A ‘powerful’ new leadership offer for local government backed by No 10 is the latest casualty of shifting Whitehall priorities, The MJ can reveal.

Private correspondence between 10 Downing Street and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) last year suggests Whitehall had been keen to make a ‘strong announcement’ on a new approach to leadership development for the sector by early summer 2016.

But a package of measures drawn up by the DCLG and sent to then-prime minister David Cameron’s private secretary three days before the EU referendum now appear to have been shelved, with Brexit taking priority and talk of the devolution revolution fading.

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