27 Apr 2022
In its recently published Levelling Up White Paper, the government argued that the power of public procurement should be used to deliver support to communities and pledged to put... Read More
By Frances Jones
06 Apr 2022
What if gender equality was at the heart of local plans for a more inclusive economy? Efforts to rebuild and recover economic prosperity in a time of crisis often... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
16 Mar 2022
IPPR Scotland last week published their report Universal basic services: Building financial security in Scotland. Over a series of publications, IPPR Scotland has argued that in order to tackle... Read More
By Rachel Bentley
15 Mar 2022
Recent years have seen a growing number of local councils across the UK, including Birmingham, Sandwell and Wigan, as well as the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales adopting... Read More
By Jacob Ainscough
10 Mar 2022
Economists no longer talk of decarbonisation as a cost; climate action is now widely seen as an investment. Like any investment in new economic sectors, money spent is expected... Read More
By The Alternative UK
09 Mar 2022
Fascinating article from the Vogue Business news site on the growing relevance of degrowth – producing and consuming less and less to mitigate climate meltdown – and fashion. It... Read More
By Hugh Eliis
03 Mar 2022
In November 2021, a group of ten people gathered together in Letchworth Garden City for two days of conversation. We began with a clear sense of our collective failure... Read More
By Barry Knight
03 Mar 2022
Written at the outset of the pandemic, #BuildBackBetter showed how being forced to slow down had made people want a different future. Having a profound sense of vulnerability made... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
21 Feb 2022
Carnegie UK published their report GDWe: A spotlight on democratic wellbeing last month. Gross Domestic Wellbeing (GDWe) is an alternative measure of social progress to the dominant measure GDP, as set... Read More
By The Alternative UK
18 Feb 2022
As we know from long experience, Plymouth is a world-class powerhouse of social and civic enterprise – and it’s richly demonstrated in the Plymouth Octopus latest newsletter. POP (as... Read More
By CLES
03 Feb 2022
At the close of the 2021 Community Wealth Building Summit, we reflect on remarks by our opening keynote speaker Tom Arthur MSP and the work that CLES has undertaken... Read More
By Barry Knight
13 Jan 2022
If Martians landed on Earth tomorrow, they would be surprised by many things, but they would be shocked by an economic system that allows a few billionaires to play... Read More
By Rebekah Diski
07 Jan 2022
This is an article from the fourth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here. Last month, over 500 workers at the GKN car factory... Read More
04 Jan 2022
The politics of localism is shifting and developing, at all levels. We hear about a new national campaign being launched in the last few days. The We’re Right Here campaign is... Read More
By Eleanor Radcliffe
28 Dec 2021
On the eve of COP26, and with the challenges we face in tackling the climate crisis becoming ever more apparent, CLES and Carbon Co-op today release a major new toolkit for councils, a... Read More
By Miatta Fahnbulleh
16 Dec 2021
This is an article on levelling up and the Green New Deal from the fourth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here. ‘Levelling up’... Read More
By The Alternative UK
14 Dec 2021
We have long seen Devon and the English South-West as a social, economic and cultural laboratory for what might look like an “ecological civilisation”. So it’s perfectly logical that... Read More
By Mariona Sanz
09 Dec 2021
UK Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) Chief Executive, Sarah Longlands, spoke last month at La Metròpoli Pròspera, organized by the Metropolitan Strategic Plan of Barcelona. Following her appearance... Read More
By The Alternative UK
11 Nov 2021
Some quietly achieved radical localism and community wealth building going on in North Ayrshire. While the Preston Model, and its underlying logic of community wealth building, have been lauded... Read More
By Rose Grayston
28 Oct 2021
Depending on where you live in England, there can be huge differences in your quality of life. This is down to some areas’ economic decline and low incomes, but... Read More
By The Alternative UK
21 Oct 2021
In this week’s German elections, Berliners voted with a resounding majority (56.4%), supporting a bill to expropriate 226,000 homes from private landlords, and take them into public ownership. It’s... Read More
By Isaac Stanley
07 Sep 2021
On the 6th July CLES launched the final report of the Liverpool City Region Land Commission: Our Land. Reflecting the findings of England’s first Commission to review the use of... Read More
By Frances Jones & Eleanor Radcliffe
12 Aug 2021
Thirteen years ago, the global financial crisis prompted human suffering across the world. In the wake of this, community wealth building emerged as an alternative approach to local economic... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
05 Aug 2021
Probably the key challenge for all those committed to progressive causes is how we scale up from the multitude of creative initiatives taking place locally. ‘At local level, we... Read More
