Another Solace (the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives) booklet on the importance of place in people’s lives, which I think the development of hospices says so much about.

One interesting paper by Jonathan Flowers and Janet Horton has a nice diagram which sees wealth creation as something that a local authority helps with, connecting its local remit with the wider world, while building excellent local services. In doing so, it thinks about the connection between the wealth creation and business world and the distinctive people, community and place that it serves, and tries to use business and wealth in ways that reflect the needs of that distinction community and place. This is a useful analysis of the limitations in the role of business in local affairs and in the state.

However, just plain wrong, sloganising from Hazel Blears, currently the Secretary of State for communities and local government, who starts off her piece with: ‘The political history of Britain is characterised by the history of power being forced from the centre…’ Her examples are Magna Carta, the Civil War and votes for women with the most recent example her speechmaker can think of is the creation of the Scottish Parliament (the Welsh and Northern Ireland don’t get a look in). In reality, Britain is the most centralised state in Europe, and in healthcare we get all this nonsense about postcode lotteries, which is political code for central government control so that everyone is the same. We ought to accept that services in every locality are different to respond to the needs of that place and its people, just like Flowers and Horton say in their paper.

Blears, H. (2008) Empowered communities.
Flowers, J. and Horton, J. (2008) Delivering a new agenda.

In Haines, T. (2008) Prosperity, People and Place. London: Solace Foundation, 50-2 and 45-8.