Local Government Graduate Programme (previously known as the 'National Graduate Development Programme', or 'NGDP') is our flagship national graduate programme for local government. Impact offers a unique opportunity to place high quality graduates in councils across the country, helping them to meet strategic goals and build a pipeline of future talent.

In 2024/25, Impact recruited its 26th cohort of graduates, who were placed in 96 councils across England and Wales. We successfully grew the programme by signing up new councils in areas with lower representation on the programme, recruited a diverse cohort of graduates, and implemented recommendations of an independent review to improve accessibility on the programme.

Testimonials

"Our graduates have been a great asset to the organisation, bringing fresh ideas and a willingness to learn and be involved in a variety of projects."

"The calibre of graduates we were given the opportunity to interview for is incredible."

"[The] team managing the scheme are helpful and responsive."

Pathways to planning

Pathways to planning, funded by MHCLG and modelled on the Impact programme (previously known as the NGDP), aims to tackle the shortage of local government planners by expanding and diversifying the pipeline of graduate talent entering local council planning teams.

By autumn 2024, almost 90 graduates from a range of degree backgrounds had started work in councils and began training as on accredited degrees in September 2024. Graduates work for in a local planning authority for a minimum of two years as they study part-time.

Applications for the third cohort had attracted more than 2,150 completed applications by February 2025, with expansion of the programme into adjacent built environment careers underway for the following year.

National recruitment campaign for local government

The LGA, in partnership with Solace and the sector, have developed a flagship campaign to market local government as a career of choice. The ‘Make a Difference, Work for Your Local Council’ campaign aims to encourage individuals to find out how they can have a role working in one of the hundreds of services used by and relied upon by communities every day, ranging from adult and children’s services to planning, environmental health, libraries, and leisure centres.

This campaign is in response to clear need within the sector to address current capacity challenges facing all councils. It is the first national brand and recruitment campaign for local government and has been shaped through direct engagement with the sector.

Case study: Perceptions of the public about careers in local government

One of the objectives of the national recruitment campaign is to improve public perceptions of local government, including as an employer. As part of the external evaluation of the campaign, a national survey was undertaken before and after the campaign with 2,000 residents with equal participation from all regions. The survey found that those who could recall having seen the campaign were much more likely to consider applying for a role in their council, than those who had not seen the campaign. 28 per cent of individuals who recall the campaign are ‘very likely’ to investigate jobs offered by their local council, compared with just 8 per cent among those with no recall.

Officer development

Delivered by Solace, we have continued to support a wide range of officer development programmes for executive leaders, chief executives, and rising stars within the sector. We supported the sector through programmes including:

• Chief Executive Foundation programme, focused on the foundational skills and knowledge within the chief executive role and based on seven themes within the Local Government Chief Executives Development Framework
• Springboard, designed for future leaders who have been recognised as rising stars of local government and covered topics such as systems leadership, place-shaping, local government finance, innovation and the role of democratic accountability
• AMPlify, providing a significant development opportunity for groups of staff who are currently under-represented within senior leadership levels. It is designed for staff from ethnically diverse backgrounds who have the ambition and potential to become future leaders within local government
• Total Leadership, targeting senior officers on the cusp of becoming local government chief executives, and supporting them to develop skills and awareness to take the next step as chief executives
• Local Government Challenge, our annual leadership development programme and competition for local government officers.  

Case study: Local Government Challenge 2024

Over a six-month period, 10 local government officers tackled five real-life challenges in councils across the country. The challenges gave contestants a unique opportunity to develop and hone their leadership and political management skills, business acumen and communication techniques whilst offering invaluable media experience. Ten officers took part in the 2024 programme, from London, South West, West Midlands, South East, Yorkshire and the Humber and the North West.

They tackled five challenges hosted by the following councils across the country:

• Challenge 1 - Newcastle City Council: Tasked with helping reduce food waste and increase recycling and reuse across the city.
• Challenge 2 - Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council: A cultural challenge to create a marketing plan for their local heritage sites.
• Challenge 3 - Wiltshire Council: Creating proposals to mitigate against the Household Support Fund coming to an end.
• Challenge 4 - Waltham Forest London Borough: Tackled a strategic question about transformation and intervention approaches to stronger communities.
• Challenge 5 - Telford & Wrekin Council: A research challenge about using AI to reduce inequalities and improve the lives of residents.

