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What do the party manifestos mean for local government?
What do all the party’s election manifestos say for local government? We’ve picked out all the relevant issues in the posts below: what does Labours manifesto mean for local...
By NLGN
7th June, 2017
Manifesto Insight: What Labour offers local government
At this General Election, local government is at crossroads, with the two main parties offering very different directions for the future of councils and the communities they serve. The...
By Cllr Richard Watts
6th June, 2017
Manifesto Insight: Conservatives are right to elevate the issue of social care
The Prime Minister is right in elevating social care to one of this election’s defining issues – reflecting the very need for radical change that many of us have...
By Cllr Paul Carter, Leader, Kent County Council
5th June, 2017
THE KEY TO BUILDING STRONG WORKING PARTNERSHIPS? FIRM FOUNDATIONS
What’s clear from this report is that there is an appetite in the worlds of both health and social care for greater integration to deliver a more joined-up care...
By Simon Goacher, Partner and Head of Local Government, Weightmans
31st May, 2017
Communicating devolution: A guide to keeping it simple
The local elections earlier this month saw several city regions elect first time Metro Mayors. The turnout in places like Manchester (29%), where Andy Burnham was elected, was pretty...
By David Evans, Director, The Campaign Company
30th May, 2017
What does UKIP’s Manifesto Mean for Local Government?
UKIP support has grown out of local opposition to the effects of a globalised economy, channelled through its anti-EU stance. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, following the public vote to Brexit...
By Abigail Gilbert, Researcher, NLGN
30th May, 2017
The Cooperative Party Manifesto: What it Means for Local Government
Like the Green or Women’s Equality Parties, the Cooperative Party Manifesto was written with an explicit desire for its policies to be adopted by another party. But unlike them,...
By Abigail Gilbert, Researcher, NLGN
24th May, 2017
What does the Green Party manifesto mean for councils?
The likelihood of this manifesto being enacted is probably about the same as aliens invading Britain the same day you’re struck by lightning and win the lottery jackpot. As...
By Shahnaz Yasmin, Events Officer
22nd May, 2017
Finance • Local government finance • Politics • Public Services
Devolution is now at the mercy of the bureaucrats
After months of worry, devolution’s loved ones finally got some news from Dr May. The patient, it turns out, isn’t terminal, but sadly there will be no return to...
By Adam Lent, director, New Local Government Network
21st May, 2017
The Tory social care policy is a stinker, but what else is on offer?
First the good news. We’re having a vibrant debate about social care funding slap bang in the middle of an election campaign. Now the bad news: the policy that...
By Adam Lent, Director, NLGN
19th May, 2017
What does the Conservative Manifesto mean for Councils?
Manifestos are always launched with a certain amount of excitement, but none more so than the Conservative Manifesto this morning. While the Lib Dem’s manifesto explicitly positioned them as...
By Claire Mansfield, Head of Research, NLGN
18th May, 2017
What does the Labour Manifesto mean for Councils?
I was planning for this to be a blog about the implications of Labour’s freshly leaked manifesto for local government. As it turns out this is a very difficult...
By Adam Lent, Director, NLGN
17th May, 2017
What does the Liberal Democrats Manifesto mean for Councils?
Reading the Labour manifesto was a bit like watching a magician determined to show you every trick they have ever learned as quickly as possible moving from disappearing an...
By Adam Lent, Director, NLGN
17th May, 2017
NLGN thoughts on the Women’s Equality Party manifesto
The Women’s Equality Party manifesto was published late on Friday, and unlike other party manifestos, has been expressly drafted with the intention for other parties to adopt its policies....
By Claire Porter, Head of External Affairs
16th May, 2017
May must come clean on social care
The issues crying out for solutions in this election remain woefully unaddressed. For years the UK has struggled with a rapidly ageing population, an unbalanced economy and a mess...
By Adam Lent, Director, NLGN
16th May, 2017
We need flexible, adaptive services that meet complex needs
The links between problems like homelessness, substance misuse, mental ill health, violence,domestic abuse and extreme poverty often go unrecognised by services and systems mostly designed to deal with one...
By Claire Mansfield, Head of Research
10th May, 2017
The new mayors will need to collaborate to have impact
After years in the offing, the election of the first wave of new metro-mayors means this once theoretical tier of governance has now become a group of six actual...
