Future Local: where next for devolution?

Future Local

To say that it has been a turbulent time in politics is a bit of an understatement. It’s perhaps an understatement, too that local government has kept delivering and continues to examine respond to new challenges with competence and consistency.

But that is not enough. The devolution agenda has given local government a renewed appetite for leading broader community aspirations and providing a platform for wider public service innovation.

In a post-Brexit world the future of local government is both more challenging but also potentially more exciting. It can be argued that the Leave vote was partly a desire to give remote powers a kicking – as much in Westminster as Brussels. Perhaps the answer to some of this dissatisfaction is to bring power closer to the people and local government is the best forum we have for both more responsive representation and more participative democracy.

Throughout the summer we published a follow-up to Municipal Futures, a series of essays we published in May 2014. In that publication we looked at the future of local government and called for a more powerful, more responsive, more networked and more devolved local government. We’ve seen some of our agenda realised.

Future Local delved deeper into some of these themes, but also looked at the future of an even more independent local government with clear powers, clear vision and a clear role in driving prosperity and ambition locally. Some of the areas we cover are:

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