Corporate, finance and governance peer challenge programme: Annual report 2024/25

As part of the Local Government Association (LGA) Sector Support programme, we strengthened our corporate peer challenge programme that offers all English councils a Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC), Finance Peer Challenge (FPC) or Governance Peer Challenge (GPC) at no direct cost, with the expectation that every council has a peer challenge at least once every five years.  

The peer challenge programme continues to be highly effective and is at the heart of the LGA‘s Sector Support programme. The sector remains committed to the process and sector-led improvement approach, and this is demonstrated by the levels of take-up of the offer.

During 2024/25 the LGA launched its strengthened CPC with 71 councils having a CPC, FPC, or GPC, and 50 councils having a CPC Progress Review (almost 37 per cent of the sector). Of these, 13 councils had a CPC for the first time.

The peer challenge was a brilliant way of getting independent recognition of what we have achieved, feedback on our current plans and real strategic insight to help inform our future plans.

The peer challenge provided us with the perfect opportunity to reflect on our challenges and focus on our future improvement journey.

Thanks to the LGA for your continual support to the peer challenge process, including the new measures to improve its robustness and impact.

This report demonstrates how peer challenge continues to provide assurance to local leaders, inform organisational change and support service transformation for the benefit of residents and communities.  

Feedback from the sector continues to be highly positive. The annual peer challenge impact survey, completed by leaders and chief executives following a CPC or FPC, shows that 95 per cent of respondents indicated that that the process of preparing for and participating in their peer challenge has had a positive impact on their council. The feedback from the survey also shows that all respondents found the process challenging, reflecting the programme’s role in offering robust, constructive and critical friend challenge to councils.

Peers remain at the heart of this support and challenge with officer and member peers providing over 1,680 peer days of support to councils. The LGA’s strong relationships within local government sees senior officers volunteer support at no charge, while member peers receive a nominal fee. Considering the fees charged by private sector consultants (an average of over £1200 per day for the level of peer challenge team members), the LGA’s peer challenge programme saves the sector over £2 million annually. This continues to demonstrate a significant investment by the sector in its own improvement.  

The peer challenge programme supports the development of local government officers and councillors. LGA peers involved in the peer challenge process gain valuable insights into how other councils operate, which they can then apply to their own councils. Additionally, we provide opportunities for graduates from Impact: The Local Government Graduate Programme to shadow peer challenges. This fast-track graduate programme is aimed at talented and passionate individuals who want to make a difference in local government. In 2024/25, 15 Impact graduates shadowed a CPC.

I’ve taken away some of the best experiences from participating, having that full council oversight, understanding priority areas and methods of management.

I would recommend shadowing a corporate peer challenge because the review process is incredibly interesting and provides a thorough deep dive into a council. My confidence increased which enabled me to actively engage in the process.

I picked up some great learning points from their successes and challenges, ranging from the success they have made of carbon literacy training to their engagement with local partners such as the Net Zero Hub.

The peer challenge programme provides crucial insights into how councils are continuing to respond to both new and existing challenges facing the sector. We have undertaken an analysis of all peer challenge reports published between April 2024 and March 2025. This report provides a summary of the most frequent observations and themes. It provides a picture of how councils have shown great resilience in continuing to deliver their priorities within a challenging economic climate, rising demand and changing policy environment. This report identifies new and continuing challenges for the sector.

Our sector support programme is guided by a 'sector-led improvement' (SLI) approach, which recognises that the responsibility of local government improvement should remain with councils. Our sector-led improvement approach is underpinned by the following key principles:

• Councils are responsible for their own performance.
• Stronger local accountability leads to further improvement.
• Councils have a sense of collective responsibility for the performance of the local government sector.

The CPC, FPC and GPC approach involve a team of knowledgeable and experienced senior local government officers and councillors (and sometimes other key partners) spending time at a council as ‘peers’ to provide challenge, assurance and share learning. The process involves engagement with a wide range of anchor institutions and stakeholders who are connected with the council and the findings are delivered immediately. A detailed report outlines the peer team recommendations and councils are required to publish this. For CPCs, councils are also required to publish an action plan showing how they will implement the recommendations.

