Publications

This research explores the growing phenomenon of ‘Insourcing’; bringing back ‘in-house’ the delivery of services. It takes a particular focus on UK local government services and questions the drivers for this increase in insourcing.

This new report from APSE brings together the results of the most recent street cleanliness survey data drawn from APSE Performance Networks data, now enhanced through the use of APSE’s Land Audit Management System (LAMS). 

Increasingly Welsh councils are looking at a more commercial approach to service delivery. This guide explores powers, best practice and the culture shift needed to embrace a commercial culture in local government.

This latest report from APSE and the Centre for Public Scrutiny (CfPS) explores the current landscape around commercialisation and provides a toolkit and guide for councils to help build their own bespoke, locally-relevant governance and scrutiny systems for commercial activity. 

This report is based on a range of robust data sources to inform Street Cleanliness, drawing upon representative samples, as well as analysis against deprivation scores and Street Cleanliness. The findings incorporate 42 local authorities in England and are supported by near to 40,000 transects that have been inspected to arrive at this important analysis. The inspections included assessment of a range of factors including litter, detritus, surface weeds, dog fouling, bins and bin structure and other factors to arrive at the scores and analysis. The results from this publication will also contribute towards Defra’s Litter Dashboard.

In collaboration with the New Policy Institute (NPI), APSE's latest report considers the propspects for the 'neighbourhood services' provided by local government. 

APSE are currently working with LACA to develop a State of the Nation report on the impact of Universal Free School Meals. This report will be used to inform government bodies of the impact of the policy on your behalf.

APSE’s latest research examines the initiatives and the emerging practices of municipal entrepreneurialism.

Reliance on ever decreasing central funding for local councils means stark choices; cut services or find other ways to meet these on-going challenges. That is why APSE Scotland commissioned this guide for our member local councils to explore the dynamics of commercialisation in local government.

In 2017, we completed an APSE study of the work and world of the councillor and interconnected worlds of the council officer and the engaged citizen. Having been concerned then with horizontal relations between those who do politics at local level, we were asked to investigate the vertical relationships between local councillors and national politics in Holyrood and Westminster. Recent national and local elections have changed the political landscape in some areas of Scotland, and new political relationships are being forged at national and local levels as well as between them. We have therefore created a supplementary piece of research based on six interviews: two with MSPs, of whom one was a constituency MSP and the other a regional MSP, and four with local councillors. This supplementary paper is therefore intended to provide a further dynamic to the original report and take account of the emerging political landscape in Scotland.

The latest research from APSE and the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) finds that a lack of investment in genuine affordable housing alongside deregulation of planning is reducing local authorities’ ability to secure the homes the nation needs.

Research published by APSE and written and researched by the Local Governance Research Unit at De Montfort University finds that as public service provision continues to be fragmented, diverse and largely unaccountable to the local public, local councils, as the only democratically elected institutions at a local level, are best placed to make sure that local networks are harnessed to ensure all actors and agencies are working in the best interests of the local area.

A new poll by APSE and Survation shows that the public are almost three times more likely to support local councils being responsible for local Buildings Inspections work rather than private inspectors

This report by APSE and the Centre for Public Scrutiny (CfPS) examines the role of good governance and scrutiny, highlighting how this is critical to the local government decision-making process.

This international research study conducted as a collaborative approach led by De Montfort University explores responses to austerity in leading European Cities analysing responses and the impact of austerity policies at a municipal level.

Research by APSE and CLES explores the impact that devolution in England is having upon the provision and delivery of frontline services in local government.

This new research for APSE Scotland focuses on the three worlds of local politics – that of the citizen, the council officer, and the councillor – and is interested in exploring what it takes to do politics in each of these worlds. Each entail different kinds of political work, which is undertaken on different terms and conditions. However, it is clear that these worlds only make sense in relation to one another.

The latest report from APSE and CIPFA explores the impact of property investment as a potential means of securing an additional and sustainable source of revenue for local authorities.