By Lukasz Krebel
05 Jul 2021
The Bank of England’s (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee meets today, and will publish its first Monetary Policy Report since the Bank was given an updated ‘net zero’ mandate at the... Read More
By Tom Lloyd Goodwin
29 Jun 2021
Economic recovery from COVID-19 will be a long and painful process. When the pandemic struck, we at CLES argued for a new common-sense approach to economic development based on the... Read More
By Anna Tervahartiala
22 Jun 2021
As the pandemic has stood the world on its head, one of the debates which has been thrown wide open is that of the future of the economy. PSJP... Read More
By Charlotte Morgan and Luca Tiratelli
16 Jun 2021
What’s the role of inclusive growth in recovering from crisis? It’s easy to see as a ‘nice-to-have’, but can be at the centre of helping us build back better.... Read More
By Barry Knight
09 Jun 2021
We have the ideas for change It is now more than three years since Rethinking Poverty began to compile resources to support the development of a good society without... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
04 Jun 2021
The results of May’s 2021 local elections will have dismayed those who care about progressive causes, as showcased in Rethinking Poverty. But can we learn anything from them about... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
28 May 2021
As outlined in March’s Talking Points, no-strings-attached direct cash payments are central to Biden’s stimulus package. While this is not Universal Basic Income (UBI), also known as Basic Income,... Read More
By Joe Blakey and Jana Wendler
29 Apr 2021
Almost every city now has some form of climate target. For instance Manchester, in northern England, aims to be zero carbon by 2038. But such targets generally focus on emissions... Read More
By Isaac Stanley
21 Apr 2021
During the peak of the first lockdown, people gathered on their doorsteps to clap for carers. Now it’s time to truly recognise their value. The inadequacies of England’s current... Read More
By David Burch
08 Apr 2021
On 11th March, we released our yearly analysis of the contribution that Manchester City Council’s procurement spend makes to the city’s economy and how it can support the achievement of wider... Read More
By Malcolm Torry
31 Mar 2021
Lack of income security is widely recognised as a major problem – and one that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Could a Basic Income help? And is... Read More
By Nadia Whittome
02 Mar 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic has shone a light on the discrepancy between the work we most urgently need as a society, and the work we value and reward. So many of... Read More
By Gemma Lawrence
11 Feb 2021
Carnegie UK Trust last December published their report Gross Domestic Wellbeing (GDWe)™ An alternative measure of social progress, which proposes GDWe as ‘a more holistic and relevant’ measure of... Read More
By Pippa Coutts
09 Feb 2021
I was lucky enough to chair a panel discussion on Community Ownership and Towns this week, with Community Land Scotland, Greener Kirkcaldy, Power to Change, The Stove Network.* We recognised, with many others, the High Street... Read More
By Anna Coote & Aidan Harper
28 Jan 2021
Shorter working time should be at the heart of post-pandemic recovery. That’s the message of The Case for a Four Day Week, published by Polity this month, and written by... Read More
By Isaac Stanley
20 Jan 2021
Green New Deals aren’t just for cash-flushed central Governments. In the last year, Lewes DC in East Sussex has been growing its own distinctive variety of green economic strategy.... Read More
By Andrew Milner, Lisa Jordan and Stef van Dongen
30 Dec 2020
As the pandemic has stood the world on its head, one of the debates which has been thrown wide open is that of the future of the economy. PSJP... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
17 Dec 2020
Degrowth, or he end of growth is not the end of the world, says Parrique. ‘It can be the beginning of many worlds.’ … Basically, degrowth means a decline of... Read More
By Annie Quick
09 Dec 2020
This is an article from the second issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here “The goal and objective of all economic policy should be collective... Read More
By Eleanor Radcliffe
03 Dec 2020
With fresh discussion this week about the importance of a green recovery, it is increasingly clear that post-Covid rebuilding must have a just transition away from a carbon-based economy... Read More
By The Alternative UK
26 Nov 2020
As we noted in our Editorial last week, the Biden presidency (assuming it kicks off eventually by Jan 30th) may have a worrying tendency to top-down policy direction. Which... Read More
By Alice Martin and Annie Quick
19 Nov 2020
The impact of Covid-19 has been a powerful reminder of the leverage workers could collectively hold. Care workers, supermarket cashiers and couriers – usually dismissed as “unskilled” – have demonstrated... Read More
By Jon Bloomfield
29 Oct 2020
The urgency of the climate change challenge has been visibly growing, dramatically illustrated by the bush fires that swept across much of Australia at the end of 2019. The... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