The CPC process also involves a peer team led Progress Review. Taking place approximately ten months after the peer challenge, the Progress Review assesses the council’s progress in the implementation of the peer challenge recommendations and seeks to understand the impact and outcomes on the council. Again, councils are required to publish their Progress Review report.

The LGA has developed an improvement and assurance framework for local government to support councils to understand the various components of assurance and accountability and to access guidance and support to increase the effectiveness of assurance activities in the sector. The CPC, FPC and GPC offer to councils is a key component of this framework.

The peer challenge programme will also assist councils to meet their best value duty. The statutory guide for best value authorities outlines the government’s expectation that all councils should have a corporate or finance peer challenge at least every five years, to publish the outcomes and deliver on the recommendations of that review.

In this context, we have continued, over the past year, to deliver the strengthened peer challenge offer to ensure that it meets the ever-changing needs of councils. This strengthened offer includes a strong focus on council performance, finance, governance and culture. It reflects the current challenges faced by the sector and the statutory guidance for best value authorities outlined previously.

This enhanced approach includes providing peer teams with detailed financial and comparative performance data, along with delivering a programme of in-person training, development and accreditation for LGA member peers.

The on-site Progress Reviews continue to be an integral part of the CPC process which allow us to track progress made in the implementation of CPC recommendations. Councils are required to publish their Progress Review reports as well as their original CPC report and CPC action plan.

Progress Reviews conducted in 2024/2025 showed that councils had made progress on 91 per cent of actions set out in their action plans.

We have more information on the strengthened approach to Corporate Peer Challenge on the LGA website.

During 2024/2025, the programme has involved delivery of 67 Corporate Peer Challenges, three Finance Peer Challenges, one Governance Peer Challenge and 50 Progress Reviews. Table 1 shows delivery across the last three years:

We delivered peer challenges and Progress Reviews across the full range of council types, as shown in Table 2:

During 2024/25, the LGA deployed 583 officer and member peers who have delivered 1,680 days of challenge and support to councils.  

Peer teams are made up of an average of four to five peers plus the LGA Peer Challenge Manager. Out of the 583 peers used to support delivery of the programme, 176 were elected members and the remainder were chief executives, section 151 officers, monitoring officers and other senior directors/officers.

Peer development

We delivered an enhanced programme to support the development of officer and member peers. This included delivery of 17 online CPC training sessions, with 177 participants (officers and councillors). Additionally, we conducted eight in-person training sessions, attended by 92 delegates.  

Feedback from participants includes:

Great - very useful addition to the online session I attended’.

_{Chief executive}

It was good to hear about the strengthened peer challenge process.

_{Executive director of finance and corporate services}

The course made me more confident to take on the challenge of peer review.

_{Monitoring officer}

It was useful to hear from other colleagues and their experiences. The facilitators were knowledgeable and clear.

_{Executive director of corporate services}

It was useful to go through the CPC scenarios to work out how to deal with the issues presented.

_{Chief operating officer}

In March 2025, we hosted the annual member peer conference, attended by more than 170 senior member peers, made up of council leaders, deputy leaders, senior cabinet members and other senior councillors, along with LGA officer facilitators and speakers. The conference focused on the theme ‘Supporting councils in an ever-changing local government context’. We were pleased to welcome Jim McMahon MP OBE, Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution. Over 96 per cent of delegates expressed overall satisfaction with the conference.

