Clinical commissioning groups… fancy doing a survey?
I have recently been doing the monumental task of looking through each of the 211 new clinical commissioning groups (these replaced Primary Care Trusts) websites. Clinical Commissioning Groups are a flagship health policy of the Coalition, giving spending control of 60% of the NHS budget to groups of practitioners – notably General Practitioners or GPs. […]
Scrutiny and Police & Crime Commissioners
Police and Crime Commissioners are hugely powerful and have direct and sole control over multi-million pound budgets. Those of us who have closely followed the implementation and election of PCCs know this, but still many of the public don’t understand exactly what this role is. Awareness is growing, in part due to intense media scrutiny […]
On the road, learning about councillors
Last week, I spent most of it on the road listening to Councillors from around the country discussing the Networked Councillor report and findings. Councillors joined the discussion from rural and urban areas, from all parties and some like me are aspiring Councillors, some have been Councillors for decades. Key points were: - The networked […]
Hacking local democracy
So how about we hack local democracy? What am I talking about? Hacking is associated with coding, but as I learned at bluelight camp..essentially it means taking a thing and modifying it to make it work better. I know that lots of policy people, active citizens, politicians, public authority officers and others have really good […]
U.N.I.T.Y ‘who you callin’ a bitch?’
So, here are my thoughts on being a woman entering local politics and how I want to be treated, and how I want to behave…mostly. It’s also peppered with my thoughts on how women get treated who want to, whisper, run this town. I am a feminist. This is what it means to me. How […]
Frontline voices: Emma Daniel - Cool again, local democracy that is
“Thanks to digital tools – democracy can become cool again.” Emma Daniel writing on Huxley06 looks forward to a new social media-supported era of local democracy in which local people’s voices are welcomed.
Rehabilitating politicians
I am genuinely concerned about the widening gulf between the public and politicians…and the level of sheer contempt for our representatives. I understand why and how this has happened and all parties and participants are to blame for continuing to ‘play the game’ how it is has always been played for fear of losing what […]
The doctor is out…
I have been following @openpolicy with interest. Probably because I have worked in policy (in the voluntary sector for 15 years) and I am not put off by the title. Could ‘real’ people be interested in the blog posts? I am not sure they would be. Unless we involve ‘real people’ however, we are going […]