By Jessica Studdert, Deputy Director
5th May, 2017
NLGN’s manifesto for localising GE17: Fiscal devolution
We need to talk about fiscal devolution. Fiscal devolution is an issue that national politicians won’t touch even with someone else’s bargepole. So scared are they of the electorate...
By Jessica Studdert, Deputy Director, NLGN
28th April, 2017
Devolution • Devolution and reorganisation • Finance • Local government finance
The Three futures for Local Government
Since Theresa May took over as Prime Minister, local councils have increasingly understood that their future now resides in their own hands. The devolution agenda, once driven by the...
By Adam Lent, Director, NLGN
24th April, 2017
Finance • Local government finance • Politics • Public Services
Brexit, GE17 and Beyond Top down Economic Regeneration: ‘that growth was never for me anyway’
Yesterday NLGN hosted a roundtable with senior local government executives and a handful of academics to discuss ‘place based policy’ after Brexit. The starting point of the discussion was...
By Abigail Gilbert, Researcher, NLGN
21st April, 2017
NLGN’s Manifesto for localising GE17: Devolution
One entirely unforeseen consequence of last year’s referendum was the brakes being put on the devolution locomotive. Despite Government protestations to the contrary, May and Hammond have shown little...
By Adam Lent, Director, NLGN
19th April, 2017
Devolution • Devolution and reorganisation • Political Systems
NLGN’s Manifesto for localising GE17: Public Services
Like it or not this will be the Brexit Election: a strange sort of quasi-referendum on the decision made in a previous referendum and everything that has happened since....
By Adam Lent, Director, NLGN
18th April, 2017
Devolution • Devolution and reorganisation • Political Systems
International Lessons for Place-based Health
NLGN’s recent Place-based Health conference brought together many experts in local and national healthcare to discuss the need to move away from reactive health services, towards holistic, place-based systems...
By Sam Shorto, Former Events & External Affairs Assistant, NLGN
6th April, 2017
Making Brexit Work Locally
The letter has been sent. The deed is done. But today is really just the beginning. Whether you are watching today’s events begrudging, jubilantly, with denial, or even boredom...
By Xilonem Clarke and Claire Mansfield
29th March, 2017
Creating ‘place’ in seven steps
In recent years, the word ‘place’ has become a bit of a buzzword in the local government sector. Terms like ‘place-leadership’, ‘place-branding’ and ‘place-building’ are now ubiquitous in strategy...
By David Evans, Director and Daniel Jackson, Head of Research, The Campaign Company
27th March, 2017
New developments are strong, resilient communities – not just a collection of buildings
At Essex County Council we are passionate about making a positive contribution to the lives of Essex residents and businesses. It is what we exist for. The qualities of...
By Cllr David Finch
23rd March, 2017
Collaboration – the way forward to deliver Tomorrow’s Places
Local government faces a funding gap of £5.8 billion by 2019/20. At the launch of NLGN’s latest research report Tomorrow’s Places, Theo Blackwell, Councillor at LB Camden, stated “Technology...
By Robert Cunliffe, Sales and Marketing Director - Cities & Communities, ENGIE
22nd March, 2017
Stop partnering, start doing
Most councils indulge in partnerships, but how many actually achieve what they were set up to do? As a county council, our oldest partnership is with our unitary city...
By Ian Parry, Deputy Leader, Staffordshire Council
16th March, 2017
trust, politics and social care in an age of fake news
I know someone who’s renowned for his scepticism. The only problem is, he’s now so sceptical that he doesn’t feel able to trust anything. People who post videos on...
By Alex Fox OBE
15th March, 2017
Achieving gender equality ‘is not the responsibility of women alone’
“Too many areas of policy covered by local government are male dominated – infrastructure, highways, planning… the most important thing is to put women in positions of responsibility in...
By Claire Porter, The Planner
14th March, 2017
“Cities are designed by men, for men”: why local government needs more female leadership
Cities are largely designed by men, and for men. There is nothing unusual in this – we instinctively design, plan and make policy that reflects our own experiences and...
By Claire Porter, Citymetric
10th March, 2017
Budget reaction: Short term fixes or long term solutions?
The Chancellor’s first Budget, and the first following the UK’s decision to leave the EU, needed to shore up the domestic economy, particularly against structural challenges of weak productivity...
