Analysis

• Fair funding: not without dust the prize

  John Sellgren examines the debate around local government finance and says battle lines will continue to be drawn over the allocation and distribution of fair funding

  

• A clash of cultures?

  Mark Whitehead considers if the local government workplace has suffered due to councils adopting a more market-friendly approach.

  

• Children Today: Securing health that lasts a lifetime

  Renuka Jeyarajah-Dent reports from an event held at the Foundling Museum by Coram together with the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition to celebrate the 350th year of Thomas Coram’s birth.

  

• Keeping children out of care

  Five London boroughs are piloting a new payment-by-results model to help keep children out of care. Brigitte Squire explains more about the scheme.

• Planning and Ecology

  How can local authorities realize the environmental benefits required by new government legislation? Karen Colebourn reports.

  

• Local authority elections - publicity and decision making

  Tiffany Cloynes outlines some of the legal and practical issues relating to publicity and decision making that may affect local authorities at a time of elections.

  

• Incremental pay rises - an endangered species?

  Mark Whitehead explores why the right to an automatic pay rise is disappearing in local government.

  

• New Duty of Candour regulations

  Standardised incident reporting will help Scottish health and social care providers cultivate an open work environment and learn from their mistakes, says Pamela Stevenson.

  

• Enoch was wrong, integration can work – if we get it right locally

  Steve Ballinger explores some of the challenges that local areas face when getting integration right today.

  

• Placing faith in the pilots

  From this month, a second wave of pilots have started 100% rates retention. Neil Amin-Smith and David Phillips from the Institute for Fiscal Studies examine the Government’s claims regarding these pilots.