NLGN have published a report that revealed London’s boroughs could build a new generation of council houses, avoid disrupting the lives of poorer citizens and save money for the Exchequer in the process. This could allow them to build 9500 new homes for London and save £56m in the process. The costs of housing benefit [...]

NLGN has launched Delivering Distinctiveness a new essay collection edited by Daniel Goodwin, Chief Executive of St Albans City and District Council. The publication explores the future for district authorities and scopes out the potential challenges they might face. The collection is an uncompromising analysis of where the District Councils’ are currently and crafts a [...]

Councils could save vital school and highway projects by looking to a new market in municipal bonds, according to research from localism think tank NLGN. The new Capital Futures report, released today, shows that bond issuances could in some circumstances prove the cheapest option for local authorities trying to promote growth in their areas. Local [...]

The new NLGN report, jointly commissioned by the ALDS Forum and the LDC, Commissioning Care in the 21st Century, argues that the only way to ensure that personalised services are affordable is to accelerate radical moves towards a new form of outcome-based commissioning. The report warns that without these reforms, social care in England risks [...]

The Devil in the Detail: Designing the right incentives for local economic growth, a new white paper issued this week by NLGN, presents a timely response to the recent government consultation on business rates reform. While acknowledging the Government must strike a careful balance between equity and efficiency, the report strongly recommends ensuring the system [...]

Wednesday 26th October 2011 New rates system must avoid central raid on council resources, think tank warns Localism think tank NLGN today welcomed the principle of allowing councils to keep more of their local business rate growth, but warned that the government’s current proposals could create an overly complex system of tariffs and transfers while [...]

NLGN today calls for radical reform of council services including transport, waste and libraries, as new analysis reveals that the cost of issuing a book can be so high that in some cases it might be cheaper to buy each borrower a new copy. As citizen demands change and cuts start to bite, NLGN’s research [...]

Local Government Minister Bob Neill MP, writing in a new essay collection from NLGN, states that government will be looking to local leaders to help deliver its decentralisation agenda. The publication, entitled The Next Question: The future of local leadership, includes a cross party collection of local government leaders who each contribute their thoughts on [...]