Peer teams

The LGA is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and we continue our work to ensure peer teams reflect the diversity of local councils and the communities they serve. The breakdown of peers used on CPCs is routinely analysed in relation to gender, ethnicity and disability. In the year, between April 2024 and March 2025:

• The overall percentage of male and female officer peers were fairly evenly split – 55 per cent female and 45 per cent male. This represents a slight shift from the previous year with the number of female peers increasing.
• There is still more work to do to ensure peer teams reflect the current pool of members in senior leadership positions nationally, 63 per cent male and 37 per cent female. We have used more male member peers (74 per cent) than female member peers (26 per cent) this year.
• Of those who shared monitoring information, three per cent declared that they have a disability. Last year, the figure was six per cent.
• Of the 583 peers who participated in CPC, 12 per cent recorded their ethnicity as non-white British - this figure is very similar to last year, 11.5 per cent.

Feedback is collated through a comprehensive survey sent to chief executives and leaders after their report has been published. The 2024/25 survey shows that:

• 100 per cent of respondents said that, following their CPC, they felt more confident about their council delivering their priorities, and 95 per cent said their CPC had delivered a positive impact for their council.
• 100 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the CPC that their council had received. 86 per cent said they were satisfied to a ‘great extent’.  
• 95 per cent of respondents feel more confident about their council delivering its priorities, having participated in the corporate peer challenge.  
• 100 per cent rated the quality of the CPC team as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.
• 100 per cent said they would recommend having a corporate peer challenge to other councils if asked about it. 90 per cent that this would be ‘very likely’.  

Peer challenge is an important method for sharing learning and best practice across the sector. Peers who undertake peer challenges frequently reference the valuable learning they receive and how the reciprocal benefits of being a peer help them improve their own councils. The LGA undertakes quarterly surveys of both officer and member peers who have taken part in a peer challenge, with:

• 99 per cent of peers who responded were satisfied with their experience of being part of a peer team.
• 100 per cent of peers who responded said that taking part in a peer challenge had a positive impact on their own learning and development.
• 100 per cent of respondents who took part in a CPC said that the liaison from their peer challenge manager had been very effective.

The following section is a summary of the most frequent and common feedback messages from CPC teams during 2024/25. It is structured in line with the five core components.