Political leadership

Our political leadership offer continued to provide learning and development opportunities to councillors from across the country in 2024/25.

Our councillor development offer supported local politicians at all stages of their political career, from their selection, to becoming a leader. This included development opportunities such as Leadership Academy, Leadership Essentials, Next Generation one-day masterclasses, bespoke sessions in councils and online training resources, such as our e-learning platform and digital workbooks.

We developed and delivered the new Boosting Middle Leaders programme, commissioned from the Leadership Centre, bringing councillors and officers together in a shared learning environment; and a delivered a new support package for disabled councillors and candidates - providing a bespoke leadership programme, in partnership with Disability Rights UK, a one-to-one coaching offer and new Disability Champions Network.

Focus on Leadership weekenders featured as part of this offer, providing support to under-represented groups, including black, Asian and minority ethnic councillors, LGBTQ+ councillors and young councillors.

Testimonials

Leadership Academy

"This course is the single most important training I have received. All councillors should attend. I really feel the next few years would have been impossible without this course."

"The main advantage for me was to affirm my leadership which gives me confidence to continue, plus the opportunity to reflect on my leadership."

"Great course, great people and facilitators fabulous. Loved it. I’ll have to put time aside to go over learning and return to it again and again."

Leadership Essentials

"I have come away from the course with a greater confidence because of the tools the course has given me. I have also found it re-assuring that wherever we live and whatever community we serve and whatever Political party we support, the challenges pretty much remain the same for us all."

Boosting Middle Leaders

"Boosting Middle Leaders has provided me with a unique opportunity to share my experiences and perspectives with a variety of members and officers from a wide selection of local authorities. This series of exercises and workshops have expanded my mindset, depth of knowledge and better equipped me to problem solve and to be a better leader."

Next Generation

"This was genuinely the best training course I have ever done. The facilitators were fantastic. So knowledgeable and well prepared, they gripped my attention throughout and provoked deep thoughts by challenging assumptions and settled worldviews. The growth within the group from beginning to end was highly notable and heart-warming."

Focus on Leadership

"This weekend is a great opportunity for LGBTQ+ councillors to network, share, learn from each other in a safe and supportive space regardless of party and background."

Effective financial leadership and sustainable financial management, underpinned by timely and comprehensive audit and scrutiny, are integral to councils' success and overall resilience.

The LGA's finance programme continued to support councils to build skills and identify issues to promote good financial management and respond to financial challenges and opportunities as they arise. Our programme featured three main elements:

• targeted financial support, provided by experienced Finance Improvement and Sustainability Advisers (FISAs)
• training and development opportunities to embed financial skills and knowledge
• guidance and resources, including a series of roundtables for lead members for children’s, adults social care and housing, to enable peer-to-peer learning, sharing and increasing understanding of significant budget pressures between service portfolio holders and amongst peers. We also produced Finance Unpacked, a series of short, animated explainer videos to provide councillors and officers with an understanding of some of the key concepts within local government finance and audit.

The Impact Finance scheme, a specialised stream within the LGA's graduate offer, is designed for graduates who want to pursue a career in public finance. It offers a unique and tailored development pathway into local government and other public services for aspiring finance professionals. In 2024/25, its first cohort saw 49 candidates appointed across 19 London authorities. Over 1,000 further graduates applied for cohort two. 

Testimonials

Leadership Essentials Audit Committee

"The course has been pivotal for me to understand where Audit Committee is going wrong and how to bring around effective change."

"Will review risk register more often. Very well delivered by the team – great teaching! Excellent course and one that all Audit Committee Chairs should have to do."

Leadership Essentials Finance

"It has given me some key questions to ask of officers and colleagues and some useful tools and insights I can use as we work towards our financial recovery."

"Made me rethink about the way I do a number of things. Raising a number of questions that I hadn’t really considered before."

