Skip to content

We use cookies on this site

If you don't want to accept cookies, you can change your preferences

Accept Manage cookies
  1. Home
  2. About the council
  3. Islington Together

Online parking services unavailable on Friday 20 June, 6am- 6.30am

Due to essential maintenance, some online parking services will be unavailable on Friday 20 June, from 6am to 6.30am. During this time, you may be unable to buy or renew parking permits and paper vouchers, and view, challenge and pay PCNs. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused. Please try again after this time. 

Town Hall icon

Local government peer review 2025

Find out what a team of our local government peers had to say about how Islington Council is run and what we can do next to improve.

In February 2025, a team of eight experienced councillors and officers from other local councils visited Islington Council to take a look at how we're run and give their expert opinion on how we're doing.

This peer team spent four days talking to around 100 of our staff, councillors and external partner organisations. We welcomed their feedback on where we are now and their ideas to improve for the future, now published as a report.

The Local Government Association (LGA) Coporate Peer Challenge report focuses on how we are performing, our finances, and how we're organised and are planning for coming challenges. The peer team looked into:

  • whether we are achieving our most important goals for Islington, while tracking, reporting and updating our plans for improvement
  • our local leadership, how effective it is and if we have good relationships with partner organisations and local communities
  • if we have clear and strong governance and make sure to challenge and look deeply at what we're doing
  • whether we are in a strong financial position, planning for and can bear the weight of future problems
  • our ability to make improvements we need.

Feedback

Their report praised the council for its “distinctive culture, clear ambition, and pride in its place”. We were recognised for our strong commitment to community and “a shared and driving focus on tackling inequality” – demonstrating how our ambition for a more equal Islington is shining through. 

It also highlighted our: 

  • effective management of our budget to deliver high-quality, resident-focused services 
  • outstanding children’s and youth justice services - read about inspections of our children's services and youth justice services
  • prevention and early intervention services that "are the envy of other councils"
  • "impressive" work on rough sleeping, temporary accommodation and buying back ex-Right to Buy homes
  • "ambitious" housebuilding programme.

Recommendations

We welcome the peer team’s recommendations for improvement and we’ve already taken some steps towards making these changes.

Here's a summarised version of the full recommendation list. You can read more about them in the full report at the bottom of the page.

  1. Set a business and budget planning timetable to identify cost savings and address the budget gap.
  2. Make sure the chief executive, monitoring officer and section 151 officer continue to meet regularly and strengthen our governance in line with LGA code of practice.
  3. Strengthen the role of the whole Executive as the strategic leadership of the council, owning and having oversight of the budget, refreshing the corporate delivery plan and change programme.
  4. Complete our first full review of our constitution in over 20 years including making roles and responsibilities of members / officers, scrutiny and audit committees clear so that we aren't repeating the same work we've already done.
  5. Improve and install the new corporate approach to complaints and member enquiries.
  6. Build on the real opportunities Islington has by developing a clearer narrative, stronger culture and a more collaborative approach to working with its brilliant local businesses, HFE, cultural and sporting institutions and the voluntary and community sector.
  7. Develop a clearer assessment criteria for capital investment with its new Strategic Asset Plan to make the best decisions for its change programme and making savings.
  8. An external review and risk assessment of the Finsbury Leisure Centre redevelopment plan to make sure it's possible and the right set of options to inform decisions.
  9. Develop and define an organisation-wide change programme with clear plans and savings and a narrative that helps prepare members and the workforce with why and what it will mean for everyone.
  10. Implement recommendations from a recent external consultancy to bring together the skills and ability of its leadership to coordinate change aacross the organisation.

Full report and next steps

Read the full report

Next, we’ll publish an action plan setting out our response to the team’s recommendations. We'll publish this soon.

The peer review team will come back in early 2026 to look at our progress.