28 Oct 2020
What is a caring economy? And why invest in it now? ‘Building a caring economy’ was the topic of a New Economics Foundation (NEF) briefing, hosted jointly with the Women’s... Read More
By Neil McInroy, Joe Bilsborough & Charlie Fisher
14 Oct 2020
Just over a year ago, our organisations – the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and Development Trusts NI (DTNI) – jointly penned Time to build an inclusive local... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
07 Oct 2020
This month’s Talking Points picks up August’s discussions of the changing world of work and the knock-on effects on cities. It also looks at the inexorable rise of poverty... Read More
By Isky Gordon
01 Oct 2020
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is not a new idea but has recently gained some credence, with interest in possible pilot studies shown by the Scottish national government and one... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
17 Sep 2020
Wikipedia describes the Doughnut, or Doughnut economics, as ‘a visual framework for sustainable development’, the name deriving from the shape of the diagram, ie a disc with a hole... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
02 Sep 2020
Lockdown has seen huge changes in the world of work – most notably the rise of home working. With the furlough scheme coming to its end and the government... Read More
By Neil McInroy & Tom Lloyd Goodwin
09 Jun 2020
Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, our economy was failing many people and the planet. The imperative then was to create an economy that serves our needs, and shares wealth... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
27 May 2020
Monday 11 May saw the launch of a new report from Positive Money called The Tragedy of Growth. That same day a webinar brought an audience of almost 900... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
20 May 2020
Almost a year ago, on 1 March 2019, I met with a group of people from Oxford – city council officials, an elected councillor and staff of social enterprise... Read More
By Neil McInroy
18 May 2020
For some in the local economic development community there is talk of a post crisis “bounce back” – reflective of an idea that the economy is on a purely... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
06 May 2020
Life continues to be dominated by coronavirus. This month’s Talking Points focuses mainly on the all-important question of ‘what next?’ Has the market economy had its day? Will we... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
29 Apr 2020
‘Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That,... Read More
By The Alternative UK
24 Apr 2020
From our beginning, we’ve identified Universal Basic Income as a foundational policy for A/UK – as a way to ground active citizenship, encourage creative living, redistribute wealth and collectively... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
22 Apr 2020
Last week, we covered New Economics Foundation’s (NEF’s) first weekly economics briefing which looked at how we can win the economic recovery after coronavirus. This week’s focused on ‘Fixing... Read More
By Sarah Arnold
20 Apr 2020
The Minimum Income Guarantee would make sure no one falls through the gaps in our social security system. Yesterday the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed that nearly one... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
15 Apr 2020
New Economics Foundation (NEF) will be holding Weekly Economics Briefings to discuss challenges the coronavirus crisis poses to progressives — from analysing policy decisions to highlighting the organising being done in... Read More
By Aidan Harper
29 Jan 2020
Are we ‘owed’ more leisure time? We live in an economy which systematically extracts from us the time we have: in exchange for wages we give employers labour, effort, and... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
08 Jan 2020
2019 has been a tumultuous year. While poverty and inequality continued their inexorable rise, the climate crisis finally erupted on to the national agenda. At the same time solutions... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell and Barry Knight
07 Jan 2020
What is the society we want? There is widespread agreement across the political spectrum that capitalism is in crisis and we need a new way of doing things. ‘Read the... Read More
By Thomas Barrett
20 Nov 2019
This article, by Thomas Barrett, was originally published on NewStart, a website for making places better. Subscribe for just £49 per year here. Wales will be the first country in the... Read More
19 Nov 2019
The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) has launched ‘The manifesto for local economies’, setting out a vision for ‘how the next government should create local economies that serve... Read More
15 Nov 2019
The New Economics Foundation (NEF) has published a new report, New Rules for the Economy, which propose ‘three missions to transform our failing economy’. The report depicts the UK... Read More
By Anna Fowlie
13 Nov 2019
To coincide with the 10 year anniversary of the publication of the Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the Carnegie UK Trust... Read More
22 Oct 2019
