In good company

Shaun Harley: Like most organisations, ASC uses a cuttings agency so we can monitor what those lovely people in the media are saying about us and keep up with other relevant policies and organisations (not least the Homes and Communities Agency, which we’re joining when it’s officially formed later this year).

Busybodyocracy

Carlo Verda: The novelist Dr Graham Gardner, who in 2006 completed a fascinating research project on behalf of Defra, coined a phrase last year which I just love. Gardner had been tasked by Defra with assessing the success, or otherwise, of neighbourhood devolution – that is, handing the running of local services down, as far as possible, to local people. The ‘busybodyocracy’ was often the unintended consequence of such a policy, he argued.

Assignments, analysis and action plans

Lisa Butchart: In my first blog entry I wrote that our tutors on the ASC foundation degree in sustainable communities were breaking us into academic life “fairly gently”. After two months I may have to revise that position; the pace having upped considerably in recent weeks.