Member policy briefings- Gypsies and Travellers: two new government reports
- DfE – Statutory Guidance for Schools and Local Authorities on Careers Guidance and consultation on extending the age range
- SOLACE Filling the gap: the Championing Role of English Councils in Education
- Update on Healthwatch
- Guidance on Exclusions from maintained schools, Academies and PRUs in England
- LGiU weekly policy summary – 11 May
- The future of mayoral governance and implications for city leadership
- Local measures to promote walking and cycling
Tag Archives: conservatives
Conservative local government and localism proposals
The all time most popular post on this blog was this one on the Conservative’s localism green paper where we summarised Conservative policies. The LGiU has welcomed the commitment to localism but we have been pushing hard for a wider perspective on what real localism is. Our papers on primary justice – localising the criminal justice system, [...]
Tags: conservatives, criminal justice, elderly people, localism, policing |
Local elections – ones to watch – councils most likely to change control
As promised in my recent post detailing all the councils with elections on May 6th, these are my predictions of the 20 councils that are most likely to change political control, based on marginality of current control, and factoring in the current national (and therefore unreliable!) opinion polls, with any other local indicators. As ever, we [...]
Tags: conservatives, Councillors, councils, democracy |
The awesome Westminster Council
Cllr Colin Barrow, Leader of Westminster City Council invited me to an interesting event this morning. A gathering of mainly Westminster public service and community leaders, with a few outsiders like me, including Caroline Spelman. Colin did a speech and q&a about Westminster’s future plans. It was exciting to hear about plans for the iconic parts of the Borough [...]
Tags: conservatives, education, Innovation |
Unitary councils for Exeter and Norwich
The government has announced today that plans will proceed for new Unitary councils for Exeter and Norwich. The Ipswich/Suffolk question will be subject to further review. Champagne corks will be popping in Exeter and Norwich town halls, whilst the lawyers and politicians will be preparing the resistance at the County Hall in Norfolk and Devon. What [...]
Tags: conservatives, John Denham, unitaries |
Labour changes Leader: where next for LGA Labour
UPDATE on 2nd March: Dave Sparks has been elected. Original post below Talk of a Labour leadership contest, with all the backbiting, plots, and attempted coups, centres on a position that is not, at present, vacant. But while Gordon Brown stands firm, a vacancy has arisen for the position of Labour’s leader in local government. Jeremy Beecham is [...]
Tags: conservatives, Councillors, Labour, LGA |
Democratise the House of Lords
A list of names of potential Tory peers is floating around the web today following a story on the PR Week website. If the Conservatives win the next election, or perhaps even more significantly (in terms of the Lords role) in the event of a hung parliament in which the Conservatives are the largest party, David Cameron [...]
Tags: conservatives, Councillors, David Cameron, democracy, House of Lords, localism |
Local Democracy Bill passed
After a marathon third reading debate in the Commons yesterday the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill was passed. It now goes briefly back to the House of Lords, which should be a formality, and is due to receive Royal Assent before the end of the month. The Bill includes the new duty [...]
Tags: communities, conservatives, councils, democracy |
Conservatives, Lawyers, LAML and the Power of General Competence
In the recent LAML judgement the Courts ruled that the local authorities who had set up a mutual insurance scheme did not have the legal powers to do so. There were various aspects to the judgement, some specific to the case, but some with much wider implications. In particular, the case showed the limitations of the legal [...]
Tags: conservatives, Control Shift, councils, John Denham, LAML, localism, Power of Wellbeing |
Should history teachers be historians
The Conservative education spokesman, Michael Gove, is having a busy recess. He is putting out a press release a day. Today’s story is that only 76% of history teachers are historians. It caught my eye as a history graduate, who studied history at GCSE and A-level, and is often heard bemoaning the general lack of knowledge about history, and [...]
Tags: conservatives, education, michael gove, teachers |
10 Tory Council Leaders to become MPs?
Interesting list over on ConHome of Tory council Leaders likely to become MPs at the next election. Heather Wheeler is also a Director of the LGiU. 1. Bob Blackman (Harrow East; ex-Brent Council leader) 2. Kevin Davis (Yeovil; ex-Kingston Council leader) 3. Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green; Barnet Council leader) 4. Lorraine Fullbrook (South [...]
Tags: conservatives, MPs |
Do Regions Matter?
Our regions conference yesterday went with a fizz. I started the event by proposing ‘five principles for a new debate’: Regional arrangements should be voluntary and locally self defined – not dictated by the EU or by Whitehall Democracy and accountability of regions should be vested in local government, accountable to the people through locally elected [...]
Tags: Bob Neil, conservatives, localism, recession, regions, Rosie Winterton |
Celebrating local government
I dashed from the School Governors conference to the NLGN Annual Reception where John Healey made a great speech showing why we will miss him in the local government brief but also giving encouragement that he will take his commitment to working with us as a central part of his approach to housing, and in [...]
Tags: conservatives, council housing, councils, housing, Innovation |
David Cameron, Conservatives and local democracy
UPDATE: The BBC are now running this story, with video clips of David Cameron’s speech, and quotes from me Over the weekend the Milibands highlighted devolution as part of the way forward from the current political mailaise and it is great to see David Cameron stepping up his commitment to decentralise power, in this article published this [...]
Tags: conservatives, councils, David Cameron, democracy, localism |
Directly elected mayors: where from here?
Controversy surrounds 2 of the 12, soon to be 11 elected mayors – a fair proportion of the overall total – so where do we go from here? Well, the main political parties can’t seem to make their minds up. The Government’s proposals for a new wave of directly elected mayors were left to one [...]
Tags: conservatives, elected Mayors, hazel blears, young mayors |