Abusing social housing should change from a civil to a criminal offence
50,000 properties estimated to be unlawfully sub-let
Call backed by the Chartered Institute of Housing
Savings of £750m could be made by recovering all unlawfully sub-let properties
Social housing tenants who sub-let their properties should be prosecuted for fraud according to a new NLGN report. Under [...]

The New Local Government Network has welcomed Government backing of its proposals to build more allotments on private land, announced today by Communities Secretary John Denham MP and Environment Secretary Hilary Benn MP.
In September 2009, NLGN called on the Government and local councils to make better use of the estimated 3,500 hectares of unused [...]

With CIPFA predicting a 1.8% average council tax rise and the LGA echoing this prediction with an estimate of 1.6%, it is clear that local authorities are bearing down on council tax levels for financial year 2010/11. But Director of think tank New Local Government Network Chris Leslie argues “this may be in part because [...]

Prime Minister Gordon Brown was quizzed about the consequences for local government of his ‘Alternative Vote’ proposals for Westminster elections as his speech to the ippr.

In his address to the conference yesterday, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Philip Hammond MP warned that councils would have to make radical decisions in order to deliver existing services with less money. He urged local authorities to invest in shared services and new forms of partnership working to deliver greater efficiency savings, saying: [...]

Cities and their surrounding areas could be governed by elected mayors with wide-ranging powers over tax, policing and health according to plans outlined in a new report.
With David Cameron committed to referendums on elected city mayors in 12 English cities should the Conservatives win the election, NLGN argues that a high level suite of powers [...]

Lord Freud, Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions, welcomed NLGN’s latest report, describing it as “the best thing I’ve read on the localism agenda” and a “really interesting piece that deals with really complicated issues in a way that is really quite forward looking”.
He said that “we need to change the way we go about [...]

Local authorities should channel funding to areas of skills training that will most benefit long term employment and economic growth in their locality.
The economic downturn has seen employment in the UK rise to 7.9%, with almost 2.5 million people out of work, just under a million of which are aged between 16-25. In a [...]