A new report from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and Power to Change, Building an inclusive economy through community business, ‘explores how community businesses can support the... Read More
By Ed Mayo
16 Oct 2019
It is a time of great distraction. Our plans to leave the European Union are burning, our government is fiddling with its leadership and, while it makes for news... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
09 Oct 2019
This month’s Talking Points looks at rising poverty and inequality and what can be done about it – from reforming Universal Credit to introducing UBS/UBI, taxing wealth more, and... Read More
24 Sep 2019
Last month we announced the launch of Common Wealth’s Green New Deal project, a series of reports that will aim to serve as a ‘comprehensive road map for a... Read More
19 Sep 2019
A new report, How to achieve shorter working hours, commissioned by the Labour Party and written by Lord Skidelsky, was published last week. It argues that ‘a reduction in... Read More
17 Sep 2019
The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) have published ‘CLES on… climate emergency’, the third piece in their new series of provocations. It argues that while movements such as... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
11 Sep 2019
This month’s Talking Points ranges widely from US companies’ new professed purpose of improving our society to a change of direction at Joseph Rowntree Foundation, ideas for transforming public... Read More
05 Sep 2019
Common Wealth have recently published the report Why We Need Publicly Owned Energy for a Green New Deal. Written by Cat Hobbs, founder and director of We Own It,... Read More
04 Sep 2019
The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) have launched a new series of provocations, ‘CLES on…’, drawing on their thirty years’ experience of ‘working to develop stronger local economics... Read More
By Mathew Lawrence
03 Sep 2019
Executive summary Tinkering at the margins of an economic model driving environmental breakdown is guaranteed to deepen the climate emergency. To thrive, only a systemic response to a systems... Read More
By the CLES team
21 Aug 2019
Last week CLES hosted the second annual Community Wealth Building Summit, the only event like it in the UK and the largest event in CLES’ history. The 200-strong delegate... Read More
24 Jul 2019
A new publication from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) ‘tells the story of community wealth building (CWB) in Preston’, reflecting on eight years of collaboration. CLES set... Read More
By Dr Hugh Ellis
18 Jul 2019
It might not be immediately obvious why anyone would want to have a relationship with a planner let alone an organisation dedicated to promoting the values of a planning... Read More
11 Jul 2019
The think-tank Common Wealth this week launched their Green New Deal project, a series of reports to be published over the coming months that will serve as a ‘comprehensive... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
09 Jul 2019
This month’s Talking Points reflects on the causes of inequality and puts forward some suggestions for tackling poverty rather than just more ‘bad news’. We also look at the... Read More
08 Jul 2019
A new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) sets out how productivity could deliver inclusive growth for Scotland. In 2015, the Scottish government launched a new... Read More
27 Jun 2019
A new think-tank, Common Wealth, ‘dedicated to democratising ownership’, seeks to ‘rapidly and justly transform our economy in the face of climate breakdown’. The organisation sets out its ‘simple... Read More
By Pierre Calame
26 Jun 2019
The European Union has seen globalization in narrow economic terms as the creation of a single global market rather than the irreversible, interdependent relationships between the world’s societies and... Read More
12 Jun 2019
A new charter, Time to Build an Inclusive Local Economy ‘sets out key steps to harness the power of communities to create resilient local economies’. Developed by Development Trusts... Read More
06 Jun 2019
This week saw the publication of a new independent report, Land for the Many: Changing the way our fundamental asset is used. Written by George Monbiot and six others... Read More
By Mark Wilkinson
04 Jun 2019
In this blog, Mark Wilkinson, Losing Control advisory council member, reflects on the Losing Control conference in February, CTRLshift: an emergency summit for change in May, and the way community groups in towns and... Read More
By Indra Adnan
30 May 2019
CTRLshift is all about ‘shifting control’ from national-level political parties and corporations to the people and organisations collaborating in towns, cities and regions – very much the agenda of... Read More
By Aaron Tanaka
23 May 2019
Editors’ note: In this article, Aaron Tanaka, director of the Center for Economic Democracy and cofounder of the Boston Ujima Project, envisions a new approach for economic development that is... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
21 May 2019
The devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all three put wellbeing at the heart of their approach – codifying their values and goals within wellbeing frameworks... Read More
09 May 2019
