This briefing discusses recent reforms to local strategic planning and the preparation of new Local Housing Strategies by local governments in New South Wales. These are part of efforts to introduce improved local strategic land use planning aligned with longer-term regional and district strategic plans.
The following briefing provides an overview of current conditions in Ireland and the phases which hopefully will see Ireland move towards some sort of normality, whatever that will mean, for the foreseeable future.
People who are homeless, or threatened with losing their home, are receiving more help due to the Homelessness Reduction Act. We mark two years of the act by looking at a range of data, including findings by two homelessness charities, to assess what has been achieved since 2018.
This briefing follows a previous LGIU report into local government in Belgium that analysed the levels of decentralisation in the country’s political infrastructure. This report will consider the recent history of citizen’s assemblies across Europe, developments within Belgium, and considerations towards future use.
This briefing provides an overview of a number of current opportunities for local authorities to secure funding to support local transport services, including new funding for electric buses and on-demand services.
International studies show a global decline in democracy since 2006. The current spread of ‘states of emergency’ in democratic and non-democratic countries runs a risk of eroding civil liberties even far beyond the end of the crisis. The pandemic is triggering discussions about permanent surveillance measures, the recentralisation of policies, and exceptional rules – even…
Recognising that local government’s engagement with older people extends far beyond aged care and accommodation, this briefing provides examples of a number of different ways in which local governments engage with older people.
After pilot studies, the UK Government is planning to make voting conditional on the production of photographic identification at polling stations in UK parliamentary elections and in local elections in England. We review and comment on the issues raised by reports on the pilots. The briefing was written before Covid-19.
There were over 4,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes in England in the two weeks up to 28 April. This briefing looks at the state of the social care sector pre-Covid, the impact that the virus has had on care homes and domiciliary care and what lessons need learning.
The external auditors to the 31 Irish local authorities are known as the Local Government Audit Service, whose functions include producing Annual Financial Statements and undertaking Value for Money Audits. This briefing examines some of the key findings of the VFM report produced by the LGAS in December 2018.