Finance without numbers

"The speakers delivered the course in a very engaging way. Finance without numbers was so helpful in piecing many parts of a puzzle, that as a relatively new intake of member, has been somewhat mystifying."

Finance Unpacked explainer videos

"These are really helpful and clear, very helpful resource."

FISA targeted financial support

"The support on this assignment was invaluable. He has been readily available and really helpful at every step of the way. From advising us on the interim market conditions, reviewing the job paperwork and interview questions, to advising on potential candidates by leading technical questions in the introductory meetings with the Chief Exec, acting as a technical advisor on the selection committee, he has been an invaluable advisor to us throughout. I’d certainly recommend [this service] to any other council looking for similar help."

Our workforce offer has supported councils in building skills and addressing workforce challenges across employment law, planning, skills development, and wellbeing. In response to ongoing capacity and capability issues, we’ve tackled key skills shortages and recruitment and retention challenges through our apprenticeships support and by providing tools for sustainable workforce strategies.

We’ve also delivered targeted support for organisational development, focusing on workplace culture and performance management. Our work is underpinned by collective bargaining, resulting in pay and conditions agreements for around 1.5 million employees across 800 roles.

Workforce research and data - covering pay, recruitment, apprenticeships, HR metrics, gender pay gaps, and staff capacity - has been central to our offer, enabling councils to make evidence-based, locally-led decisions and shaping our wider support programme.

Our transformation programme provided councils with direct support, learning and development opportunities, helping to boost capacity and capability within local government.

In 2024/25, the transformation offer from the LGA supported local authorities to achieve their transformation goals and drive continuous improvement across a range of service areas. Responding to feedback from the sector, the programme launched a range of new councillor focused development opportunities.

Our support has included:

• Transformation partners and peers programme provided councils with access to support from skilled and experienced officers with relevant transformation expertise
• Transformation and Innovation Exchange (TIEx), providing councils with the means to gauge performance across characteristics of a high functioning authority, as well as further transformation focused tools and resources
• a learning and skills programme, providing opportunities including roundtables, action learning sets, councillor training and wider events to support councils to achieve their transformation priorities
• a Transformation Capability framework for officers and one for councillors, identifying the key skills required to deliver transformation projects in councils
• Local Partnerships transformation support, including the provision of tools and resources and support to develop business cases.

Testimonials

"The programme delivered real changes to how we manage change, the development of our change function and our governance."

"It was so helpful to hear from another [local authority] who has had experience within the same areas of transformation. They were able to provide some advice and support on how to navigate some of the challenges and I gained some helpful contacts."

Our children’s services improvement programme supports councils to help children, young people and families to achieve the best possible outcomes. The children’s services improvement programme for 2024/25 comprised two key strands, in response to council’s needs.

The first strand focused on children’s social care and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), providing:

• a universal offer - including leadership training and networking opportunities for political and corporate leaders at a national, regional and local level
• targeted support - including improvement support and diagnostic activity tailored to local area needs and framed around specific themes and issues
• intensive support - including tailored role-based support aimed at individual councils, supporting individuals and groups to understand and perform their role effectively to drive improvement in children’s services through the provision of mentoring, support, tools and bespoke training.

The second strand focused on the early years and speech, language and communication development and includes the delivery of peer challenge, strategy development activity and sharing learning and practice through webinars, events and resources.

Our communications support service provided a wide range of guidance and practical help to councils seeking to engage effectively with their residents, employees and partner organisations.

Three communications priorities emerged in 2024/25, and we have been helping to support councils with:

• the communications and engagement implications of the English Devolution White Paper
• public affairs, in the context of a new government and the election of hundreds of new MPs
• emerging challenges, opportunities and threats, such as the rise of disinformation and the use of AI.

Culture and sport improvement co-creates and delivers lottery-funded programmes for cultural services (with Arts Council England) and for sports and physical activity (with Sport England) for the benefit of local authorities and their residents.

