Pacing Lyons: a route map to localism

Local government stands at a crossroad. The Lyons Inquiry into Local Government has the potential to develop radical and emancipating solutions for local governance.

This report seeks to address Lyons’s terms of reference and offers new solutions on local-central relationships and revitalising local democracy. It addresses the future of local governance structures, how it interacts with its citizens and advocates new and innovative ways of funding local government.

The underlying argument of this report is that reform of local governance is not like repairing a machine. It cannot be done piecemeal, fixing one piece at a time. Changing to meet the demands on the local state is like repairing an eco-system. The connections between each part of the system are so dense that failure to address any one area, will undermine and ultimately cancel out progress in all other areas.

Pacing Lyons argues that the whole eco-system of governance in the English state must be reformed. It delivers a list of powerful and compelling recommendations that reform not only local government, but our entire way of functioning with our democratic structures.

Pacing Lyons – Executive Summary (PDF)

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