Category: Blog
Scrutinising the floods
December saw some of the worst floods ever recorded in the north of England. For the first time, a major city, York, was seriously inundated. Images of floods seem to have now become a grim tradition at this time of year – floodwater cascading over breached defences, disintegrating bridges over swollen rivers, cars […]
Looking bright for 2016
The first working day of 2016 seems like a perfect time to launch a new look for CfGS. New Year, new look and a refreshed passion to achieve our vision of excellence in governance and scrutiny leading to better public services. Much is often made of new logos and many thousands have been […]
There’s a scrutiny category of the MJ Awards 2016!
It’s an exciting time for us here at CfGS. Not just because we’ve opened our secret Santa presents, but because we’re moving our recognition of good scrutiny on to the national stage through our sponsorship of the ‘Excellence in governance and scrutiny’ category as part of next year’s Municipal Journal Achievement Awards. We […]
English devolution: how we’re planning to help
Devolution is gathering pace in England. True, I could have started a blog with that line at any point in the last eighteen months, but this time (despite some wobbles) it really is happening. Deals have been done (and are being done, and will continue to be done) – but now minds must turn to what the […]
Winter pressures and scrutiny
It’s that time of year. The clocks have changed, the days are getting shorter, traditional Christmas music enhances our shopping experience… Soon we can expect to start hearing about ‘leaves on the line’ or ‘the wrong kind of snow’ or other circumstances that tend to annually disrupt our lives and which, on the […]
Some thoughts on transparency and freedom of information
Over the summer the Government announced plans to set up a Commission to review the freedom of information regime. This could have been an opportunity for celebration. An update of the Freedom of Information Act to take account of the increased prevalence of technology in the storage and management of information would be […]
What should the relationship be between schools and councillors?
Schools are at the heart of our communities yet the distance between the head teacher’s office and the town hall seems further apart than ever. How well do ward councillors really know the schools in their patch? I have been asking this question over the last eighteen months and more often than not the […]
Reflecting on #localgovcamp and the Local Democracy Maker Day
Last Friday I was a local democracy maker. The Local Democracy Maker Day is a fringe event held the day before the ever popular, and never-not-unhashtagged #localgovcamp (which is a sort of self-assembly conference and meetup for local government types). The purpose of the maker day is to chew over some big challenges […]
Launching our campaign on devolution
“Getting the governance right” for devolution isn’t about bureaucracy, or a sideshow distracting us from the real prize of more power for combined authorities. Good governance is in fact central to making those arrangements work. The next nine months will see us playing an active part in providing support to combined authorities in […]