Local Government Chronicle
5 April 2012
View all stories from this issue.
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A message from the districts?
Break down the headline figures of LGC’s research into what councils are prepared to pay their staff next year and there are some interesting results. -
Being pressed to shift power downwards
Director, Greater London Group, London School of Economics -
Benefit of tougher inspections queried
It’s been 10 years since we have had a chief inspector of schools who has been headline grabber. Chris Woodhead (“15,000 incompetent teachers”) and Michael Wilshaw (“5,000 head teachers lack leadership”) invite comparisons. -
'Big Vision' must relaunch Big Society
What will happen to the Big Society idea now, following the departures of both Steve Hilton and Lord Wei from Downing Street? -
Budgeted pay rises 'small consolation'
More than a third of councils have set aside money for pay rises, according to exclusive research by LGC. -
Calls to tackle children's care crisis ignored
Calls for the government to take urgent action over a crisis in children’s social services funding have gone unheeded. -
Care integration could distract from funding reform, experts warn
Fears are growing in the sector that the government’s focus on the integration of health and social care could prove a distraction from the urgent need to reform care funding. -
Collaboration towards combined authorities
It has become increasingly clear that collaboration and structures are more important than ever -
Connected for change
One of the fundamental problems that bedevils the caring professions is fragmentation at the front face, where the reality for customers/clients/patients is being served by professionals who aren’t connected to each other. -
Discount rate to begin in January
A new discounted rate on loans from the government is set to be introduced early next year, according to officials. -
Empowered local leadership and communities
The Health and Social Care Act has now passed into law. This marks a new phase of transition – one focused on implementing the reforms set out in the Act, reforms which place local government at the centre of the local health and care system, shaping and influencing the wider determinants of health and well being. -
Finding financial backing for social enterprise
Councils who are looking to re-structure their provider services and are considering hiving off some of their businesses as social enterprises worry about the sustainability of these new organisation and their ability to attract funding and investment. Of course it is difficult to secure support at a time when the banks themselves are struggling with the same issue. -
Funding gap threat to children's care
A major challenge facing many councils is the pressure on social care budgets from an increase in the number of children requiring protection and needing to become looked after, which is a significant and a particularly volatile pressure to manage. -
Inside Out - Communities that are stuggling
We have called it poverty, multiple deprivation and social exclusion. Now troubled families, surrounded by forgotten families ‘bumping along the bottom’. -
LGC View - Pay
Take a look at the small print in the annexes to last month’s Budget and the fact that a sizeable minority of local authorities had budgeted to give staff a pay rise next year starts to seem pretty surprising. -
Mediawatch - The battle is over. Let the war commence…
The press feeds off division. As David Cameron’s money problems began to fade into the background the news hounds sniffed a coming row over the government’s new National Planning Policy Framework. -
National framework harnesses partnership as a driver for change
It’s a shame that an important debate about the future of national bargaining has only begun because of an economic crisis. The employers have long argued for reform to avoid the kind of impasse we now have. Employers feel that they cannot respond fast enough to changing circumstances; employees feel that their conditions of service are under threat. -
The data in full: pay in 2012/13
Earlier this year, as employers considered the union demand for a “substantial” pay rise following a two year freeze, LGC asked councils what their budget assumptions were for pay over the next couple of years. -
Trust vital in true transfer of power
We we’re recently asked by a local authority to tender for a contract to support the local community to play a greater role in the design and delivery of services in the area. With the current policy climate and new opportunities emerging through the Localism Act, we’re starting to see more of this sort of thing and you might expect this to be good news for organisations like Urban Forum. -
Unions reject 'ill-judged' single-table pay negotiation proposals
Unions have again rebuffed attempts to reform the national pay bargaining system and have branded the moves “ill judged”.
