I have been staring at the faces of Lib Dem councillors for days as part of a piece of work I have undertaken.  Although the highlight has been finding out Cllr Ken Ball has managed to wangle Deputy leader of Chorley Council despite leading a group of him and one other Councillor, my abiding thought

Early last year I briefly reported on the shocking comments about the alleged rape of a child made by one of its Glasgow councillors, William O’Rourke. The case has now finally worked its way through the system and he has been banned from holding public office: A Glasgow Labour councillor has been banned from holding

Westminster Council is joint bottom of the London league for Adult Social Care, according to the 2010/11 Adult Social Care Survey. In a report to the Council's Audit and Performance Policy and Scrutiny Committee, Councillors have been told: "The 2010/11 Adult Social Care Survey (ASCS) benchmarking report shows Westminster's score (of 17.4) amongst the lowest in London. Results from the s...

Following the Hakim Berkani Employment Tribunal case where the judge stated that parking firm NSL operated a "clandestine quota system", and BBC reports suggesting that NSL, working for Kensington and Chelsea Council, set its wardens minimum ticket quotas, which is illegal, Labour Opposition Councillors have: * Called for a scrutiny of the role of the Council and NSL in this scandal. * Asked why H...

Tory bosses at Southampton City Council want to take services away from the city's least well off while protecting discounts for the better off, say the city's Labour councillors. They're proposing an amendment to make the budget fairer, to be debated at the Budget setting meeting on Wednesday, 15th February. The council's own reports warn that many of the Tories' proposed...

Labour Westminster Councillors say that the prospect of the election of a new Leader of Westminster City Council by just 48 Conservative Councillors, 47 of whom consistently voted to support outgoing Leader Colin Barrow's failed West End parking charge plans, is an 'insult to democracy'. Labour say that the new Leader of the Council should be elected by all 250,000 Westminster resid...

Labour has exposed shockingly cynical political tactics from the Sheffield Lib Dems regarding the Council's recent proposal to move towards collecting black bins fortnightly instead of weekly. Following the recent announcement that the Council is minded to move to alternate week collections to help to meet the £170m budget gap between now and 2015/16, local Liberal Democrat Councillors ...

Labour attacks "extravagant" streetscape scheme. As the £25 million Exhibition Road streetscape scheme opened in South Kensington, North Kensington Labour Councillors criticised the Council's extravagant spending on a scheme aimed at tourists. A short bus ride away are four of the poorest areas in the country. In Golborne Ward, 51% of the children live in poverty, residents endure high ...

What follows is all, I admit, very self-indulgent.  It is just that when I was delivering leaflets the other day – from one of our councillors protesting against the potential closure of local rail stations – my thoughts went back to my first time out on the stump. This was well over fifty years ago

I am currently putting together a new book for ALDC which has at its heart ways that councillors and local campaigners can make use of the new legal powers heading their way under the Localism Act and other devolving legislation. Many of the powers are very effective for getting local issues sorted and local communities