By Jessica Studdert, Deputy Director
8th March, 2017
Finance • Local government finance • Policy • Politics • Public Services
We must maintain pressure for gender equality
It is true that instead of being a hierarchical old boys’ club in the same way as many industries, local government has become significantly more open and approachable, reducing...
By Claire Porter, LGC
8th March, 2017
Robots may not be ready to run a council, but they’re already helping
Disruptive, cognitive technology will be a major driver of change in our economy over the next decade, as Artificial Intelligence becomes more accessible to UK organisations, very quickly. This...
By John Wybrant, Key Account Director, Public Sector, at business process outsourcing partner Arvato
28th February, 2017
This complacent Financial Settlement for Local Government comes with huge ethical and political risks.
Yesterday’s NLGN Annual Conference came with a painful sting in the tail. The day was dominated by talk of creativity and collaboration – bursting with ideas about how technology,...
By Adam Lent, Director, NLGN
22nd February, 2017
Budgeting • Finance • Local government finance • Public Services
Losing Political Office
What happens to council leaders after they leave their leadership role? How do they adjust? Do they stay in politics? What employment do they find? I suspect that you...
By Jane Roberts, Palgrave Macmillan
10th February, 2017
Leadership is still missing to implement housing change
If solving the housing crisis was a simple case of fixing legislation or introducing incentives for builders, the housing crisis would have been fixed ages ago, or never reached...
By Claire Porter, in 24 Housing
10th February, 2017
Bridging gaps in Hepatitis C awareness and diagnosis
If ever there was an area of healthcare where place-based care could have a major impact on local public health gains it is the identification and treatment of hepatitis...
By Sarah Keidel, HCV Medical Manager, AbbVie UK
9th February, 2017
We need politicians to be really honest with people: on the gaps in the housing white paper
This was not a housing white paper that would see the chancellor in a hard hat being gleefully greeted by a happy major house builder. The narrative is markedly...
By Claire Porter, Head of External Affairs, Adam Lent, Director, New Local Government Network
8th February, 2017
the case for place: making health and care reform a reality
England’s health and social care crisis is not only financial – it is a challenge to politics and society too. It represents a crisis of confidence about doing what...
By Dr Henry Kippin, Chief Executive, Collaborate and Jessica Studdert, Deputy Director, NLGN
2nd February, 2017
Creative, courageous and innovative – the council workforce of tomorrow
Councils are changing. Prompted by the funding cuts of the last decade, they have had to transform. No longer just seen as service deliverers, they are becoming collaborators, place...
By Lucy Terry, Senior Researcher and Claire Mansfield, Head of Research, NLGN
1st February, 2017
A more collaborative immigration policy?
For many years national politicians have avoided the question of ‘British Identity’ as connected to a set of values or principles. Instead, ‘we’ have known ourselves through economic terms,...
By Abigail Gilbert, Researcher, NLGN
1st February, 2017
Homelessness: prevention is better than cure
Homelessness receives a lot of media and policy attention this time of year, as the effects of sleeping rough are all too apparent. As it gets colder, and floods...
By Lucy Terry, Senior Researcher
25th January, 2017
Post-Brexit Britain: we need bespoke and locally-made policy responses
Local government officials and to a degree local politicians are often praised for their realism. For example, in the light of sustained spending cuts local government since 2010 local...
By Professor Gerry Stoker, University of Southampton
24th January, 2017
The government’s new industrial strategy needs to create a cultural transformation, as much as an economic one
It’s a chilly January day, and the government has just broken with its previous laissez-faire approach and announced a bold, interventionist plan to boost the UK’s economy at a...
By Adam Lent, Director, NLGN
24th January, 2017
Developing a creed to lead
Councils are changing. No longer just seen as service deliverers, they are collaborators and place leaders, commissioning councils, commercial councils and co-operative councils. But while the purpose and priorities...
By Claire Mansfield, Head of Research
18th January, 2017
Undivided attention? A guide to devolution and why it matters.
English devolution is back in the spotlight. As the Government prepares to publish a White Paper to set out its “offer for enhanced devolution across England”, we at NLGN...
1st January, 1970
Councils and COVID-19: The Response – Edition #3
Local authorities are indispensable in our current crisis and are therefore under enormous pressure. They manage the public services that people are increasingly reliant on, support the most vulnerable...
1st January, 1970