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No living easy this summertime for leaders |
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Whatever hopes politicians may have had for a rest over recess they were, in many cases, dashed by the events of early August. The rioting which started in London quickly spread to other cities, cutting short the summer break for many local leaders and the London mayor, Boris Johnson. The analysis has already begun with Select Committee hearings this week but one thing those events made abundantly clear is that our urban conurbations are now, more than ever, in need of strong, strategic city-wide leadership.
That’s why I wrote to Eric Pickles last week, urging him to strengthen the Localism Bill. The nine recommendations I made include staging the referenda on elected mayors in the eleven cities due to vote by allowing Leeds, Birmingham and Bristol to vote first in May 2012. The report we published alongside the letter, Making the Most of Mayors also recommends that mayors should be given additional powers over planning and policing to make them truly effective.
The publication topped off a busy summer at the Institute. On Tuesday, we launched our guide to Transparency in Arm's Length Bodies. This joint publication with the PCF picks up on one of the conclusions in our Read Before Burning report. It suggested that ALBs rarely present themselves openly and that this does nothing to improve their image with the public or politicians. We hope that those running ALBs will find the transparency guide useful.
With the party conferences fast approaching, we’ve turned our attention to candidate selection. We’re co-hosting fringe sessions at all three conferences and will follow this up with a published report in October.
Finally, with the spotlight returning to the connections between government and the media, we’re planning a series of events aimed at dissecting this relationship. We’ll consider how social media is changing the way politicians engage with the public, whether the papers still matter and what, if anything, should be done to tighten regulation.
Andrew Adonis
Director of the Institute for Government
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Elected mayors
The Institute for Government has published two research reports looking at the issue of elected mayors. The first, written as an open letter to the Department for Communities and Local Government, suggested ways for the Secretary of State at DCLG to improve the mayoral model. The second, Making the Most of Mayors, draws out the lessons learned in the existing mayoral local authorities about how to get mayoral governance working to its full potential.
Read more here >>
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Institute welcomes Liaison Committee report on public appointments
A House of Commons Liaison Committee report has recommended a range of changes to the system for scrutinising public appointments, many of them suggested by the Institute.
Read more here >>
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Cutting Edge Policy events series
In July we had two events in our series looking at new techniques for policy makers. In a joint event with the Cabinet Office Behavioural Insight team, we looked at the role deliberation could play in engaging citizens in policy design and then we hosted a question forum with Professor Robert Cialdini, Professor Paul Dolan, Danny Finkelstein, Clive Bates of the Welsh Government and Ravi Gurumurthy of Department of Energy and Climate change on applying MINDSPACE to current policy challenges.
You can read about both events and listen to podcasts here >>
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Coming up: Institute for Government at the party conferences
Conference season starts this month and one of the hot topics will be the recent reforms to candidate selection. We will be co-hosting fringe events at each of the three party conferences, where our panellists will discuss the merits of the reforms and reflect on the impact they have had on candidate diversity and public engagement. Drawing on research done by the Institute our panellists will also discuss the broader problems which candidate selection reforms have been designed to correct and what mechanisms the parties should use in the future.
Read more here >>
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Coming up: Media and Government events series
Coming up over the next few months, we’re delighted to announce a new Media and Government events series. Through events, blogs and podcasts, the series will explore critical questions about power, influence and ethics. Some of the questions raised will include:
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Who has the most influence: newspapers, broadcast or new media?
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How much is new media changing the way that government makes policy?
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Do the media matter as much as politicians seem to think they do?
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Is there a case for tighter government regulation of the media?
Look out for more information about our events partnership, as well as the dates of events, panels and speakers in the October newsletter.
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| Leadership – luck or judgement? |
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Governments have an obligation to provide real long term leadership which means resisting the temptation to make policy on the hoof when cooler reflection would be more appropriate, writes the Institute for Government's Zoe Gruhn.
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| Transparency guide aims to open up the work of public bodies |
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Following the publication of Transparency in Arms Length Bodies, Jane Dudman explores how the guide can help agencies restore their reputation.
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| Bristol 'needs elected mayor to fix transport problems' |
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Bristol desperately needs a powerful elected mayor to sort out its under-performing education and transport systems, says Andrew Adonis.
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| City mayors 'deserve more powers' |
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Plans to use mayors to drive the economic recovery will only succeed if they are given more powers, former Cabinet minister Andrew Adonis has warned Eric Pickles.
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| Executive decisions |
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Kate Jenkins, Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and former Head of the Prime Minister's Efficiency unit, and the Institute's Jennifer Gold present their views on the new executive agencies.
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Networks and Public Policy: Beyond Nudging in the Big Society
The Cutting Edge Policy Series kicks off again in September with two sessions exploring ideas in our working paper on system stewardship and MINDSPACE. On 20 September, Paul Ormerod will speak on the role of networks.
Find out more about this event >>
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Complexity Economics and Public Policy
The second of this month’s Cutting Edge Policy Series events takes place on 29 September, Eric Beinhocker of the McKInsey Global Institute and author of the Origin of Wealth will lead a masterclass on applying complexity economics to current problems.
Find out more about this event >>
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