The Liberal Democrat leader of Liverpool City Council has dismissed the North West Development Agency as another ?money-wasting bureaucracy?. Speaking at a fringe meeting at the party’s Bournemouth conference, Warren Bradley backed party plans to axe all regional development agencies to save 2.3 billion a year.
Value-for-money’ quangos like the Audit Commission and the National Audit Office should be scrapped and replaced by a single body which just measures public service performance, a report says today.
Council chiefs are working up plans for a bespoke multi-billion-pound fund for councils to pool their cash and get better returns on investments. The Local Government Association is in talks with city fund managers to set a council specific money market fund in which councils could invest some of their estimated £30bn worth of short term cash.
Bromsgrove DC and Redditch BC have agreed to create a shared management team led by Kevin Dicks and move to shared services. This comes a year after Mr Dicks, Bromsgrove’s chief since 2006, also took on the acting chief’s role at Redditch.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw has spoken out against some councils plans to delay election counts until the following morning, but conceded that he has no authority to block the proposals.
One in four people mistakenly believes the Government will pay for all of their care in old age, according to a Department of Health survey. In addition, half of those questioned underestimated the true cost of moving into a care home in their twilight years by as much as £20,000.
Today presenter Justin Webb visits Leicester, where the Total Place pilot scheme is giving local authorities the chance to take over the delivery of services.
The latest official figures on pollution show that carbon dioxide emissions have fallen in more than three-quarters of local authorities. The Department of Energy and Climate Change report covers the period from 2005 to 2007.
Today presenter Justin Webb visits Leicester, where the Total Place pilot scheme is giving local authorities the chance to take over the delivery of services.
A 15-year decline in demand for care home places has come to an end ahead of a predicted surge, according to a new report on the UK independent care home industry.