Mark Pack

Labour-run Brent Council has hit the local and regional news for its decision to pay for 27 senior staff and Labour councillors to spend the weekend at a luxury country hotel – where they planned budget cuts. The council is quite right that it is good management practice for senior teams every now and again [...] »

Labour-run Knowsley Council is continuing to pump money in to the Labour Party’s coffers by exhibiting at the party’s conference. The council pays to appear only at the Labour Party’s conferences, ignoring other parties, and is continuing to do so even now that Labour is no longer in government. Back in January 2007 Liberal Democrat [...] »

Today’s Telegraph has a piece looking at the large sums being spent by many councils on new or revamped websites. In itself, an expensive website is not necessarily a poor use of funds as good, popular sites often also save costs (e.g. by reducing the number of phonecalls the council has to handle). As a result, [...] »

The Government has today published details of its plans to reduce the ring-fencing restrictions around how local government can spend money. The timing is rather double-edged; giving more control over their own finances to local councils has long been a Liberal Democrat demand, but there’s no doubt that Eric Pickles will also have been attracted [...] »

Welcome to the third in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here. Traditionally Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have far from seen eye to eye over local government with devolving liberals and centralising conservatives taking fundamentally different approaches. However, this policy area offers a [...] »

Put a backbench MP and a ruling group councillor together and they’ll often tease each other about who really has the more power – with the councillor often coming off the better. “I’ll see your ministerial questions and raise you a £500m budget” and so on. So we certainly shouldn’t forget the other elections on Thursday: All [...] »

From the Evening Standard: The whistleblower who warned that Haringey social services were failing to protect children just six months before the death of Baby P is to stand for election there as a Liberal Democrat councillor. Former social worker Nevres Kemal, above, who will contest the Noel Park ward, said she will try to rid the [...] »

Many congratulations to Carl Minns and his team in Hull on this much deserved acolade: Hull City Council has been crowned the most improved in England, six years after it came bottom in a survey of 150 local authorities. Hull beat four other councils to win the ‘Most Improved Title’ at the Local Government Chronicle awards… Leader of [...] »

Defending your plans for cuts at a local council by comparing your management style with that of Toyota doesn’t really sound the smartest move any more does it? Step forward, David Burbage (Conservative Leader of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead).  »

Last summer we reported that Peter Chegwyn, Lib Dem leader on Gosport Council, had been banned from being a councillor on both Gosport Council and Hampshire County Council for two years in a dispute over a local music festival. However, Peter Chegwyn has taken that Standards Board ruling to the Hight Court and this week won a [...] »