The culture and sport improvement offer for 2024/25 provided a range of programmes and tools to help councils tackle challenges and take advantages for the culture, tourism and sport. This involved:

• leadership support for lead officers with responsibility for sport and physical activity
• leadership support for councillors and lead officers with the responsibility for cultural services, including a pilot leadership programme for new and emerging library lead officers and a pilot online session targeted to economic growth portfolio holders
• wider physical activity support via a pilot programme of place-based leadership support
• development of a new place-based programme of support for Sport England Place Partnership funded areas
• wider cultural services support to councils via culture and library peer challenges
• co-designed with Partners in Care and Health and policy teams, and piloted, themed webinar about the impact of cultural services and physical activity on economic growth and health outcomes.

Our Cyber, Digital and Technology programme has remained focused on improving the secure use of digital technology by councils and communities – including through the convening of networks, publication of resources and guidance, and provision of policy representation and incident response support, to support the secure digitalisation of local government.

Digital tools have and will continue to play an important role in driving forward efficient service delivery against increasing demand on services and shrinking budgets. This creates a need to support local government and its services to be as secure as possible, and to ensure that residents and communities can use local government digital services with confidence and trust their information is safe.

This programme has supported councils in meeting new digital challenges and maximising their digital efforts for the benefit of local people and communities.

The national fire safety Joint Inspection Team (JIT) is hosted by the Local Government Association (LGA), and funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and local Government (MHCLG).

The JIT was set up following the Grenfell fire tragedy to assist local authorities to take enforcement action against tall building owners with unsafe buildings. The JIT provides specialist fire safety advice and assesses the fire hazard and advises the local authority via an extensive report and Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) risk assessment

The LGA and Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) are Partners in Care and Health (PCH), working with well-respected organisations to provide support to local authorities to improve the way they deliver adult social care and public health services, and helps Government understand the challenges faced by the sector.

The programme provides a trusted network for developing and sharing best practice, developing tools and techniques, providing support and building connections.

It is funded by Department of Health and Social via three main contracts, Core Infrastructure (LGA and ADASS) and PCH Continuous Improvement, and is offered to councils without charge. The Continuous Improvement contract is also supported by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).

Our award-winning One Public Estate (OPE) programme - delivered in partnership with the Office of Government Property within the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government—supports locally led partnerships of public sector bodies to kickstart regeneration and transform public service delivery.

Established in 2013, our One Public Estate (OPE) programme continues to support over 60 cross-public sector OPE partnerships to develop and deliver collaborative public property projects that improve the efficiency of the public estate and release land for housing and regeneration.

As part of the offer for 2024/25, we progressed our five Place Pilots, which bring together all public asset owners in each of five places - North East London, West Midlands Combined Authority, Hull, Sheffield and Derby - to pilot joint portfolio planning, plan future estate demand, drive efficiency and value, and trial new approaches. An evaluation of the pilot is due in 2025/26.

Our Planning Advisory Service (PAS) supports councils to build skills and capacity to deliver cost-effective planning services to meet the needs of their places and communities. It’s an established national programme funded through grants from MHCLG and Natural England.

In 2024/25, the programme supported local authorities to help understand and respond to changes in the planning system (including changes to national planning policy).

Our procurement and commissioning programme has supported councils to use the new Procurement Act, which reformed the existing Procurement Rules and received Royal Assent in October 2023, and the Procurement Regulations laid in Parliament in March 2024. The legislation went live in February 2025.

In 2024/25, the procurement and commissioning programme has focused on supporting the sector to prepare for changes in procurement rules.

The LGA’s sustainability offer has supported councils through the provision of tools, networks and opportunities to build their capability and capacity in sustainability and the environment. The LGA has provided data-driven and consistent approaches for the sector to prioritise the actions that will drive their sustainability, efficiency, and improvement goals.

Our support included:

• building capability - learning, skills, and guidance to help councils deliver on their climate and adaptation targets through masterclasses, roundtables and virtual events that highlighted key sustainability themes and upskilled participants
• tools - the Greenhouse Gas Accounting Tool and Waste Emissions Calculator helped councils to baseline their data and assist with internal emissions reporting
• networks - an online sustainability hub, a monthly sustainability bulletin and an officer communities of practice network shared support offers, news and notable practice with the sector.