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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

15% of high street shops likely to be empty by Christmas Councils urged to offer business rate incentives for new companies Call for more independent shops to stop ‘Ghost Town Britain’ As the number of high street stores closing increases, a think tank is today (Mon) calling for councils to step in and offer local [...]

Reacting to the publication of the Government’s Smarter Government paper, NLGN Director, Chris Leslie welcomed the document as “a trigger for new debate around local public service reform”. He said: “We welcome this paper as a serious and considered effort at refashioning the way our public services operate – and it is especially refreshing to [...]

Independent think tank the New Local Government Network (NLGN) today welcomed comments from Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne MP that a Conservative Government would offer financial incentives to households that recycle more – a recommendation made in an NLGN report in 2007.