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Dr Jonathan Carr-West
Dr Jonathan Carr-West is chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU)
Tough, uphill work lies ahead
We’ve had half a decade of strategic drift in local government policy, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West. The effect is that working in the sector ‘can feel like a particularly cruel Sisyphean punishment’ – but what can we do about it?
It’s not all about the money
It is dangerous if we let the discussion about the reform of social care become exclusively about funding, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West.
Place is the crucial lens
Dr Jonathan Carr-West looks at how we might make levelling up and devolution work together.
Levelling up transformatively
The tension between two very different approaches to levelling up could be 'a significant structural fissure in our political life over the next few years’, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West.
Local elections 2021: Look behind the big story
A closer look at the Super Thursday outcomes reveals a series of more complex stories, and suggests a centrally-driven levelling up agenda would be an error, says Jonathan Carr West.
Making elections meaningful
We need two things from our electoral system says Dr Jonathan Carr-West – enough stability to maintain public confidence and the possibility of meaningful change. But have we got the balance quite right?
Unfinished business
The vision in Budget 2021 focused on a global, green, high tech economy, ‘but there was no sign of local government, local public services or local institutions of any sort’, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West.
Will May be a missed chance?
The Prime Minister wants the elections to go ahead. But Dr Jonathan Carr-West says that whether a U-turn ‘has already happened or is still to come, we have missed an opportunity to make an early and clear decision’.
Looking ahead with hope
‘You would be mad not to feel some trepidation’ as we look ahead to 2021, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West. ‘But while we have so many amazing people doing such incredible things for their community, I think we can also feel some hope’.
Let’s talk about homes
Homes provide so much more than shelter, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West. He argues that a different sort of conversation is needed that isn’t just about planning or ‘how many houses you build’.
Central government needs to stand back
Dr Jonathan Carr-West asks if anyone has any sense of a sustained strategic focus on tackling the pandemic from government, and he feels only local government can manage the alignment of social, environmental and economic recovery that we need.
Trust in the public realm really matters
Trust in public institutions cannot be rebuilt if different levels of government are seeking to divert blame on to each other, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West.
Redrawing our future after COVID
What we have learnt from coronavirus is that we need flexibility, adaptability and civic solidarity, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West - and in the next phases of the pandemic the need for relocalisation will become more urgent for at least three reasons.
Let’s have the humility to learn
We need to learn from this crisis, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West – in terms of both the disease itself and what sort of society we are and want to become.
Let’s make the argument now for the world we want to live in
Will the impact of coronavirus mean more state investment or 10 more years of austerity to pay for the Government’s interventions, asks Dr Jonathan Carr-West.
Engaging our global family
Local government needs to pool its combined knowledge and learn from the perspective of others - near and far - as Dr Jonathan Carr-West explains.
Welcome to the twenties
The new Government is rhetorically placing itself as a radical one that will move fast, says Dr Jonathan Carr-West – but he warns that for local government there is a ‘groundhog day’ element.
Places can and do get worse as well as better
Dr Jonathan Carr-West says the story of a city in Columbia can be seen as a warning of what can happen if local government does not have an active leadership role and the resources to act upon it.
Civility starts with the civic
Jonathan Carr-West says that in increasingly volatile times, local government can provide the correct foundation for more effective, and civil, political discourse – along with some solutions.
Building from the ground up
Dr Jonathan Carr-West says the energy directed at Brexit could have been focused on other things - and councils should have a settlement with their communities so they can build a stronger national constitutional framework from the bottom up.
