Singapore will host the inaugural iGov Global Exchange which will bring together more than 400 leading e-Government experts from around the world to discuss opportunities and challenges in developing successful e-Government programmes in an increasingly connected world. The Guest-of-Honour and keynote speaker for the forum is Mr Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister of the Republic of Singapore.

The World: Scotland is not alone in asking important questions about local government, but our starting position is unusual compared to global norms.

Andrew Coates has written a very interesting article about the progress of the Front de Gauche, the successful electoral coalition formed for the European parliamentary elections around the PCF, and which did win two seats for the European parliament. In the Anglophone world, the Front de Gauche has received far less attention than the Parti Anticapitaliste

LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNIONS OUTRAGED AT PAY FREEZE This e-mail is sent on behalf of Heather Wakefield to local government branches in England, Northern and Wales (Scotland – for information).   Dear Colleague   The Local Government Employers have today told the unions that there will be a pay freeze in 2010/2011 for NJC staff and for other local government groups.  This was announ...

Commenting on today’s Communities and Local Government Select Committee report, which claims that internal migration is putting strains on local services, Liberal Democrat Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, Julia Goldsworthy said: "The Government’s underfunding of local services can lead to rising tensions between neighbours. Until the Government recognises that its pol...

Chris Game (University of Birmingham, Institute of Local Government Studies): Every cloud, as the saying goes. It seems that one of the collateral victims of the global economic crisis may be the current round of English local government reorganisation.   Speaking at a recent Belfast conference of local authority chief executives, Communities and Local Government Secretary, Hazel Blears,...

Delegates from around the world will be heading for Cardiff this month for the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s annual two day Forum which is hosted by the Welsh Assembly Government.

It seems that Cardinal Walter Kasper was right: parts of Britain are suggestive of the Third World. The Sun has been leading the tally-ho against council leaders in Exeter and Birmingham, who have allowed rubbish to lie in the streets for more than a month. And today, Local Government Minister Bob Neil joined (£) the fray, condemning councils for failing to deliver ‘one of the most basi...

An excellent article from Chris Game of the University of Birmingham Institute of Local Government Studies on how the Recession may just about save something of Local Government from the rapacious cluelessness of Hazel Blears' abolition package. Speaking at a recent Belfast conference of local authority chief executives, Communities and Local Government Secretary, Hazel Blears, claimed her de...

Local government employers offer just 0.5% (07/04/09) Local government unions expressed bitter disappointment yesterday at a 0.5% pay offer by the Local Government Employers.The employers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have said that the offer, which is for 2009-10, will not be imposed,...