Resolved – That Wirral Council join the ‘Keep it Local’ Network of Local Authorities.

Keeping it Local means we will work to harness the local potential that exists in our authority neighbourhoods and communities, by building strong local partnerships, sharing power and maximising local strengths.

Recent years have seen a trend towards outsourcing services at scale, which has crowded out local community organisations. Wirral Council aspire to adopt a different way: to Keep it Local.

Keep it Local” is a unique collective founded on set principles:

1.  Think about the whole system, not individual public service silos.

2.  Co-ordinate services at the neighbourhood level.

3.  Increase local spend through progressive procurement to invest in the local economy.

4.  Focus on early intervention now to save costs tomorrow.

5.  Commit to communities and proactively support local organisations.

6.  Commission services simply and collaboratively so they are ‘local by default’

No other options therefore have been given consideration.

The “do nothing” option was not considered on the basis that membership of Keep it Local provides synergy with a number of other community wealth building initiatives that the Council is actively pursuing.