Articles by Michela Palese

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Michela Palese, former Research and Policy Officer

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How are English local councils funded?

While you might think that local councils are wholly funded by council tax, in fact, local government in England is funded by a combination of central government grants and local taxes. What are the problems...

Posted 30 Mar 2022

The UK has one of the most centralised local government funding systems

What is a combined authority and what is a metro mayor?

Local government in England comes in many different formats, unitary, district and county councils all cover different parts of the country. In recent years, mayoral combined authorities have become an established part of the English...

Posted 24 Mar 2022

41 percent of England’s population now live in areas with some form of mayoral devolution deal

How is local government organised in England?

England’s local government can sometimes be quite confusing. The history of devolution within England is one of ad hoc, piecemeal, top-down reforms united in their lack of a clear vision. This has left different areas...

Posted 16 Mar 2022

A product of a history of ad hoc piecemeal top-down reforms

Even senior MPs agree the government needs to pause and rethink the 2022 Elections Bill

Earlier this week, the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs (PACAC) select committee published the final report of its inquiry into the Elections Bill. In a highly critical report, the influential committee heeded...

Posted 17 Dec 2021

Senior MPs tell government evidence has simply not been good enough

Analysis: Police and Crime Commissioners and the Supplementary Vote

The re-run of May’s Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) election in Wiltshire and Swindon takes place on the 19th August, after the winning candidate was disbarred due to a historical driving conviction. The original election...

Posted 19 Aug 2021

The Supplementary Vote means politicians need a wider base of support

What is the 2022 Elections Bill? And why is it an issue?

Earlier this month, the government published its long-awaited Elections Bill which makes changes to the administration and conduct of elections with the stated aim of ensuring that ‘UK elections remain secure, fair, modern, inclusive and...

Posted 23 Jul 2021

The bill fails to tackle the fundamental issues with our electoral law

How can we better regulate our elections?

Earlier this month, buried amidst the many reactions to the government’s Elections Bill, the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) published its report on regulating election finance, following a year-long inquiry to which we...

Posted 20 Jul 2021

If the government really wants to improve the integrity of our elections, they should consider the findings of the CSPL

We need to talk about Westminster

Debates about the future of the union and devolution to the UK’s nations and regions continue to dominate the constitutional sphere, as we have set out before, with the results of the May 2021 elections...

Posted 04 Jun 2021

Successive governments’ approach has been to devolve and forget

Lords call for decisive action to slim down the ever-expanding second chamber

Buried amidst last week’s fall-out from the Queen’s Speech and the elections was the fourth report of the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House. The committee, established in 2016 by Lord Fowler,...

Posted 21 May 2021

The government’s own research shows millions of people may lack appropriate voter ID

This week’s Queen’s Speech confirmed that the government would be pushing ahead with the Electoral Integrity Bill. As we’ve outlined before, the bill would require voters to present photo identification at the polling station in...

Posted 14 May 2021