Last week Sir Merrick Cockell won the election to become the new chairman of the Local Government Association, taking on his new post at its conference this week in Birmingham. Here he outlines his strategy for his term in office.

We meet in Birmingham this week at a pivotal moment for local government and the LGA.The last twelve months have been difficult and at times, damaging. The need for strong and accountable local leadership could not be greater. I have three immediate ambitions for local government.

1. Councils to be truly at the heart of leading local communities and commissioning better public services.

Over the last 12 months, local government life has been dominated by decisions on the future of local services in a climate of severe financial restraint.At the same time there has been an erosion of our public reputation with a corrosive impact upon the trust that people place in councillors and councils.

The challenge we face is steep, but who else in public service could have – indeed has - managed the scale of the change that local government has done in the past nine months? And councils across the country, including my own, are innovating and collaborating to find ways of driving out cost and protecting the front line services on which people rely.

I applaud the government for its decentralising impulses and for removing much of the wasteful apparatus of central control and regional co-ordination. This Coalition Government is freeing us from being the servant of the state to being the servant of local people. But, in the short term, in a range of areas, we need to continue to press hard. From ensuring that the NHS Future Forum message on stronger health and well being boards is acted upon, through to pushing government to deliver on the pledge of real community budgets, with real pooled funding.

And in the longer term there is still much to be played for in the way public services are reformed over the next few years. However, there is more to local government that the provision of services.

We are major enablers of growth. By our influence over land use, education, training and local infrastructure we can help local economies prosper. Many councils are already providing inspired leadership in developing local enterprise partnerships, working hand-in-glove with the private sector. But the biggest kick-start to our economies would be for Government to localise the business rate and allow communities to benefit directly from economic activity and development.

2.Councils to be recognised as the key means for enabling people to take more control over their lives and localities.

 We aren’t fighting to win more power and influence from government nationally, only to hoard it within a local bureaucracy. If we are truly devolutionary, then we must share it beyond us also. If we want to win trust and respect from our fellow citizens for the important role we play, we won’t do it by frustrating their desire to become involved.

We will do it by developing a clearer understanding of the respective and unique contributions of both councils and local communities in improving our places. Equally, often the single most important, practical source of advice to local groups and people who want to take more responsibility and control, is their council.

Councils should be the enablers of localism – not the impediment to it. And, by definition,you can't have localism defined and determined at a national level.So,the message to government at national and local level is that localism means letting go.

Councillors make difficult decisions about reconciling competing interests in often confined spaces and circumstances.We balance the immediate will of those we serve now, with the longer term interests of a place and the people who will come there in the future and have no voice but ours.What we do is governed by local democracy and proper accountability.They are vital guarantors of fairness and freedom for all of our citizens, not just the most vocal.

So, localism should not stop at the town or county hall.But neither should a robust commitment to local coherence, accountability and democracy.

Additionally, I want to identify how one of the most important of all resources in supporting both localism and growth is most effectively integrated with the government's ambitions.

I refer, of course, to over 20,000 men and women, elected from among their fellow citizens, to represent and serve them and their local place. I want to see new generations of councillors drawn from all parts of society; able to stand for election and serve their communities. I want to see more people in the prime of their lives whatever their financial circumstances, whether with young children or from minority communities able to chose a life of public service.

We can make the Big Society so much bigger still if we utilise properly the talents, energy and commitment of current and future elected councillors.

3.Councils to be more trusted as a force for practical good by our fellow citizens.

We know that nothing has a greater impact on our public reputation than perceptions about the extent to which we deliver value for money, the degree to which we are seen as flexible and responsive and the level of overall competence that the public ascribes to us. In part,it's about us being better at telling the good story that we have.

Over the last six months I have been travelling the country seeing many leaders in their own county, city and town halls.I have witnessed them making tough decisions about how to cut spending but secure essential local public services, balancing local needs against what the country can afford. And I have seen them prepared to question and change old ways of operating and revolutionising the way local public services are provided.

They are less concerned by who actually provides them – private sector, mutuals, third sector or councils themselves – than by driving out waste, getting better outcomes for less money and making services more accountable to those who use them. I see a passion about local government and public service. I see care and compassion for those least able to help themselves. I hear little complaint about how difficult the job is.

I am determined that we make a stronger connection between those experiences and people’s perceptions about their councils. And we all know that unless people are convinced about our core competence and our value for money, they won't recognise the legitimacy of our wider leadership and public service role. But we also have to be honest and prepared to call it as it is.

Some services deliver unacceptable levels of performance and value. Some of our communication with the public can be cringe-worthy. I believe that our public reputation will, in time, be strengthened if the LGA acknowledges that is the case and is seen to be spending more time helping things improve than in defence-mode.

The LGA's Productivity Programme has made a positive start. It now needs more urgency and political energy, with real milestones agreed for what collectively we should achieve over the next five years. We need to be neither complacent, nor accepting about councils that fail to act upon the help that they get. The stakes for all of us are now too high to allow that to happen.

The LGA already does much excellent work in this area – sometimes below our individual and collective radar for understandable reasons – but we all need to feel the certainty of not just mutual support, but also the certainty of robust mutual challenge, if we are to convince not just government, but the wider public that we are serious.

It is impossible to be in Birmingham and fail to think about how, through history, local leadership has not only innovated but proved itself to be a force for enormous good in our society. And through a revived, focused and purposeful Local Government Association, I am certain that we can all be part of a renaissance of confidence for the vital work we do.

Cllr Sir Merrick Cockell is leader of Kensington and Chelsea RLBC and LGA chairman.