It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the world of Local Government, particularly with news on bringing the Localism agenda into reality. Here’s a quick round up of the news, comments and posts on the hot topics that have caught our eye over the last few days.

Open Public Services White Paper

David Cameron launched this long awaited White Paper, aiming to challenge top down government and instead focus on choice, diversity, decentralisation, accountability and fairness in public services.

Tom Gash, Programme Director from the Institute of Government points out “there’s not much that is new in this white paper but it is still a radical agenda. Other governments have tried and failed to remodel public services but this time the stakes are higher. With significant cuts in public spending, if these measures don’t work, the state will not necessarily be in a position to shore up services.”

Want to find out more? This article from the Guardian’s voluntary sector network lists the main points that we should be paying attention to. We also liked We Love Local Government’s take on it all.

Business rate rentention

Last week at the LGA conference Nick Clegg revealed new legislation that will allow local authorities to retain business rates.  This seems to mark a landmark step in moving political and economic weight to local government. To many who believe in the power of local politics (us included!) this could be an exciting time.

But, as Jonathan Carr-West from the LGiU points out “The key question, indeed arguably the only question, is how far you balance greater retention with a degree of redistribution. The measures announced today seek to achieve this through system of tariffs and top-ups. However, the detailed mechanism for this is yet to be announced. So while we can all agree on the desirability of a system that promotes local growth while protecting the revenue of poorer councils, it remains to be seen whether the government’s proposals can really achieve this.”

Cllr Simon Henig also adds some words of caution: “this could be make or break for many councils and the services they provide, widening the gap between north and south and creating two-tier regions – those that can grow and develop, and those that struggle simply to maintain the status quo for their communities.”

City Mayors

Lord Heseltine used his recent appearance before the Communities and Local Government Select Committee to press the case for for directly elected Mayors as being of key importance to localism, with thinktanks labelling the move as possibly “transformative” for the local government landscape.

The Institute of Government however argues the current proposals do not go far enough, and have not looked carefully enough at the relationship between local politicians and their mayors. In the briefing note, ‘Better Mayors‘ they suggest ”that if mayors are to be truly successful, they will need wider powers, and in some cases a wider geographic remit. The broader institutional features of mayoral authorities also need to be more carefully considered. We urge government to examine whether current plans do enough to address potential difficulties relating to: the large number of councillors who may end up working alongside mayors; the limited ability of mayors to draw on external expertise in running his or her administration; and the timing of local council and mayoral referenda and elections.”

Councils sharing networks…

We are seeing some examples of local government beginning to use technology and collaboration to bring about service transformation. It’s great to see plenty of case studies demonstrating strong leadership that recognises where it’s good to work together. Chief Information Officer Sander Kristel cites that truly shared services can only happen through sharing network infrastructure “To provide better services to the public it is necessary for us to work much more closely with others”. Encouraging news at a time when local government must be open to change and partnerships to make the most of it’s resources.

For a daily update on the big stories in #localgov, you should check out the TweetyHall site. As ever, if you’d like to get in touch just pop a comment in below, or send us a tweet over on @TweetyHall.