The current debate on transparency of senior politicians' tax returns is gaining momentum. It is perhaps inevitable that the UK follow the practice in the US and many other countries whereby tax returns of those seeking or holding elected public office...

The Government seems committed to strengthening the role of cities in general, and to devolving more power, resources and even finance to the major cities in particular as part of the new city deal. This is both exciting and welcome, could kick-start a...

How often do we hear the complaint that public services contracted from the business or third sectors don’t pass muster and that the quality is not what was expected or hoped for?

It’s ironic really, given that so often the procuring body and its procurement team will have celebrated their “achievement” of a low contract price for these services.

The reality...

The launch of Big Society Capital and the resultant debate about the potential contribution that social finance can make to developing charities are in danger of creating an unnecessary division between small and larger charities. It's time for some rebalancing of this issue and the debate.

The fact is that many charitable organisations, including local community groups, could benefit from...

Over the last five or more years a great deal of time and money has been devoted to developing commissioning across the public sector. Indeed, there is a risk that it has become an end in itself whilst it should be a means.

For many the terms ‘commissioning’ and ‘procurement’ have been conflated. Sometimes out of ignorance and often because...

When preparing for a recent workshop on the political challenges and options for councillors, I was struck by the image of building models with Lego. Here's what I have in mind.

One of the great attractions of Lego is that it can be transformed into an almost infinite number of models with almost infinite shapes and forms. The fact that...

I wonder if we should not banish the word "transformation" from the public sector lexicon. It seems to be one of those over used and over abused words. All too often in the pursuit of "transformation" its protagonists allow the impression to be given that all that went before was wrong and ineffectual. This in turn becomes very demotivating...

I fully appreciate that the set of ideas I have outlined in my previous article is easy to articulate and far less easy to execute. How does a board of trustees turn down the opportunity for some funding? Or, even more difficult, how does it not try to deliver services to people in need because it cannot secure...

Over the past week or so, I have had the opportunity to speak and listen to a range of leaders from the voluntary and community sector. All have spoken passionately about their commitment to their organisations’ members and beneficiaries – and with equal passion (but considerable despair and anxiety) regarding the scale of the challenges they currently face.

I suppose...