David Cameron has unveiled plans to end the era of “old fashioned” delivery of public services by allowing almost all of them to be opened up to competition from the private and voluntary sector.
This is certainly a government keen to get on
with things but, as befits a prime minister who
made localism a key plank of his election platform,
activity at CLG has been particularly pronounced.
Sir Merrick Cockell (Con) has this week called for a fresh start in relations between the sector and ministers, as the new Local Government Association chairman set out his plans to guide the group through a pivotal period.
DCLG : ‘greater localism’ needed on community budget pilots
23 June 2011 | By Allister Hayman, James Illman
Ministers are set to announce a new push on community budgets amid fears that sluggish progress and lack of Whitehall buy-in could stymie early ambitions.
It is an oft-repeated truism that, in a time of austerity, local authorities must be innovative.
Alex Thomson is chief executive of Localis.
But, in a policy platform, published by Localis this week, a distinguished group of local government experts argue that a golden opportunity in the form of councils trading powers is being, for the most part, overlooked.
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’.
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 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.