Tag: Local Government
Governments who push popular climate policies can be punished at the ballot box by local and vocal minorities
While the majority of the public typically supports environmental policies, if the costs fall on local groups with projects in their backyards, they often resist. In new research that uses Ontario, Canada as a case study, Leah C. Stokes examines how small groups are able to mobilise politically to oppose the location of new wind […]
Failure to take into account existing institutions risks jeopardising the success of new reforms
Oliver D. Meza argues that greater attention needs to be given to existing institutional frameworks when planning reforms. Using Mexico as a case study, he highlights how attempts to improve local democracy through electoral reform have failed because the old institutional hierarchies have not been taken into account. Although well-meaning, the reforms have made decision-making costlier, less expeditious […]
Engagement at the local level should be citizen-led rather than institution-led
Simon Burall of Involve, a think tank specialising in democracy and public engagement, recently authored a new report entitled ‘Room for a View’, which focusses on the idea of UK democracy as a deliberative process. In responding to the piece, Jessica Studdert of the New Local Government Network looks at the potential for heightened engagement […]
Open data at the local level can help to create a new eco-system of openness and activism
In 2010, the Government began pushing for local authorities in England to release information on public spending over a certain threshold – in this case £500. Ben Worthy argues that although reform is needed to maximise the potential of this new and developing area of local authority activity, the signs over the first five years […]
The government should adopt a ‘decentralisation by design’ approach to dispersing power
Decentralisation is much in vogue at present, with effeorts underway to do something about the highly centralised nature of the UK state. Here PwC’s Tina Hallett argues that a ‘decentralisation by design’ approach should be taken to ensure a coherent approach. She argues that will require behavioural change by civil servants, a strong focus on achievable […]
Local politicians take the party affiliation of directly elected mayors into account when forming coalitions
The UK now has a number of Directly Elected Local Authority Mayors, as well as the elected Mayor of London. But the extra layer of governance (and accountability) has implications for coalition formation at the local level. Drawing on research carried out in Germany, Martin Gross and Marc Debus argue that local politicians take the party […]
Sub-regional devolution and the effects of austerity are combining to draw councils further away from communities
The local government sector has come under sustained fiscal pressure following the election of a Conservative-led Government in 2010, and is set for more after the election of a majority Conservative government in 2015. Alison Gardner argues that this, and the introduction of sub-regional levels of governance such as the reforms being rolled out in Greater […]
Unless we change the way we think about transparency, open data is unlikely to have a significant political impact at the local level
Open data and transparency have long been heralded as welcome innovations by policymakers and politicians, and the current Government has made it a priority at both a national and local level. But when it comes to the latter, how effective has it been and how much have citizens made use of it? Mark Frank argues that […]
Local government needs fiscal devolution, more power in the hands of councils and communities and respect from the centre
What does the result of the 2015 General Election result mean for local government? Jonathan Carr-West of the LGiU think tank argues that local government should not be forgotten amidst all of the new announcements, and that the sector needs more power of spending and services, and more respect and space from the still-dominant political […]
The next step for local government should be the right to pass primary legislation
Councillors are currently limited in how much influence they are able to have over their local area, locked in local governance networks in which they feature but don’t control. Assessing these networks and their democratic credentials, Colin Copus concludes that the right to pass primary legislation, over for example the legal drinking age or fox hunting, […]
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