Westminster City Council has launched a community governance review to look at the potential for establishing new parish councils and other additional forms of elected representation in the borough.
Planning is a Krakatoa policy. For years it lies dormant with only the barest murmur on the political seismograph, and then it erupts. And this summer it has certainly erupted – it cannot have escaped the attention of even the most cursory of newspaper readers that planning has been…
Ministers have ditched a key proposal in the Localism Bill that would have enabled local people to trigger non-binding referendums on any issue.
Speaking in the House of Lords earlier this month, junior communities minister Baroness Hanham conceded that there was ?barely a friendly voice? for provisions contained within the Localism Bill to hand local people the power to ?instigate referendums on any issue?.
As one of two groups (the other being a neighbourhood forum) able to develop a neighbourhood plan, parish councils will have a vital role to play once the Localism Bill is enacted.
Francis Maude has vowed departments would try to create development opportunities boosting local growth when vacating offices in regional city centres.
Outlining central government’s property strategy today, the Minister for the Cabinet Office said cost-cutting efforts to consolidate the civil estate would have to go further in metropolitan areas like Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle.
Localis today submitted their response to the governments consultation on business rates reform. In it, the local government think-tank outlined its proposed model for a new system of National Non-Domestic Rates which, the response argues, can form a vital cog in any growth strategy for the coming years driving improved economic performance from the bottom up.
We at Localis have long been active in arguing for a new system of National Non-Domestic Rates, and are delighted to be feeding into this consultation. A reformed NNDR, we believe, can form a vital cog in any growth strategy for the coming years driving improved economic performance…
The Big Society means different things to different people. Many stress its civic activism, others the ‘nudges’ the Government may have to make to facilitate its successful execution while some have concentrated on how it will play out in times of constrained financial circumstance.
Government proposals to allow councils to retain local business rates could mean that as much as £3.5bn of local authority-collected cash is retained by the Treasury. Finance chiefs at the LGA now understand that the so-called set aside element of the governments proposals – designed to ensure local government stays within its spending limits – could have grown by some 75% on initial assumptions.
A vast majority of councils in England and Wales are looking at the strategic commissioning approach – its not just outsourcing – but an opportunity to support the third sector and cooperatives.