1. Local priorities and outcomes
   1. Vision and priorities: With all councils facing significant challenges and a rapidly changing local government context, it is crucial that councils continue to be clear about their vision and priorities. To support this, CPC reports make recommendations relating to the need to ensure clear strategic vision, direction and priorities for both the council and place, particularly in the context of increased financial and budgetary pressures. They relate to the need to ensure corporate plans are closely aligned to medium term financial plans, are more clearly articulated (internally and externally) and that there is capacity and capability to deliver agreed priorities. Prioritisation is a common theme, with recommendations relating to the need for councils to better refine corporate plans and performance frameworks to support prioritisation.  
   2. Performance: Reports place a strong emphasis on finance, data, and evidence, offering analysis based on both the LGA’s LG Inform benchmarking data and councils’ internal performance management reports. They highlight key inspection outcomes and identify areas, such as social care and housing, where continued improvement is necessary. Recommendations address the governance and oversight of council performance, focusing on aspects like transparency, the regularity of reporting, outcome-driven approaches, data visualisation, benchmarking practices, the role of scrutiny, and more effective use of data. Some reports also stress the importance of reinforcing the ‘golden thread’, ensuring a clear and consistent connection from corporate priorities through to service plans and individual performance objectives.  
   3. Service themes: The increasing demand faced by councils continues to be a national issue including social care (children’s and adults’) and special educational needs and disability (SEND). In addition, other service areas such as economic growth (covering regeneration, education, employment and skills), health and social care integration, climate change/net zero and waste management also continue to feature strongly. Recommendations focus on helping councils address the rising demand and costs in social care whilst still maintaining focus on the performance of core services, accelerating progress on transformation plans, embedding priorities around the green agenda and strengthening resident engagement and co-production. This continues to be a huge challenge for councils.
2. Organisational and place leadership
   1. Leadership of place: Reports highlight the need for councils to work with partners to develop a compelling place-based vision and narrative that is jointly owned and understood. Recommendations relate to the effectiveness of strategies for involving local communities and strengthening partnership working to drive improved outcomes. These outcomes centre around inclusive economic growth, employment and skills opportunities, regeneration, transport planning, improved health and wellbeing, opportunities for young people, educational attainment and improved services. The need for councils to strengthen leadership visibility, external communications and social value are also common themes. Peer teams highlight Local Plans and the importance of maintaining progress on their development and adoption, reflecting how these are used to guide growth, development and place shaping.
   2. Devolution and local government re-organisation (LGR): The requirement to harness opportunities arising from devolution and combined authorities is a common theme (in relevant geographical areas). The importance of building strong pro-active and collaborative partnerships, building inclusive economic growth strategies which leverage advantages of devolution and maintaining focus on improved outcomes for residents are captured. CPCs and PRs undertaken after the publication of the English Devolution White Paper in December 2024 make stronger references to LGR. The importance of strong and stable leadership, open and transparent communication, maintaining staff morale, workforce planning and partnership working (with other councils) are emerging themes. Maintaining a strong focus on achieving financial sustainability to help ensure newly re-organised councils are in the best financial position moving forward is also captured.
   3. Community cohesion: Throughout 2024/25, councils have clearly demonstrated their effectiveness in strengthening community engagement and co-production approaches in support of community cohesion. To build on this, some reports highlight a need for councils to strengthen how they use data and intelligence, combined with community intelligence, to address inequalities and build even stronger cohesive communities. A requirement to strengthen engagement with local voluntary, community and faith sector groups is also a consistent theme. Reports also make recommendations relating to the work of councils in promoting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across a range of areas.
3. Governance and culture
   1. Leadership: Ensuring strong, visible and cohesive political and managerial leadership is a consistent theme. Building constructive councillor and officer relationships including greater clarity of understanding on their respective roles is captured. Some peer teams highlight the importance of resolving interim senior management arrangements to ensure continued stability and resilience to take councils forward.  
   2. Governance and assurance: Peer teams have made recommendations which focus on supporting councils to strengthen a culture of assurance and good governance. These cover risk management, internal control processes, councillor development, role of internal and external audit and production of annual governance statements. Reports (where applicable) make references to the governance of trading companies. The need to ensure regular meetings between statutory officers to support good administrative, financial and ethical governance continues to be highlighted. Improving the pace of decision making and quality of reports is also captured.
   3. Organisational culture: Cultivating a positive organisational culture through the development of agreed corporate values and open and honest staff engagement is a consistent theme. Reports demonstrate the strong commitment and dedication across council staff and councillors to the work they do for the sector and for residents. The importance of undertaking regular staff surveys that make the best use of national benchmarks available is also highlighted. The need to ensure that EDI principles are embedded across councils to foster a fair and inclusive environment is also a theme. Peer teams make recommendations in relation to use of data, embedding Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) and the LGA equality framework for local and councillors to the work they do for the sector and for residents.  
