This book can be seen as a continuation of a similar earlier volume, which consisted of articles from the pages of Local Government Chronicle for the year 1992. Its contents were selected to help local government understand the problems it faced in the 1990s and offered ways forward.

The present volume has the same goals. It seeks to promote understanding about the turbulent environment in which local government is placed. It explains the actions of central government that have undermined the capacity of local authorities to act as leaders of their communities, removing their functions' limiting their roles and scope for action, and denying them resources. It explains the growing pressures from citizens and consumers of local government services, expecting higher standards but reluctant to see cuts in their personal disposable incomes through taxation to pay for public provision. It describes the pressures on local authority management to adopt new practices, often those said to be commonplace in the private sector.

Paperback •  ISBN: 9781860720390 •   156 pages • Published October 1997 • £24.95

Contents
What we are against and what we are for
The problem and what is needed to solve it
Finance
The law
Reorganisation: structural and internal
Compulsory competitive tendering
Looking after the staff
Involving the people
Key organisations
Lessons from abroad.

About the author
George Jones: George Jones is Professor of Government at the London School of Economics, a regular columnist for the Local Government Chronicle and speaks and broadcasts regularly on government issues.