This week’s recommended reading for Liberal Democrat councillors and campaigners.
This week’s political news is of course dominated by the Browne report in to student funding. It’s worth having a look at the report itself if you have the time as there is a lot more to it than the parts mentioned in the news headlines. Also worth reading is Vince Cable’s statement to the House of Commons which outlines his reasons for proposing changes to higher education funding. One early reaction that we particularly liked (and it’s worth noting that this is just the start and further announcements are to follow on what will actually happen) is a reasonable and well balanced article from Three Rivers councillor Sara Bedford.
Whilst we’re linking to stories from Liberal Democrat Voice, there’s one from a few weeks ago that we think is still worth reading. It’s from Southwark Liberal Democrat Laurie Eggleston and tackles head on the complaint from people who voted for us to stop the Tories – Lent us your vote to keep the Tories out? Thanks it worked. This is worth telling your other activists about, especially those who are out knocking on doors, and was even highlighted in recent party training sessions.
In local government news, there’s a few bits and pieces to highlight. Lib Dem Local Government Minister, Andrew Stunell MP, has unveiled a fair deal for travellers, whilst you can also find out what Secretary of State Eric Pickles thinks are “absolutely stonkers” about Local Economic Partnerships whilst also confirming that they will be responsible for handing out EU funding in future. We also bring you confirmation from Local Government Minister Bob Neill of a potentially controversial decision to allow city mayors to go ahead before any referendum is held on whether they should be created or not.
As an example of some other current thinking in local government we bring you an article from ConservativeHome about the TaxPayers’ Alliance identifying £41million worth of “non-jobs” that could be scrapped to save money. It just goes to show perhaps how one person’s important job is another person’s waste of money and highlights some of the difficulties of making savings by cutting specific jobs.
Finally, today’s announcement about the scrapping of the Local Area Agreements and the National Indicator Set, shows further commitment to letting councils get on and run themselves with a smaller degree of central control.