On the 5th July 2024, UDiTE held its executive committee in the margins of the ANSEK annual conference under the banner of Relationships between Local Councils and the Regions.  were Speakers from Maltese local councils, the newly created Maltese regions and from UDiTE member countries France and Ireland spoke on the evolution of their local government structures in their countries.  Ronny Frederickx, UDiTE's Executive Director, spoke of the sitaution in his own country Belgium.

In his concluding comments, the President of ANSEK Paul Gatt encouraged the local councils to use their resources in the best way in order to continue addressing the needs of localities and residents.

UDiTE colleagues gave insights on how they work together with regional structures in their countries under multi level governance (MLG) arrangements. Paul comments that whilst we often believe that we can maximise resources if we work together. Nevertheless we can all work much more efficiently at the local level when working individually.

This conference was addressed by the Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government Alison Zerafa Civelli, who underlined how the role of the Executive Secretaries renmains crucial so that there is effective and strong communication between the Local Councils and the respective Regional Council, if we are to keep the citizens at the centre of local service delivery.

The PS thanked ANSEK for hosting such an important and timely conference on the key the relationship between Regional and Local Councils in Malta. He confirmed that the emerging national for Local Government, has as one of its main pillars the priority of making the new Regional Councils a resource for the Local Councils.

Speakers gave an overview of the work between the Local Councils and the Regions and a discussion took place on the effective implementation of more centralised services.