There are 144 item(s) tagged with the keyword "Apse".
Spoke today at the Supply Conference North West on how the public and private sectors can work together better. It was mainly a private sector audience of suppliers to local government.
After putting the economic context facing public services at present I went on to talk about the interdependency of the public and private sectors upon each other in local economies. I have explained our economic footprint research and the £1.64 concept on this blog many times before.
I have got to say that I was as surprised as anyone at the announcement of the closing down of the Audit Commission at the weekend. Don’t get me wrong, the Government in general and Communities Minister Eric Pickles in particular had made no secret of their dislike for the organisation and I did expect its role to be slimmed down considerably in coming months.
When Chancellor George Osborne delivered his budget to the House of Commons he openly stated that it was the beginning of an attempt to fundamentally rebalance the shape of the UK economy by reducing the role of the public sector in order to stimulate private endeavour. He then went on to outline a series of measures that the Institute for Fiscal Studies described as the most severe and sustained cuts to public services since the Second World War.
The Coalition government is formed; the ministerial team are in place and the age old political strategy of blaming the previous incumbents for the finances being worse than initially thought ‘now we have actually seen the books’, has been deployed. So what does this mean for local government? Sadly, budget cuts on a major scale.
The Coalition government is formed; the ministerial team are in place and the age old political strategy of blaming the previous incumbents for the finances being worse than initially thought ‘now we have actually seen the books’, has been deployed. So what does this mean for local government? Sadly, budget cuts on a major scale.
With many other articles focusing negatively on the financial challenges local government faces after the General Election, I believe it’s important to also look to where opportunities may arise for the sector.
I could probably have written pages about what APSE wants from an incoming Government, however today someone asked me to do so in 100 words and I gave the following comment:
Spoke today at the Defend Council Housing conference London, ‘A manifesto for council housing.’ My talk was promoting two pieces of research APSE have recently completed the first a joint publication with ARCH, on the holistic benefits of retained council housing, ‘Under one roof'; and the second about the work UNISON commissioned from APSE on ‘A new generation of council housing'.
Spoke today at the City and Financial seminar in London on the topic of ‘Grasping the scale of the medium to long term challenge facing local government.’
APSE’s annual Highways and Street Lighting seminar took place over the last couple of days at Newcastle Marriot. The seminar incorporated ‘The Great Salt Debate’ which was a chance to look back at the problems with winter gritting this year from all perspectives. A debate between local authorities, grit suppliers and national agencies teased out some of the main issues that hindered services this winter and hopefully lessons have been learned that can be acted upon in order to avoid a repeat in future winters.