It was the £8 billion that threw me - that can't all be EFS?

Interested in why local authorities are borrowing at significantly higher rates. Thoughts?

While assets are routinetly sold, art is highly unusual because of the ethics surrounding it. When it is sold, it's often because it has little commercial value and in practice barely qualifies for art.

Nevertheless, its a slippery slope and LAs own some valuable art (say FOIs I done last year).

#5 Four ways local authorities can build more #5 Four ways local authorities can build more homes

New Substack out: four ways local authorities can build more (with the right support).

- The Government should further examine how it can fix the economics of LA housebuilding — including how we approach Public Works Loan Board borrowing and the Housing Revenue Account.
substack.com/home/post/p-...

Ooh I haven't - thanks Owen!

Increasingly interested in the production of knowledge and the epistemic risks of e.g. AI and LLMs. Some interesting examples of LLMs in policy-making which i was not familiar with:

#5 Four ways local authorities can build more #5 Four ways local authorities can build more homes

None of these is a silver bullet. But together, they help create a better enabling environment that local authorities need to play a more full-throttled role in housebuilding.

You can read the Substack here:
substack.com/home/post/p-...

- Establish and — where they exist, rationalise — regeneration vehicles, so scale matches ambition.
- Simplify the cumulative regulatory burden — without abandoning legitimate standards.
- Take a more muscular approach to deploying public land and assets for regeneration.

#5 Four ways local authorities can build more #5 Four ways local authorities can build more homes

New Substack out: four ways local authorities can build more (with the right support).

- The Government should further examine how it can fix the economics of LA housebuilding — including how we approach Public Works Loan Board borrowing and the Housing Revenue Account.
substack.com/home/post/p-...

You can read the column here:
jackshaw.substack.com/p/an-anatomy...

I think more precise language can improve the resilience of devolution, and I’ve sketched out what I describe as the “anatomy” for thinking about it.

In my latest column, I argue that alongside genuine devolution, we’re also seeing recalibration (shifting functions to the right scale), standardisation (often to fix dysfunctional systems), and, at times, centralisation — often through quiet, technical mechanisms.

Almost every major policy change can be judged through this binary. Is it Whitehall taking back control, or places gaining power?

But that lens increasingly fails to describe what’s actually happening.

I've published Substack #3.

AN ANATOMY FOR INTERPRETING DEVOLUTION?

I’ve been thinking about how we talk about devolution in England — and how unhelpful “centralisation vs devolution” framing has become.

FORGET STATE CAPACITY: WHAT ABOUT LOCAL CAPACITY? If Whitehall wants to address state capacity, it should look beyond Westminster

4. Co-locate civil servants in local authorities.

5. Systematically embed university expertise in local authorities to support public services.

Interested? Please read and subscribe to my Substack:

jackshaw.substack.com/p/forget-sta...

2. Make local authorities a more attractive destination — including through a corresponding openness to non-traditional talent, which we're witnessing in Whitehall.

3. Ask difficult questions about what devolution should mean for Whitehall headcount.

I propose some short-term interventions that will begin to rebuild local capacity, including:

1. Require Civil Service Fast Streamers to do a six-month placement in a local or strategic authority.

Many of the thorniest public sector challenges are being navigated by local authorities — but their capacity has been eroded over the last 15 years.

He's cutting red-tape, rethinking consultations, rewarding performance, and launching reviews across homelessness, youth services, public assets and health.

Fixing Whitehall is important, but 2026 won’t be the 'year of proof' unless local capacity is rebuilt.

I've published Substack #2 this morning:

FORGET STATE CAPACITY: WHAT ABOUT LOCAL CAPACITY?

The Government is going to war on ‘sludge’. In the last fortnight, Darren Jones has put Whitehall on a war-footing.

The Government announced today - unless I've missed it elsewhere, which is entirely plausible - that it will increase the threshold at which a Housing Revenue Account needs to be opened. It'll also extend the PWLB preferential borrowing rate. Has any analysis been done on the appropriate PWLB rate?

Fascinating infographic from the FT on the relationship between democracies and economic growth:

Thanks Catherine!

Thanks for reading Scott (and sharing the above - haven't come across Nature Towns and Cities). I suspect that Heritage England, Historic England et al is where much of the innovation it sitting these days.

To tackle it, what we need is a national programme or urban renewal similar in scale to Haussmann's regeneration of Paris under Napoleon III. We need to re-build civic pride in the public realm - by tackling fly-tipping, investing in green spaces and regenerating high streets.

A politics of the public realm Why don't politicians care about the public realm, and what can be done to fix it?

I've launched a new substack: Notes on Local Government. Please subscribe!

For my first column I've written about the slow, visible decline of the public realm, which not only reinforces the perception that things are getting worse but is also corrosive to public trust. substack.com/home/post/p-...

And separately, MSAs will receive seed funding to build capacity and capability, as is standard procedure.

The Annual Investment Fund allocations are as follows:

- Cheshire and Warrington: £21.7 million
- Cumbria: £11.1 million
- Greater Essex: £41.5 million
- Hampshire and the Solent: £44.6 million
- Norfolk and Suffolk: £37.4 million
- Sussex and Brighton: £38 million

Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament Information from UK Parliament on written questions & answers, written statements and daily reports.

The Government has published its Written Statement on the Devolution Priority Programme.

Each Mayoral Strategic Authority will hold elections in May 2028 - rather than May 2027 as previously conceived.
questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat...

How much will strategic authorities receive as part of their Integrated Settlements?

From the Institute for Government: