Why We're Backing The Council Network

We're proud to share that Civic.ly is sponsoring The Council Network — a new, free digital space built for the people who run local places. If you're a council officer, clerk, or an elected councillor, it's worth a few minutes of your time. Here's what it is, and why we decided to put our weight behind it.

The tier of government closest to people

When a resident notices a streetlight out in a dark alley, they don't open a diagram of which authority owns the column. They tell their local council. When the verge is overgrown, the bench is broken, or the play area looks tired, the same thing happens. To the people who live in a place, "the council" isn't an abstract tier of government — it's the person they can reach, often someone who lives a few streets away and shops in the same shops.

That's the reality for parish, town, and community councils. They are the front line of local government: the layer where public service stops being a policy and becomes whether the green looks cared for and the playground is safe. The clerks, staff, and councillors doing this work are part of the community they serve. They feel the same potholes and walk the same parks. It makes for a tier of government that's unusually close to the people it answers to — and unusually personally invested in getting things right.

What is The Council Network?

The Council Network is a secure, members-only platform that connects these front-line councils with their peers across the country. The idea is simple: instead of every council working out the same answers alone, members can talk directly to colleagues who have already faced — and often already solved — the challenge in front of them.

It does this in three main ways:

It's also completely free for verified local government professionals, so budget pressure doesn't keep anyone out. The network is championed by Cllr Richard Biggs, Leader of Reigate & Banstead Borough Council, and his senior leadership team, who have been encouraging its rollout to strengthen peer-to-peer collaboration across the sector. Access is granted on request once membership is verified.

Assets that are really about wellbeing

Here's what makes this tier distinctive. Its estate isn't motorways or social housing. It's parks, playgrounds, community centres, events, planters, flowerbeds, war memorials, and the street scene. These are the assets people actually live alongside — the ones that decide whether a town or village feels like a pleasant place to be.

That gives the work an outsized impact. A well-kept green, a safe play area, a summer event on the recreation ground — none of it shows up in a national headline, but all of it shapes how people feel about where they live. Looking after these assets well is, in the most direct sense, looking after community wellbeing. As the responsibility grows, so does the importance of doing it properly.

Why we're sponsoring it

Civic.ly exists to make life easier for these councils. We've always believed the sector's biggest untapped asset isn't software — it's the experience already sitting inside councils up and down the country. The clerk who has taken on a transferred park, the officer who has worked out a sensible inspection routine, the council that found a smart way to keep its verges tidy on a shoestring: that knowledge is gold, and most of it never travels beyond one council.

A platform that makes that knowledge findable is exactly what the sector has needed for years. The councils now being handed more — more assets, more expectation, more of what residents bring to their door — shouldn't have to work it all out alone. The Council Network gives the front line a way to compare notes, and that's good for every community on the receiving end.

Sponsoring, not steering

To be clear about what our sponsorship is and isn't: we're helping to support a free, independent space for the sector. It isn't a Civic.ly sales channel, and it isn't ours to run. We think the network is good for local government on its own terms, and that's reason enough to back it. If some of the people we meet there go on to look at what we build, that's a bonus — not the point.

Who should join

If any of the following sounds like you, The Council Network is worth a look:

• Clerks and RFOs who want a sounding board beyond their own council — especially as new assets and responsibilities land on the desk.
• Elected councillors who want to learn how comparable councils have handled the decisions now facing them.
• Officers leading cross-county or cross-tier work who need a secure space to plan with peers before going public.
• Anyone taking on more — an inherited park, a tidying-up job that isn't strictly theirs — who suspects another council has already been there.

Stronger together

Local government has never had more on its plate or fewer resources to meet it with, and a great deal of what's growing fastest is landing on the councils closest to home. The ones who come through best will be the ones that learn from each other instead of going it alone. That's the future The Council Network is building toward, and it's one we're glad to support.

For us, it points to something bigger — and it's where Civic.ly is ultimately heading.