New SIGOMA chair: ‘We need certainty’ on council funding
Mayor Chris Cooke, new chair of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (SIGOMA), talks to LocalGov about collaborative governance and funding.
Why a national £2 bus fare cap could accelerate bus franchising
23/07/2026 Frank Suttie, Commercial Director at Freeths, examines how PM Andy Burnham's planned £2 national bus fare cap could strengthen the case for bus franchising. |
Why councils should not wait for Westminster to fix social care
22/07/2026 More funding from a new PM won't fix adult social care. Councils need to rethink how they commission care, says Alice Semark, Senior Researcher, Re:State. |
Andy Burnham, make devolution mean devolution!
20/07/2026 As Andy Burnham enters No. 10, Colin Copus argues he should pause local government reorganisation and ask whether Whitehall's shake-up is devolution at all. |
Getting LGR Ready: Fleet lessons from Westmorland and Furness
14/07/2026 Austin Shields, Senior Manager – Fleet Services at Westmorland and Furness Council, shares what he learnt from local government reorganisation in his area. |
The National Year of Reading: Creating New Pathways into Reading
10/07/2026 Rebecca Gediking, Library Services Director for GLL, explains how partnerships between libraries and leisure are creating new pathways into reading. |
Stronger local government starts with fair pay
09/07/2026 UNISON's head of local government on why devolution means nothing without fair pay for council and school staff |
Standards Without Teeth: Why local government's code of conduct is failing
06/07/2026 As the LGA conference kicks off, Kath O'Dwyer, Solace, explains why the standards regime is failing and what a fit-for-purpose system should look like. |
Local government can't deliver without investing in skills
06/07/2026 Local authorities can't deliver the ambitious programmes communities need without properly valuing the people who run them, writes Tessa Neal of APM. |
Devolution and putting place first
29/06/2026 The real lesson of Andy Burnham's Makerfield success, argues Dr Jonathan Carr-West, is that place – not personality – is the key to Britain's future. |
Turning the page on prison libraries
25/06/2026 Emma-Louise McLellan looks at the important – and often life-changing – work GLL has helped facilitiate within prison libraries. |
Fiscal Devolution – has stuff just got real?
25/06/2026 As Andy Burnham prepares to enter Downing Street, Localis' Jonathan Werran asks whether his premiership will unlock tax-raising powers for local government. |
Half a century in the chamber
24/06/2026 Cllr Dr James Walsh was elected to Arun District Council in 1975. Here he tells LocalGov what he's learned about trust, transformation and keeping it local. |
Local Government Reorganisation: What councils must get right
19/06/2026 Elliott Fletcher of Managementors warns that LGR will only deliver its promised savings if councils tackle operational change head-on. |
Business Rates: Finding cost savings through the haze
09/06/2026 Chris Grose of Hartnell Taylor Cook explains how public sector bodies can review their business rates liabilities and find savings in challenging times. |
The little button quietly saving UK councils from a thousand complaint emails
28/05/2026 Councils spend thousands handling complaints, calls and enquiries generated by underperforming web pages. The fix costs a fraction of that. |
The Place Director of the Future
26/05/2026 Katie Stewart, the new president of ADEPT and Executive Director Environment at the City of London Corporation, on the evolving demands of place leadership. |
The Fuel Crisis: Why it’s time to accelerate electrification
21/05/2026 Rising fuel prices and grid challenges are piling pressure on council fleet managers — but the case for accelerating electrification has never been stronger. |
Who do you complain to? The new rules on social housing
20/05/2026 The Renters' Rights Act has extended the LGSCO's jurisdiction to cover non-tenant social housing complaints. The Ombudsman explains what councils need to know. |
New Councils, Old Lessons: What the class of 2026 needs to know
15/05/2026 Colin Copus of De Montfort University reflects on the challenges ahead for new members, officers and the councils they must now run together. |
After the Votes: Why HR and OD are crucial to delivering new political mandates
15/05/2026 PPMA President Sandra Farquharson argues that HR and OD professionals have a pivotal role to play in turning new administrations' promises into outcomes. |
