Union activists are gearing up to use equalities legislation to fight cash-strapped councils efficiency savings proposals and outsourcing deals. Unison, the trade union used their annual conference to make the claims.
A legally enforceable charter giving local councils powers to prevent unwarranted interference by central government is to be proposed by the communities secretary, John Denham.
Nine years after its last examination of asset management, the Audit Commission finds that few councils are managing strategically their £250 billion of assets.
The Scottish Parliament should be given sweeping new powers to levy income tax in an effort to make it far more accountable to its electors, a major review of devolution concluded yesterday.
Gordon Brown is poised to freeup billions of pounds to tackle Britain’s council house crisis. Now the PM is considering letting councils keep profits from rents and right-to-buy schemes instead of passing them to the Treasury.
Britons who fear having to sell their homes in old age to pay for health treatment could instead pay the Government up to £12,000 for long-term care, under new proposals being considered by ministers.
The first task for Gordon Brown and his new constitutional reform team is to put the ‘local’ back into government. Before Gordon Brown begins his mission to reform parliament and revive our flagging democracy he or, rather, the people around him should get back to basics. From where I’m sitting, democracy, at its purest level, is in crisis because it doesn’t exist.
In a recent letter to colleagues, Bob Neill reasserted the Conservative Party position on unitary local government. Neill was clear that they would not be supporting any further expansion of Unitaries.
Ministers are making it a legal duty for the government, local authorities and other organisations to help to end child poverty across the UK.
The imminent social care green paper will include insurance-based options as well as a minimum level of care support in its proposals, the Kings Fund has predicted