It may sound pompous...

In his foreword to the NCVO 2015 General Election Manifesto: A bigger difference - realising the potential of voluntary organisations and volunteers - http://www.ncvo.org.uk/images/documents/policy_and_research/ncvo-manifesto-2015.pdf - Sir Stuart Ethe...

Continuous Improvement keynote speaker John Tizard stresses the strong leadership required for organisations seeking to embed innovation and collaboration.

Many modern public policy challenges are complex. Many are long standing, and traditional approaches to address them have failed. Indeed, often no single agency and/or profession can solely address these challenges, especially against a background ofausterity and reduced resources and an unhelpful...

Some areas of public service delivery are simply too sensitive and high-risk to consider as candidates for outsourcing. Child protection is one of them

The government is consulting on a very radical extension of public service outsourcing. It is seriously considering allowing or even possibly encouraging local authorities to outsource significant elements of their children’s services including child protection.

It is also...

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have joined forces with Anthony Collins Solicitors LLP to make the case for using public procurement to address poverty and social mobility; and more importantly to demonstrate how public procurement for services and indeed goods can include wider social objectives in selection criteria.

At a time of increasing poverty, especially in work poverty, long-term youth unemployment...

Social capital matters. It holds communities together. It ensures resilience. It enables communities to support themselves and those members of the community who for whatever reason and, for however long, become in need of support. It is like a wire that runs through communities, providing the human electric current to sustain and, when necessary, resuscitate life.

It may sound pompous...

Political leadership of a local authority is never easy. In this period of austerity and years of unprecedented expenditure cuts, it has surely never been more challenging - or more important.

Local government is a critical part of our democratic governance. Local authorities are political organisations.

They require political leadership not just managerial, professional, technical or administrative –although inevitably the most...

Thirty-three years ago, I was heavily engaged in an election campaign which would lead to my eighteen year career as a county councillor.  Two years previously, I had unsuccessfully sought election simultaneously to Parliament in another part of the country and to the district council in my home village.

As candidates across the country, and from all parties and none,...

Too many local authorities fail to treat the voluntary and community sector with honesty and respect. As a result, councils are losing potential allies and solutions to their problems

It is a tragedy in the making, but for a combination of reasons the relationship between the voluntary and community sector and local government is becoming increasingly strained.

Local authorities are faced...

As a charity trustee and committed supporter of charities and the voluntary and community sector, I am acutely aware that the sector is facing some of its biggest challenges in our lifetimes.

This is ironic at the very time when the development of social capital, and the need for a vibrant civil society and social action have never been greater.

These...