Someone (not sure who) has set up a Wrangl board on the pros and cons of filming council meetings. Have a look!
Posts under ‘Councillors’
Council meetings – blogging and web-casting
The news that a blogger who filmed a meeting of a local council in Carmarthenshire was arrested for “breaching the peace” raises an interesting question that could have a slightly unfashionable answer. My friend, David Allen Green, writing in the New Statesman has a supplied a detailed trawl of the legal evidence along with some [...]
The character of local government
It’s Friday. It’s 3.30pm. It’s time for a nice entertaining post about the character of local government. Oh! Here’s one – on a blog that’s generally worth keeping an eye on. Along with the Glum Councillors tumblog, we’re seeing the culture of local government being ever-so-slightly lightened and humanised by the blogosphere.
“Local authorities already exist with their own democratic mandate”
Professor George Jones panning the government’s new localism agenda: “This move to pass governmental decision-making to a level below local government is ill-thought-out. We do not know what is meant by community associations, how representative they will be, their boundaries, nor their audit, probity and accountability arrangements. Rather than setting up such amorphous entities, the [...]
Covering the Local Elections on Harringay Online
This is a guest post by Hugh Flouch of Harringay Online People love living in Harringay, but there are a few quality of life issues that won’t get the attention they need unless citizens and elected representatives enter into a democratic compact to fix them. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this [...]
Centralisation: A turning point?
For those of us who would like local politics to be more highly valued, two slightly conflicting observations were made by prominent political bloggers last weekend. The first was by the ever-perceptive Potlatch writing about James Purnell, and digging into the question of ‘professionalisation’ of politics: “Purnell – like Ruth Kelly and Ed Balls – [...]
OpenlyLocal
If you get a moment, pop over to OpenlyLocal and have a look around, will you? It’s a very good start – showing how all of the investment in data standards is beginning to find it’s own tipping point. It is beginning to be possible for more of us to get really useful comparative data [...]
Councillors and the snow
Here’ Dan Drillsma-Milgrom of the LGC on how Councillors should respond to the heavy snow that we’re seeing in the UK at the moment: “For those who know to look for it, Camden has an easy to use section of its website that directs residents to the nearest sand grit bins and shows the gritting [...]
A few words on governance
Local government governance guru Peter Keith-Lucas has an article in this week’s Local Government Lawyer assessing the current state of governance in local councils. It’s a good read – expert but not too technical. Keith-Lucas has plagues to put on the houses of both parties: the Labour party for watering down the proper role of [...]
Open minds – the councillor-curator?
Kevin Harris has forwarded this article about the role that councillors are obliged to adopt in relation to planning. Nothing in it will come as a surprise to anyone familliar with the role of a modern councillor, but it’s a nice round up of an issue that will continue to perplex anyone with an interest [...]
