Richard Stokoe

  • Unitaries are not an everywhere panacea

    04 October 2022

    Based on his experience of living in Cornwall, Richard Stokoe concludes the current rural unitary system is completely broken.


  • Time to ditch the Assembly

    30 June 2021

    After 21 years, Richard Stokoe argues that the London Assembly is failing in its duty to hold the Mayor of London to account. Borough leaders, he claims, would make a better replacement.


  • 11 steps to ensuring outstanding internal comms

    14 April 2020

    The importance to councils of outstanding internal communications cannot be underestimated during the COVID-19 crisis and there are 11 steps that will help provide that excellence, says Richard Stokoe.


  • A nine-point guide to COVID-19 crisis communications

    31 March 2020

    Communications has often been seen as a luxury, says Richard Stokoe – but this time it is ‘at the centre of quashing the spread of COVID-19, protecting the health and social care sector and saving lives’.


  • The trouble with social policy ‘evidence’

    13 March 2019

    In making the case for more cash to improve public health based on its ‘evidence of what works’, the Local Government Association 'has been simplistic and selective in its statistics', according to Richard Stokoe.


  • Dealing with disaster

    05 July 2017

    Disaster management expert Richard Stokoe considers what went wrong in Kensington & Chelsea after the Grenfell tragedy, and how other authorities can avoid making the same mistakes.


  • Disaster planning in a brave new world

    01 July 2015

    New technologies are rapidly changing the nature of disaster management and local authorities must work to keep up, says Richard Stokoe.