Contact me: Are Pickles’ budget pilots worth all the hype? 23 December 2011 08.00 Having single-handedly almost derailed months of delicate negotiations to reform the local government pension scheme with one crassly worded letter, communities secretary Eric Pickles must have been relieved to return to the safer ground of community budgets. Confirmation that there will be four "whole place" pilot areas is another move in the right direction following the announcement that 12 major cities will be negotiating individual deals for more powers. One of the declared intentions of the pilot project is to accelerate work to reduce residents' dependency on the state, but for councils it is just as much about reducing their own dependency on central government. Read the full article on the Guardian local government network… Political cowardice betrays social care reform 16 December 2011 08.00 There have been a clutch of reports in the last fortnight exposing the stresses in the adult care system, culminating in the revelation that the government is running away from funding reform. Two weeks ago the Audit Commission report, Joining Up Health and Social Care, claimed that over £132m was wasted each year as poor coordination between the two services led to avoidable hospital admissions, which drove up costs in the care system as well. The commission's interpretation of the data is conservative; much bigger gains are possible through preventative work to keep older people living independently. Five days later the House of Commons' public accounts committee – which is publishing hard- hitting reports with the rapidity of a machine-gun – published its investigation into competition between care home providers in the wake of the collapse of Southern Cross. Read the full article on the Guardian local government network… The real impact of the NHS financial squeeze 12 December 2011 08.00 Drastic reform of clinical services is the only way the NHS can avoid being overwhelmed by falls in real funding and rising demand. According to the Department of Health, this means finding £20bn (€23bn; $31bn) of productivity gains by 2015. What became known as the Nicholson challenge was first articulated in the 2008-9 annual report of NHS chief executive, David Nicholson. It was already clear that the banking crisis would trigger sharp cuts in public spending, and Sir David knew he had to get the NHS to confront the reality that it would have to make huge changes to the way it worked if it was to avoid its second financial crisis in a decade and cope with rising demand from an ageing population. Read the full article at the British Medical Journal… Powers for cities are a rare moment of hope 9 December 2011 08.00 Local government had momentary respite from the economic gloom with the announcement by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, of the powers ministers are prepared to hand over to cities to help them drive economic growth. As anticipated, the government is to negotiate individual deals with the eight largest regional cities to cede powers on transport, regeneration, skills and economic development. The opportunity for the eight cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield – to negotiate powers is enshrined in the Localism Act and is aimed squarely at driving economic growth, so many of the new freedoms would go to the local economic partnership. Read the full article on the Guardian local government network… Chancellor piles on two more years of agony 2 December 2011 08.00 It is a measure of the darkness of the long economic night we are now in that the prospect of a further cut in local government funding as a result of the new pay squeeze was not the worst news for councils in the autumn statement. Instead, it was the prospect of at least two more years of cuts after the next general election and a realisation that, for people across the country, there is no end in sight to the reduction in funding. True, there was a little good news in the announcement of extra capital investment for schools and local transport, but that does nothing to alter the overall picture. Read the full article on the Guardian local government network…