My internship experience with the New Local Government Network was a fantastic experience. Nerves are always tense on the first day of a new work experience. This was especially true in my case. As an American university student, I had quite limited exposure to British government structure and practice, and even less when local governance was concerned. The team at NLGN were exceptionally friendly and worked to ensure that I not only stayed busy, but got a real chance to learn more about the institutions of British local government and the forces that help to shape such institutions and effect future change within them.

As a research assistant at NLGN, the work I did varied from day-to-day. For the most part, the tasks were all administrative or research related. Tasks basically included assisting the policy and research teams in any way that they needed. This included anything from completing smaller, more specialized research-related tasks to writing larger policy briefs. The work I did covered a wide variety of topics – I offered briefs on such topics as: the current state of government community regeneration and renewal programs; the Barker Review of Land Use Planning; the Comprehensive Performance Assessment and the new government departmental capability reviews; and, the National Health Service. Working with such a variety of topics that offered me wide exposure to the current and future successes and problems of British local governance, allowed me to gain a better understanding of the body of work undertaken by NLGN. The team at NLGN was great in terms of making sure that I had projects to work on. I spent very little time in between projects. In addition to the tasks around the office, I also had the opportunity to attend a couple of local government conferences (on City-Regions and Local Strategic Partnerships) as well as NLGN publication launches. These events gave me a fine opportunity to apply my work in a context wider than that of the office at NLGN.

Above all else, it was the people at NLGN that made my experience most memorable. The team was extremely friendly and helpful from the moment I arrived. The office is small and I had a chance to work with each staff member on a number of projects. Not only was everyone keen on keeping me busy and working on valuable projects, they were extremely helpful in providing me with feedback on any of my completed projects. It was a pleasure working with each member of the team. Dick, Chris, and James were amiable and effective leaders, and the other members of the team were so gracious that it was hard for me to leave. I truly value the time that I spent with NLGN and hope to keep in touch in the future.

Matthew Givens
Yale University, 2008
Summer Intern, 2006