Sustainable Growth in the Big Society: learning from Europe

We held a breakfast seminar with Alex Plant, Peter Moakes, Tony Travers and Nicholas Falk  to discuss lessons from Europe on as part of our programme on making the Big Society work.

The success of the Big Society depends on being able to combine people, funding and assets in ways that produce better results.

As well as delivering the services that make places attractive to live, local government has a key and often unrecognised set of roles to play, particularly as far as linking housing development with infrastructure capacity and economic growth.

There are lessons from Holland, Scandinavia and Germany in achieving better rates of growth and a higher quality of life.

The seminar picked up these lessons and considered how they could be applied to the UK in the context of devolving powers.