Over the past few decades a succession of governments in the UK have repeatedly spoken of the need to decentralise services and put them in the hands of voluntary groups and local communities in order to “empower people”; the latest manifestation of this being David Cameron’s “Big Society” pledge. Yet, apart from considerations over where […]

It is widely agreed that if there are to be cuts in the public sector they should be focused on reducing the huge levels of bureaucracy premised on regulation and compliance. But, it is important that not all regulation and compliance is discarded. The converse of heavily bureaucratised regulation is the facade of spurious ‘self-regulation’, […]