Councillors, officers and members of the public took part in an informal poll over the last week in a bid to establish which digital communication channels are the most effective during special and specific situations e.g. school and road closures due to snow. The exact question was; It’s November and the weather is miserable. Icy…
As part of LGiU’s investigation into how councils publish public notices we are collecting case studies from councils who are experimenting with innovative ideas within the current legal requirements. Here is a guest post from Buckinghamshire County Council.
Roy Greenslade reports today the plans of David Montgomery to create Local World, a company that “will effect a consolidation of regional newspapers”. Here are some key bits: “As a consistent cold-blooded cost-cutter, he has plenty of experience in making cuts” “The next step for large newspaper groups struggling to maintain profitability is an extensive…
David Laws MP began with a challenge for local government: that “the previous model of schools under local authority control has not always been a success. This is tied too often to low aspirations amongst council officers and politicians.” However, he went on to recognise that 24,000 schools cannot be run from Whitehall and that local…
I want a vibrant, investigative local press. One that will, with strength, scrutinise local institutions. But how can newspapers do this when they are bound by a backdoor subsidy to the very organisations they seek to hold to account?
Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities, seems to love transparency.
As part of their Democracy Week, the Guardian’s Local Government Network asked me to write about how social media can and is impacting on local democracy. Below is a copy of their edited version. In this year’s local elections only one eligible voter in three participated. This was the worst turnout since 2000. Look into…
The first part of the August MORI poll was released yesterday and focused on public reaction the the Olympics. It asked who ‘deserves the most credit for the Olympics games being a success?‘ The athletes, unsurprisingly, come out on top with 66%, followed by the Games makers/volunteers (58%), Lord Coe and LOCOG (55%) and the…
Since August 2010 the Department for Communities and Local Government has been publishing details of all goods and services spent over £500 – matching a demand it made of councils in June of that year. Now it appears Eland House is upping the ante. A press release came out today announcing the department is opening…
Cash-strapped local government has been eyeing the Community Infrastructure Levy with considerable interest. Put simply, CIL will allow local authorities to impose a levy on developers to fund infrastructure projects around the local area. It is an additional revenue stream to Section 106. One of the main attractions of CIL is that, unlike Section 106, the infrastructure…