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There are 7 item(s) tagged with the keyword "Ensuring council".

  • Displaying: 1 - 7 of 7
1. Tough times, tough decisions

Over the past few months, APSE and our academic partners have been looking at what the future role of elected members will be between now and 2020 - and sadly the forecast is for stormy waters. 

Tags: APSE, elected members, Local democracy, ensuring council, austerity
2. Reclaiming local democracy

Taking a long hard look at what 'democracy', 'citizenship' and 'ethics' really mean in local government in the second decade of the 21st Century may seem like a luxury when councils are struggling to empty the bins, house the homeless, care for elderly residents and meet a million other demands with ever fewer resources. But reclaiming the vital connection between the mightiest of principles upon which local government was founded and day to day actions that matter to local people is the best way for local authorities to take control in these difficult times.

Tags: De Montfort, Local democracy, ensuring council, elected members, in-house services
3. Time to sharpen the thinking not the pencil

With the Public Accounts Committee warning central government to sharpen up on procurement and transparency, high profile failures at Serco hitting the headlines and authorities including Liverpool reviewing their private sector partnerships, public service outsourcing seems to have reached a crossroads.

Tags: Outsourcing, procurement, Local government, partnerships, efficiency, ensuring council
4. Power in your hands

Hardly a day goes by of late without headlines about gas and electricity price hikes or political rows over energy policies.

 

Ensuring a sustainable, affordable energy supply is a priority for councils, communities and economies and can be a way of demonstrating real community leadership. As well as needing to cut costs as major energy users, positive action can help tackle fuel poverty and carbon emissions, promote local jobs and investment and ensure a secure power supply for the future. Councils up and down the country - including Stockton-on-Tees, Dudley, Reading, Portsmouth and Southampton to name but a handful – are leading impressive energy initiatives at present.

Tags: energy efficiency, renewable energy, ensuring council, Sustainability, fuel poverty, Local government, municipal energy, Entrepreneurship
5. What will local government look like in 2020?

This article is based on a recent column I did for the MJ magazine.

What will local government look like in 2020? My answer is that it will depend significantly on what elected members and officers want it to look like and the policy choices they make.

Whilst I accept that central government decisions will always have an impact in shaping local government, it is members and officers, in conjunction with the local public, who will decide what the political vision for an area is, what outcomes are pursued to achieve this and how this is implemented through the services the council is responsible for providing and delivering.

Tags: Local government, APSE, ensuring council
By Paul O'Brien
6. Avoiding the road to nowhere

A senior central government figure recently asked me what a transformed council should look like in four or five years’ time. Whilst this is a fairly obvious question to ask, then a fairly obvious answer to give is that it depends on what you want it to look like.

Tags: Ensuring council, APSE, cuts, De Montfort
By Paul O'Brien
7. Creating the ‘Ensuring Council’

In his recent book on the politics of climate change Lord Anthony Giddens called for the creation of an ‘ensuring state’ with the capacity to achieve political and economic convergence across policy sub-systems to tackle what is becoming a global phenomenon. 
 

Tags: APSE, ensuring council, Governance, Neighbourhoods, Service delivery, Service delivery
By Paul O'Brien
  • Displaying: 1 - 7 of 7

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Promoting excellence in public services

APSE (Association for Public Service Excellence) is a not for profit unincorporated association working with over 300 councils throughout the UK. Promoting excellence in public services, APSE is the foremost specialist in local authority frontline services, hosting a network for frontline service providers in areas such as waste and refuse collection, parks and environmental services, cemeteries and crematorium, environmental health, leisure, school meals, cleaning, housing and building maintenance.

 

 

 

 

 

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