Local Government Chronicle
26 April 2012
View all stories from this issue.
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‘Right to challenge’ demand ‘underestimated’
Demand for a scheme to help community groups challenge councils under the Localism Act is likely to be higher than the Department for Communities & Local Government has predicted, third sector groups have warned. -
A prospectus for investment: 'We are open for business'
It was encouraging to see combined authorities, specifically the Greater Manchester City Deal, receive a clear endorsement in the Budget. -
Cabinet Office paper rejected
Councillors have refused to sign up to a Cabinet Office document on procurement because of concerns over the role of big business. -
Call for academy intervention protocol
Council chiefs have called on education secretary Michael Gove to agree a set of conditions to trigger intervention in failing academies. -
Community budget pilots eye service reform
Councils involved in piloting community budgets are preparing to demonstrate radical models of public service reform to ministers this summer in a bid to help tackle the challenges of the next spending review period. -
Coordinating practical support for cancer patients
Cancer is mostly a disease of ageing with just under 200,000 of the 300,000 people diagnosed in the UK with cancer every year being over 65. Many will manage independently during their cancer treatment. Others will have rapidly changing needs. For the group as a whole, it is widely understood a lack of practical and social support is linked to poorer cancer outcomes. -
Council tax legal challenge risk
The “tight” timescale for council tax benefit changes could leave councils at risk of legal challenge, finance directors have warned. -
Educate, excite and engage
Driving down interest in local democracy will ultimately hurt democracy nationally -
'Embrace academisation'
In 2007, when the previous government introduced trust schools and told local authorities to reduce or withdraw their ‘delivery’ role in schools, I remember telling a group of council officers that the age old council joke had changed from ‘who cut your hair?’ to ‘who commissioned your haircut?’. It now appears even local authorities’ commissioning role for schools is under threat. -
Embrace Dilnot, LGA tells party leaders
The LGA has launched a bid to forge a cross-party consensus around implementing the findings of the Dilnot Commission into funding social care. -
Gove: councils could sponsor failing academies
Councils could take over the running of failing academy schools, education secretary Michael Gove has said. -
Government must act decisively. Now
Reform of adult social care is one of the biggest challenges this country faces - and none of us can go on ducking the issue any longer. -
Graduate places on the rise
Numbers on the local government graduate programme are set to rise next year despite significant budget cuts and major changes to the curriculum. -
Inside Out - Integrating health directors
Somebody has to say it, local authority chief executives should not directly manage directors of public health -
Is your organisation leaking cash?
The Budget provided us with a not entirely unexpected but nonetheless worrying portent of the extent of further public sector cuts in the first two years of the next spending review period. -
'Learn the language of commerce'
As budgets come under pressure, old expectations and conventions fall away. More risks are taken. Everybody wants to find income to mitigate expenditure reductions. -
LGC View - Education reform
Over the past six months or so, a number of commentators have compared the approaches of Michael Gove and Andrew Lansley to their respective pet reform projects in education and health. -
Local identity a platform for change
I am convinced that a renewed focus on empowering people within local communities is the best way to achieve social change and civic renewal. -
Low-carbon sector ripe for growth
Never a week goes by without someone asking me: “What exactly is this low carbon industry we are developing?” -
Mediawatch - Some amazing manifestos for local elections…
We are now just a few weeks away from the local elections which the media and national political parties will argue demonstrate the state of – no, not local democracy - the national political parties of course!. What do their election broadcasts, out a few days ago, tell us? -
New public health funding formula due
The recommendations of the Department of Health-commissioned assessment of how public health funding should be distributed between councils are expected to be published soon after the local elections. -
No escape from the grip of austerity
Director, Greater London Group, London School of Economics -
The council offer is too strong to ignore
There are currently a number of generalisations made about the relationship between local authorities and schools: that they are ineffective in supporting school improvement and that academies have nothing to do with the local authority and are the better for it. -
Time to colonise the leadership space
Discussion papers about the future role of councils in education appear to be like buses: you wait for ages for one to come along, and three turn up all at once. -
Tory leaders criticise ministerial attacks over council tax
Conservative council leaders have criticised minsters’ public attacks on local authorities over their reluctance to freeze council tax. -
Using local government's alumni
In the wake of the first ngdp alumni conference, a former student explains how the large network of students past and present can support not only the graduate programme, but also the local government sector as a whole. -
Wider support to ensure child safety
It is a year, almost to the day, since Professor Munro’s substantial and well-thought out report into child protection was published. She put down the challenge to local authorities to reshape their social care services; to focus on early help; to better support families in crisis and to do more to manage the risks inherent in child protection work.