CLES last month released a new publication, New Municipalism in London, which highlights ‘the actions of three London Boroughs who are seeking to challenge traditional local economic development and... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
01 May 2019
The big development this month is the re-emergence of the Green New Deal in the UK, offering a way forward to address poverty, inequality and climate change. Also this... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
10 Apr 2019
I have been very aware for a while that Rethinking Poverty should be including climate change in its focus. But a gut feeling about the interconnectedness of everything isn’t... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
28 Mar 2019
On 1 March I met with a group of people from Oxford – city council officials, an elected councillor and staff of social enterprise Aspire Oxford – to talk... Read More
27 Mar 2019
Compass, with support from Friends Provident Foundation, have published a new report, Basic Income for All: From Desirability to Feasibility. Authored by Stewart Lansley and Howard Reed, it presents... Read More
By Jason Hickel
19 Mar 2019
What do we need for a good society and a sustainable future? We need to de-enclose social goods and restore the commons, so that people can access the things they need... Read More
13 Mar 2019
On 6 March, the RSA Inclusive Growth Commission published their new report Inclusive growth in action: Snapshots of a new economy. In the face of a British economy that... Read More
By Steven Burkeman
12 Mar 2019
In 1901, Joseph Rowntree began creating what was to become the village of New Earswick, 2½ miles north of York. Today, New Earswick is a thriving mixed community of... Read More
By Donald Burling
27 Feb 2019
Rethinking Poverty encourages its readers to contribute their thoughts so that we can all engage in developing the society we want. Here we publish an article by Donald Burling... Read More
By David Burch and Neil McInroy
20 Feb 2019
From time to time a new policy concept emerges, which seems to capture the mood and desire for a certain type of change. Today in economic development that phrase... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
30 Jan 2019
What is community wealth building? On the one hand, it seems like a new idea. The Labour Party established its Community wealth building Unit less than a year ago,... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell and Barry Knight
23 Jan 2019
Here, we follow up the article by Neal Lawson and Caroline Hartnell on ‘45 Degree Change’ and examine initiatives identified by Aditya Chakrabortty in a series of articles called... Read More
By Barry Knight
03 Jan 2019
Last year was a bad year for anti-poverty campaigners. Poverty rose significantly and yet the government summarily dismissed reports from the UN and JRF. If we are to produce... Read More
By Katy Goldstraw
19 Dec 2018
Current discussion of a good society takes place in a period of profound global change, and there is no agreement about what a good society would look like. In... Read More
29 Nov 2018
Last week, we launched our series on ’45 Degree Change’ – the meeting point between the vertical state and horizontal emerging local initiatives. The work of local wealth building... Read More
By Neal Lawson and Caroline Hartnell
21 Nov 2018
We want to change the world. Of course that means ending poverty and stopping climate change. The problem is, though, we really don’t know how to do it. Two... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty, Compass, TCPA, University of Hull, UCL
26 Sep 2018
What would a good society look like and how can we achieve it? As described in yesterday’s blog, a small group of people got together in Letchworth Garden City... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty, Compass, TCPA, University of Hull, UCL
25 Sep 2018
A small group of people got together in Letchworth Garden City on 26 and 27 July. With UK politics in a worse state than perhaps ever before, the aim... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
29 May 2018
‘Focusing on basic services, such as housing, food, communications and transport, is, we conclude, far more effective at driving down the cost of living than spending the same money... Read More
By Chris Goulden
11 May 2018
Universal basic income (UBI), or citizens’ basic income, is one of the ideas put forward in Barry Knight’s book Rethinking Poverty: What makes a good society? as a ‘promising area for... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
24 Apr 2018
Barry Knight’s book Rethinking Poverty:What makes a good society? was published last September, eliciting a wide range of responses, published on the Rethinking Poverty blog. Barry’s new paper, summarised... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
29 Mar 2018
‘Since 1945 Britain has experienced two models of political economy,’ said Rachel Reeves, MP for Leeds West, launching her new pamphlet, The Everyday Economy, at The Trampery in London... Read More
By Barry Knight
07 Mar 2018
Purpose of this paper This paper has two goals. The first is to learn from reactions to the publication of Rethinking Poverty given during a wide range of public... Read More
By Neil McInroy
27 Jul 2016
For too long we have either turned a blind eye to poverty and disadvantage or hoped that a general rising tide of economic wealth would trickle down. The... Read More
