Children England, along with many of their member organisations and the TUC have published a new joint agreement on the future of children’s services commissioning.
At this time of the year, I am accustomed to being asked to contribute to a 'look back' over the year just closed. This year, I'd rather look at a jumping-off point for the year we have just entered.
In the wake of the 2012 local elections and other recent developments, we can see that local democracy in England is in a perilous state. Voter apathy shows that. Simon Barrow looks at the issue in its wider context, and suggests that deep change is required that goes well beyond single-fix 'solutions'.
Personality politics, half-baked solutions and populist pretensions by tired political fixers are being used to disguise real, significant problems with local government, says Graeme Smith. He hopes that the shallow rhetoric of ‘people know best’ can suffer a similar fate to that of elected mayors, in favour of renewed democracy and a decent appreciation of expert knowledge in its proper place.
Plaid Cymru are launching their local election campaign with a focus on preserving local services and jobs in the face of cuts from central government.
Two Labour council leaders are supporting calls from the Green Party for the government to “come clean” on their future proposals for local government finance.