Project Keystone sets out recommendations to strengthen support for parish and town councils

We have published the final report from Project Keystone, our strategic review of support for parish and town councils, setting out an ambitious package of recommendations to create a stronger, more connected and sustainable support system for the sector over the next decade.

The review comes at a time of significant change for parish and town councils, with devolution, local government reorganisation, financial pressures, workforce challenges, digital transformation and artificial intelligence all reshaping the sector. Drawing on a sector-wide survey, workshops and stakeholder engagement, it found strong support for reform, with 83% of respondents saying some form of improvement or structural change is needed.

The report concludes that parish and town councils need a more coordinated and resilient support system to fulfil their growing role in community leadership, service delivery and local democracy. It proposes a future model that is nationally led, regionally capable and locally embedded, bringing together stronger national leadership, more effective regional support and a continued connection with councils and communities on the ground.

To achieve this, the report makes four key recommendations:

• Strengthen NALC's national leadership and role as the voice of the sector. This would involve reforming NALC's governance and accountability, strengthening standards and training, and developing better strategic intelligence to champion the sector and provide a clearer national direction.
• Create more resilient county association structures. The report recommends building more resilient county associations or groups of county associations, with the capacity to provide more consistent support and capable of providing specialist expertise and stronger representation for local councils.
• Build a clearer and more formal relationship between NALC and county associations. This would establish stronger accountability, clearer responsibilities and more effective decision-making across the support system, helping national and regional organisations work together towards shared priorities.
• Introduce a long-term improvement framework for the sector. This would provide a more structured approach to developing leadership, strengthening workforce skills and capability, encouraging innovation and sharing good practice, while supporting councils to improve the services they provide to their communities continually.

Taken together, these recommendations offer an opportunity to move beyond the current support arrangements towards a more joined-up, sustainable and forward-looking system, better equipped to meet the needs of councils today and in the future.

The recommendations will be considered by the Management Board and the National Assembly this year. These discussions will help determine which proposals are taken forward and how they could be developed. We will provide further updates following these discussions, including on any agreed next steps.