This member-exclusive Innovation Explored explores community-powered methods to put residents at the heart of budgeting decisions and how to shift to more open dialogue about what stretched finances mean for services.

13th September, 2024


This member-exclusive Innovation Explored takes a look what a successful social economy could look like and what would be needed to help it thrive.

4th April, 2024


This member-exclusive Innovation Explored looks at how corporate teams can practically build a strong focus on communities into day-to-day operations.

4th April, 2024


This member-exclusive Innovation Explored looks at the kind of leadership skills needed in councils today.

4th April, 2024


This member-exclusive Innovation Explored takes a look at how councils can develop their focus on community wellbeing.

4th April, 2024


This member-exclusive Innovation Explored takes a look at the opportunities emerging from design thinking for local government, and how design-led systems change can improve outcomes locally.

4th March, 2024


Councils are constantly looking for new ways to engage their residents, from citizens’ assemblies to listening sofas. Critical to doing this well is to understand and to tell the story of the relationship between citizen and state. What should...

15th June, 2023






Places need new types of leaders, ones who increasingly collaborate with staff and communities to tackle today’s biggest challenges. This type of leadership is about starting to shift power to put others in the driving seat.

16th January, 2023


Making integration happen is by no means easy. Ambitions are often weighed down by complex restructuring, governance arrangements, and technical challenges around issues such as sharing data.

17th November, 2022


We live in unprecedented times, where we are facing increasing emergencies in our communities. From Covid-19 to the cost-of-living crisis; the answer to solving these issues sits with our residents.

14th November, 2022


Practice needs to shift in the council itself, in the local system and in working with communities to develop a community-focused approach to addressing health inequalities.

18th October, 2022


Risk – and aversion to it – is often thought to be the reason why a given innovation will fail to emerge in the public sector. Councils are strongly incentivised to take risks seriously and to avoid them when possible,...

3rd October, 2022


Local economic change looms for many communities. High streets are transforming as consumer habits shift, working patterns are altering in the wake of the pandemic, and new kinds of local economic collaboration are emerging.

3rd October, 2022


Ideas and reflections on the challenges of: Developing a simple narrative that is owned by partners and communities, not just the council, and reflects the diversity of voices and experiences in the place; Making the narrative meaningful in practice and...

19th May, 2022


Ideas and reflections on embedding a more autonomous and permissive working culture; building greater resilience within the workforce; and creating a culture of co-production with local partners and communities.

2nd March, 2022


Ideas and reflections centred around three main challenges: Engaging the whole community on climate change. Telling an external story connecting local and global environmental issues. Ensuring climate change is a priority across the council.

8th November, 2021


Ideas and reflections centred around three main challenges: building trust with communities; creating an organisational culture that values and enables community deliberation; and ensuring that councils are engaging with and hearing from all their communities.

1st September, 2021


Councils share their lessons learned from partnerships with Europe, Miami-Dade County in Florida, and with a charity in Sierra Leone.

22nd July, 2021


Six key factors to consider when setting up a commission that will help you maximise impact.

22nd June, 2021


Balancing short-term and long-term political and financial pressures with the imperative to respond meaningfully to the climate emergency.

25th May, 2021


Pivoting from the short-term emergency response to Covid-19 towards long-term organic community development.

24th February, 2021


How to build relationships with Whitehall and present persuasive evidence to civil servants.

22nd February, 2021


Avoiding a drift back to old norms and ways of working, addressing exclusion and preserving accountability.

15th February, 2021


New Local partnered with Social Finance for an innovation exchange on establishing a new working relationship with partners.

20th January, 2021


Creating partnerships to maximise impact on jobs, and how to match skills to opportunities.

8th December, 2020


How to create a sense of shared purpose and navigate each partner's different objectives and cultures.

9th November, 2020


How to build a shared agenda and tackle big decisions with elected members.

22nd September, 2020


Experiences of engaging communities - both successes and initiatives that didn't work as well as hoped.

15th June, 2020


How to identify what to measure and get buy-in for assessing impact.

30th April, 2020


Exploring how to manage demand using insights from behavioural science.

13th December, 2019


How to overcome common challenges and think strategically when implementing climate change policy.

4th December, 2019


Insights of changing organisational cultures in councils from chief executives.

29th November, 2019


Exploring the importance of prototyping in developing an innovation.

28th November, 2019


How does the design of the places we live, work and play shape our health and sense of belonging?

29th October, 2019


Looking at data, culture, and other challenges to adopting preventative approaches.

20th September, 2019


A summary of the main ideas and lessons that emerged from the day’s discussions

20th September, 2019


Exploring how councils are working to tackle loneliness.

14th March, 2019



Insight into how to upskill the workforce in your area and building effective partnerships with the business community.

20th January, 2019


Exploring the development of partnerships between local authorities and social investors.

18th December, 2018


Developing deeper relationships with your residents and moving from a transactional relationship to a collaborative one.

20th October, 2018


Exploring the work of local government around local renewable energy generation.

18th October, 2018


Exploring the pros and cons of joint ventures, wholly-owned housing delivery companies and council-led delivery.

29th July, 2018


Implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and using this opportunity to innovate.

20th July, 2018


Starting with problems, not software and focusing on users’ needs to make the most of new digital tools.

20th June, 2018


Exploring how different councils have approached co-production: where users are equally responsible for shaping a service.

29th May, 2018