Comment

Acas and the people's powerhouse

18.02.19: Ahead of her speaking slot at this year’s EvoNorth, Acas chief executive Susan Clews assesses the current climate of workplaces and what matters most to workers, and argues that job quality and business performance go hand-in-hand. Ar...

Bolton and Wigan's strategic ICT partnership: Crossing borders together

18.02.19: Alison Hughes, assistant director of strategic ICT partnership at Bolton & Wigan councils, explains how the two councils are collaboratively facing the challenges of delivering an ICT service. The digital landscape is changing and counc...

Chris Painter: May's failing Brexit project

18.02.19: Chris Painter, professor emeritus at Birmingham City University, examines the reasons why prime minister Theresa May’s approach to Brexit has proved so problematic. A premiership in context There are fascinating parallels between the...

Creating powerful partnerships across the North

18.02.19: Colin Bell, business growth director at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), talks about why partnership across the North is key to achieving economic growth. Partnership is central to the work we do at the North East LEP &nda...

Government accountability: A year in crises

15.01.19: From Windrush to Univerisal Credit: the Institute for Government’s (IfG’s) accountability lead Benoit Guerin discusses how we can avert future government blunders and improve public accountability. This past year was marked by s...

Rethinking public-private partnerships

15.01.19: Trinley Walker, senior policy researcher at the New Local Government Network (NLGN) considers some different ways of approaching the relationships between the public and private sectors. The private sector’s role in the delivery of pu...

Fracking: divest to invest

07.01.19: Deirdre Duff, divestment campaigner at Friends of the Earth, takes a look at local authorities’ role in fracking. The fossil fuel industry has five times more fossil fuels than we can use if we are to prevent climate chaos. Despite th...

Building credit with the public sector

07.01.19: Mark Morrin, localism lead and principal research consultant at ResPublica, makes the case for salary-deducted lending to sit alongside a broader set of savings programmes as a solution to indebtedness. Consumer debt and the cost of financi...

Smart cities: the smart thing to do

07.01.19: Digital technology must play a supportive and secondary role to energy distribution and transport infrastructure priorities if the ‘smart city’ agenda is to power the clean growth and electric vehicle (EV) revolution, writes Localis...

Towns favoured Brexit - but Brexit will not favour them

07.01.19: Professor Duncan Maclennan CBE, professor of public policy at the University of Glasgow, argues we must recognise the entrepreneurial potential of local authorities in the wake of Brexit. More attention needs to be paid to Britain’s t...

People make places: breaking the low-skilled equilibrium

02.01.19: Cities across the country are stuck in a cycle of low-skilled workers with low-paid jobs facing few opportunities to upskill or progress, and the rise of robots and automation with only make matters worse. Elena Magrini, researcher at the Centre...

A healthy state of affairs at Chesire East Council

02.01.19: Mark Palethorpe, acting executive director of people at Cheshire East Council, explains what the Skills for Care graduate management programme could mean for the adult social care workforce. Recruiting into adult social care is a big challe...

Going electric: rolling out an EV charging network

02.01.19: Bridget Rosewell OBE, commissioner at the National Infrastructure Commission, argues that local authorities should be required to prepare for the growing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) with a government-backed roll-out of a fully visible...

The scale of Surrey Heartland's ambition

02.01.19: Director of transformation Sarah Parker and executive director of public health Helen Atkinson discuss the challenges Surrey Heartlands has faced as a partnership, and their role in supporting the whole system in its successful journey towards d...

A fair future for counties

18.12.18: Simon Edwards, director of the County Councils Network (CCN), reflects on the CCN’s conference and looks ahead to the Spending and Fair Funding reviews. In last month’s PSE, I wrote that councils are increasingly delivering &lsq...