Purpose – The paper evaluates the impact of a leadership development program on middle managers at Derby City Council, UK. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on interviews with 32 managers who had undertaken the program, named Leading Managers. Findings – The program focuses...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the origins, development and success of an employee well‐being package at Hillingdon Council, London, UK, which has helped to reduce sickness absence from an average of around 15 days per person per year at its worst to just above eight days...

Purpose – This paper aims to describe a new e‐learning service for Glasgow City Council's 37,000 staff. Design/methodology/approach – The paper explains the reasons for the new e‐learning service, the form it takes and the advantages it has brought. Findings – The paper reveals that...

Purpose – This article seeks to advance the view that collaborative leadership can generate the relationships necessary to resolve the tensions between rising expectations, smaller budgets and more innovative solutions. Design/methodology/approach – The article contends that, in the 1980s...

During the past decade research into retail regulation has become one of the key themes in the “new retail geography” but most of the work in this genre has been focussed on the retailing of goods and more particularly on food retailing. This paper is based in the retail services sector and...

Purpose – This paper offers two short case studies with the aim of showing how two local authorities are tackling the problems of the decline of market halls and covered markets within UK towns and cities. Design/methodology/approach – The paper begins with an outline of the origin of market...

Repair and maintenance play a key role in housing management and tenant satisfaction. In the UK, local authority housing departments have traditionally had these services carried out in‐house by local authority building services departments. For more than a decade, such departments have been...

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate development competitions in England in order to uncover any shortcomings and point to improvements. A “development competition” is a sale by tender of publicly‐owned land with development potential where bidders also submit...

Considers the nature of local authority assets within the context of overall management objectives. Raises questions about the categorization of public assets and the way in which they are perceived by local authorities. Analyses research undertaken to examine the compilation of asset registers,...

The paper examines how a property management division has sought to adopt the recommendations of the Audit Commission and Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy reports on local authority property management, and measures the democratically‐elected body has taken via its central...