We analysed 90,000 contracts involving UK local authorities between 2015 and 2019 to examine patterns and potential drivers of regional sourcing. We found councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are much more likely to select suppliers based within their regions compared with their...

Following multiple critical reviews of local audit arrangements, the UK government is poised to improve public oversight of English council finances to try to identify and address risks as they emerge. This article traces the growing realization that previous audit arrangements were ineffective...

Analysis of 60,000 contracts awarded by English councils between 2015–19 reveals that austerity constraints are a key predictor of councils outsourcing services to for-profit suppliers, regardless of their political control. Conservative Party-controlled councils are also more likely to...

The literature on policy mixes tends to focus on the instruments that different jurisdictions adopt to tackle public problems, and how policies may complement or conflict with each other. Fewer studies examine the factors that influence instrument choice, particularly within multilevel contexts,...

We examine how local socioeconomic, institutional and political factors shape climate transformation pathways in 23 mid-sized German cities. We group our cities into three types: industrial cities (which may have experienced recent structural change), historic cities (in which a significant...

Drawing on data for the 104 largest German cities, and deeper analysis of six mid-sized cities (including forerunners, followers and latecomers in climate mitigation and adaptation), we find that the spread of local mitigation and adaptation strategies across Germany can be explained by a...

Defining and measuring progress in adaptation are important questions for climate adaptation science, policy, and practice. Here, we assess the progress of urban adaptation planning in 327 European cities between 2005 and 2020 using three ‘ADAptation plan Quality Assessment’ indices, called...

Der vorliegende Forschungsbericht befasst sich mit dem Transfer von Klima-Policies (z.B. Strategien zur Dekarbonisierung oder Ansätze zur Klimawandelanpassung) zwischen Städten und fokussiert sich hierbei auf Literaturbeiträge aus den Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaften sowie der...

Dieser Forschungsbericht bietet vertiefte klimapolitische Pfadanalysen von 17 Groß- und Mittelstädten in den Bundesländern Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Brandenburg und Nordrhein-Westfalen. Die Pfadanalysen basieren auf umfangreichen Analysen zahlreicher Policy-Dokumente und Interviews mit...

Climate mitigation and climate adaptation are crucial tasks for urban areas and can involve synergies as well as trade-offs. However, few studies have examined how mitigation and adaptation efforts relate to each other in a large number of differently sized cities, and therefore we know little...