Beware the UK’s 'community rights': the latest mutation of privatisation

Cutting through the coalition government’s rhetoric of localism and ‘community rights’, Dexter Whitfield exposes a strategy to further destabilise and fracture public provision, accelerating marketisation and privatisation. http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/dexter-whitfield/beware-uk%E2%80%99s-community-rights-latest-mutation-of-privatisation

Localism Bill - local in theory but central diktat in practice?

Mo Baines of APSE, writing for Public Service, ponders the implications of the Con Dem Localism Bill and warns of ‘localism being hijacked as a route to greater centralisation, with English councils no longer trusted to do what they do best – which is deliver some of the best public services in Europe’ http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=16134

Localism Bill an excuse to outsource services‏

Eric Pickles is looking more and more comedic as the days go by. Yesterday’s announcement of a Decentralisation and Localism Bill was used by Pickles as an excuse to cut funding to councils under the supposed guise of giving councils and individual citizens more power over local services. But this is nonsense.