Category: Blog
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 […]