London’s ‘easy council’ Barnet has set up a Big Society Innovation Bank and is inviting residents and not-for-profit community groups to bid for funding local projects.
The Big Society has garnered more than its fair share of headlines over the last couple of years, but what does it mean for local government? In the first of a series of pamphlets, Localis is publishing ‘Barnet’s Big Society’.
The government has admitted it cannot force councils in England to provide weekly bin collections.
Alex Thomson, Chief Executive of Localis, spoke to the BBC’s Politics Show (London) about the reorganisation of London’s boroughs.
Plans are to be drawn up which would see the auditing of councils’ accounts outsourced to the private sector.
There is always something of a pendulum effect in local politics as those in government at Westminster lose seats locally but the recent local election results show it is swinging in a most unusual fashion. Come the morning after the night before, the two halves of the coalition both woke up with sore heads, but for very different reasons.
Councils are to be encouraged to reinstate weekly bin collections with the lure of financial incentives, it was reported over the weekend.
A fresh dispute is emerging over the way business rates should be distributed among councils ahead of the shake-up of the local government finance system.
Opposition ministers have made fresh criticisms of provisions in the Localism Bill after it started its report stage in the House of Commons.
Londons South Bank and Trafford Park in Manchester are among eight areas that will act as pilots for new business-led neighbourhood plans, the government will announce this week.