By June Statham and Ann Mooney The need for childcare outside normal working hours is growing. The authors look at what helps and what hinders the development of childcare services to cover atypical work times. They call for a broader debate on children’s place in society, and about ways of achieving a balance between children’s and parents’ needs and the requirements of paid work.

The Local Government Association has questioned plans for what it calls “heavy handed intervention by central government” in cases where councils are failing to make planning decisions within target times. The association says the proposals will not deliver much needed housing.It says the idea will not achieve the kind of sustainable communities that both local and central government want to see. What is needed is a partnership approach between central and local government, which must address infrastructure investment and the government’s role in funding transport and other public services.

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The Local Government Information Unit is calling for a radical overhaul of local government finance following the publication of figures which show that 80 per cent of local authority spending comes from central government grants. The think tank says the figures from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) confirm the broad trend towards increased central financial control of local government that it has identified in its own recent research.The unit says analysis has shown that purpose-specific central government grants have risen by 137 per cent from 4.9 billion pounds in 1997-98 to 11.7 billion in this financial year. Meanwhile, it says, mainstream central government grant funding of local authorities, which represented 41 per cent of revenue in 1997-98, has accounted for only 23 per cent of the extra 24 billion pounds going to town halls since then. The LGIU says this shows that not only is four fifths of money for local authority services determined by central government, but less than a quarter of this new money can be spent to meet locally determined need.

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