... than trying to force it out. It must do all this and more with extremely limited resources, and give something meaningful back quickly.   It’ll be a tough job. Time will tell whether or not they are ...

... Nor, at the time of writing, has anything at all been released as to the scope, resources, mandate or timelines for such an introduction, meaning much of this conjecture may change over time. That being ...

... no firm descriptions, plans, timescales or resources have been even hinted at, a small number of clear camps are forming either side of the yes/no debate. In this first of a three part mini-series let’s ...

... can’t build homes there then your policy really is bad). At the same time the Government could carry out a fundamental review of the green belt and once they have resized it down to a few miles or so ...

... has now passed the 100 days in office mark, & thus it’s time for some early reflections.  Of course in a five year term the first 100 days is a largely symbolic & possibly overworked milestone, ...

... that here’s another one. The unemployment rate for White people in Birmingham is about 9%. What’s the rate for Black people? If you doubled 9%, try again. The answer is actually three times higher – 26%. ...

Five years ago the coalition Government made a commitment to decentralisation and to moving powers away from Whitehall and towards local government – and other local structures. At the time I tried to ...

... or duplication can more easily be picked up by the crowd and addressed sooner rather than later. It can also save significant amounts of time in the process. People are better able to find information ...

After our recent article looking at the scandal of uncontested elections, the Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society Katie Ghose got in touch to highlight just how endemic the problem is and ...

... viable alternative be in place; with no alternative they are able to continue as before, potentially making the same mistakes to the detriment of local people for years at a time. Add to that the fact ...

... documents, positions and offers have built a case for devolution of some kind. Perhaps now is the time for a collective voice for local authorities of all types - metropolitan, district and county - ...

It’s a funny thing, change and loss. Sometimes (as the song says) you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, whilst at other times change can be met with more relief than a cold beer at the end of ...

... local government commissioning and asked when was the last time a council sought to commission from a 'story' of an individual and what they want from their care. I was taken with this as a solution: I ...

... recent example appeared on my Twitter feed while I had the time to dig a little deeper… FutureGov recently wrote a blog discussing a report by Policy Exchange (PX), and they introduced it thusly [1]: ...

... on UKGovCamp15. I didn’t miss the introductions Long-time campers will have been slightly surprised to see that there wasn’t the usual obligatory round of audience introductions, where everyone in ...

... the first time, I will be attending not as a member of local government but as a member of the private sector (albeit one who works nigh-on exclusively with local government). I’m interested to see if ...

Every year at this time writers ease themselves back into the blogging routine by putting on their Mystic Meg cloaks and looking forward to the coming year in an effort to predict the big things that might ...

... in the autumn time. I recognise that these are also a limited selection of pieces from a smallish amount of councils and also are just one year’s announcements from a half decade of austerity but I hope ...

The LGIU Daily Briefing is a valuable resource for local government officers and I try to make time to read it every day. Most days I find it a useful source of context and stories; some relevant to work ...

... as the amount of time and mental energy spent on each of them increased the amount available for blogging and thinking about interesting things to write decreases. The latter point – that of my general ...