Neil Wilcox, Director of Funding and Research, has been appointed to CLG's Local Governance Research Unit Expert Panel. The Panel comprises 18 key individuals with expertise on a range of topics relating to local government and local governance. It is being established to provide external peer review, broad academic input and independent challenge to the LGRU’s research programme, plus other research and analytical support.
Reflecting current government policy, key themes of its work at present include:
• Local partnership working: including Local Area Agreements, Local Strategic Partnerships and sub-regional Multi Area Agreements
• Local service performance: including efficiency, assessment and public perception
• Local governance and democracy: including structures, elections and scrutiny
• Empowerment: including drivers and barriers, and assessing the impact of initiatives