   4. Overview and scrutiny: Ensuring clear and robust overview and scrutiny arrangements are in place that help to drive improvement is a common theme. Some reports highlight examples of effective scrutiny practice. Others make recommendations to review scrutiny structures, strengthen pre-decision scrutiny, build approaches to scrutiny work programmes and review how reports are produced and presented. Some peer teams highlight the need for more training on scrutiny for both councillors and officers and further utilise methods such as ‘rapid reviews’ and ‘focused reviews’ to support openness, transparency, insight and accountability.
4. Financial planning and management
   1. Financial challenges: Peer teams highlight the significant financial pressures faced by councils including rising demand in social care, inflationary increases in pay and other costs, market pressures, cost of living challenges and, where applicable, Housing Revenue Account (HRA) pressures. Recommendations include the need to ensure the development of robust, actionable savings plans, accelerate transformation plans and enhance asset management approaches. Peer teams also consider the levels of borrowing in certain councils and the associated risks and highlight the importance of maintaining strong corporate oversight of commercial assets and investments. Several reports point to the growing pressures from increased demand for temporary accommodation and the related costs, especially in London and the surrounding regions. Recommendations relating to capital budgets are also made including managing capital spend slippage and strengthening project and programme governance.
   2. Reserves: Over reliance on reserves is a consistent theme and flagged as a risk to long term financial health and sustainability. In addition to the above, the development of demand strategies and strengthening use of benchmarking data is highlighted. Realigning resources towards ‘invest to save’ approaches, income generation and the need to take difficult decisions.
   3. Financial management and oversight: Peer teams highlight the importance of establishing clear, robust and transparent approaches to budget setting and financial reporting, including regular quarterly updates to cabinets and relevant committees. Maintaining close attention to in-year budget monitoring and creating formal opportunities for broader member engagement in budget planning are also frequently highlighted. The reports emphasise the value of building financial literacy across all officers and members through targeted briefings and training so that finance is seen as ‘everybody’s business’, not just the responsibility of finance teams. Additionally, peer teams highlight the importance of ensuring sound financial management systems, effective ICT infrastructure, sufficient capacity within finance teams and strong risk management practices.
5. Capacity for improvement
   1. Transformation: Councils are developing significant programmes of transformation. Peer teams offer a range of recommendations focused on ensuring that councils foster full and collective ownership of these initiatives, with clear timelines, sequencing, milestones and deliverables. Some reports highlight a need to accelerate the pace of transformation to better address budget gaps and medium-term financial challenges. Additionally, a number of reports identify a need to build greater clarity on how digital and service transformation is aligned to council priorities and agreed savings targets. Emphasis is placed on ensuring the capacity of teams to drive transformation, including the necessary skills and capabilities, adopting evidence-based approaches, and ensuring robust governance structures for transformation programmes. Increasingly, reports reference the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and the importance of councils learning from best practices across the sector. Peer teams also highlight the need to maximise the benefits of digitisation, technology, data usage, interactive data visualisation tools and modern telephony to enhance customer experience.
   2. Workforce: Peer teams continue to be impressed with the committed, talented and passionate workforce across the sector. Common themes include issues related to recruitment, retention, skills gaps, succession planning and reliance on agency staff. Recommendations focus on shaping workforce strategies to tackle these challenges such as expanding apprenticeship schemes and graduate programmes, investing in workforce development and offering staff recognition and career advancement opportunities. Some peer teams highlight the need to review certain human resource policies to further enhance the employment offer, ensure alignment with neighbouring councils and address any inconsistencies in their application across different services.
   3. Organisational capacity: Ensuring capacity within back-office services so that they can support effective delivery of front-line services is a common feature, for example, human resources, financial services, procurement, contract management, ICT, communications and systems management. Some reports make recommendations relating to organisational structures/models and ways of working to ensure sufficient capacity and resource behind agreed priorities. Silo working and the need to strengthen cross-organisational working in support of agreed priorities is a common feature. Building clarity and understanding with all stakeholders about agile working and ensuring policies are applied consistently across different teams is highlighted.

The peer challenge programme continues to highlight the amazing work that councils deliver every day for their communities. It is clear from the common themes and outcomes within reports how councils continue to face significant challenges. The 2024/25 peer challenge programme identified that councils continue to face significant pressures associated with rising demand, particularly across children’s, adults’ and special educational needs, market and inflationary pressures, temporary accommodation costs, cost of living and HRA pressures (where applicable).

Peer challenge reports continue to highlight the importance of councils agreeing robust, actionable savings plans with strong corporate oversight. They also make a range of recommendations relating to prioritisation, transformation and organisational capacity. For those peer challenges undertaken after the publication of the English Devolution White Paper in December 2024, there were strong references to LGR and the importance of strong and stable leadership, open and transparent communication, maintaining staff morale, workforce planning and partnership working (with other councils). Maintaining a strong focus on achieving financial sustainability to help ensure newly re-organised councils are in the best financial position moving forward is also captured.

As councils continue to embrace efficiency, innovation and transformation in a way that has not been replicated elsewhere in the public sector, peer challenge continues to identify that councils desperately need a significant and sustained increase in overall funding to continue to meet the requirements being placed on them.