Greg Clark, Levelling Up Secretary, has announced that he is to set up a strategic advisory panel to develop a long-term plan to support and guide Liverpool City Council out of government intervention.
The Liverpool Strategic Futures Advisory Panel will help the council to make the right decisions, as well as developing a plan to increase confidence in the long-term future of the city. This will be done by working alongside the City Mayor and her cabinet.
The panel will be made up of Steve Rotheram, metro Mayor of Liverpool City Region and the Chair of the panel, Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of the City of Manchester from 1999 to 2017, and Baroness Judith Blake, Leader if Leeds City Council from 2015 to 2021. The three members will also be asked to nominate an experienced business leader to join them on the panel.
Levelling Up Secretary, Greg Clark, said:
“I am determined to help do everything I can to help Liverpool come out of the current intervention stronger and able to achieve its ambitions.
“The commissioners’ report shows that there are still serious shortcomings that need to be sorted out, especially in financial management. But I want this to be a turning point at which the City of Liverpool can see a bright future that lives up to the power this great city embodies.
“So following talks I had in person in Liverpool with Mayor Joanne Anderson and Mayor Steve Rotheram in recent weeks, I am appointing a new panel, chaired by that same Mayor Rotheram and supported by some of the wisest, and most experienced people in city leadership, to lead this transition from current interventions to a successful future.”
In June 2021, four commissioners were sent into Liverpool City Council with the aim of overseeing the Council’s highways, property, and regeneration functions, and them submitted a report on the council’s progress.
Alongside the establishment of the new Strategic Futures Panel, Clark has announced that he is considering the appointment of a commissioner to oversee the financial management of the council, as well as transferring functions associated with governance and financial decision-making to the commissioners.
