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Participation Regulation 2027: What Dutch Councils Must Prepare

Civic participation can be beneficial to both residents and municipalities and other public bodies. The European Commission reports that it can improve resource efficiency and build transparency, whilst fostering “inclusivity, ensuring that all voices are heard in decision-making processes. It builds public trust in government institutions by providing residents with the opportunity to directly influence decisions that affect their lives.” However, there is evidence that many citizens do not engage in the democratic process. In the municipality elections in 2026, turnout stood at 53.75% of eligible voters. Nearly half of the electorate did not vote, despite the outcome having a...

What is AI Governance and How Does it Affect the Board of Directors?

Artificial intelligence has become a common feature of the workplace. McKinsey found that 88% of organisations regularly used AI in at least one business function by the end of 2025. This was up from 78% a year previously.  However, only a third of companies have begun scaling AI across the entire business, despite 64% confirming that it has enabled innovation. One reason for this could be that the rise of AI has been rapid and, although it brings multiple benefits, there are also risks inherent with trusting large language models, machine learning and smart automation platforms with complex and impactful...

Taking back an hour a day: time management for assistants, with Abigail Barnes

Assistants spend their days protecting other people's time. Their executive's calendar gets defended fiercely. Meetings start on the dot. Deadlines are tracked, reminders sent, diaries organised into shape. And yet, ask most assistants when they last felt in control of their own time, and the answer is usually a rueful laugh. That's the paradox Abigail Barnes set out to solve. As a time management author and international speaker, Abigail has built a career around a simple idea: the tools that help executives run their day can work just as well for the person running theirs. In this video series, she...

Rethinking the role of the assistant: insights from Lucy Brazier

The role of the executive assistant has changed more in the last decade than in the fifty years before it. Middle management has thinned out, AI is absorbing routine tasks, and remote work has redrawn how executives and their assistants actually work together. So what does the modern assistant role look like — and where is it heading? To explore exactly that, we sat down with Lucy Brazier, CEO of Marcham Publishing and one of the most recognised voices championing the profession worldwide. In this short video series, Lucy shares a refreshingly direct view on where assistants add real value,...

NIS2 Directive and Cybersecurity Act: Complete Guide for Governance and Compliance

With evermore elements of our lives guided by digital interactions, the opportunities arise for cyber criminals to cause disruption to essential services and industries. The European Union’s cybersecurity agency ENISA found that 53.7% of recorded cyberattacks in the EU during 2025 were targeting public administration, transport, digital infrastructure and services, finance or manufacturing.  The majority of attacks used phishing (60%) – where criminals pretend to be trusted parties to deceive users into sharing sensitive information – and exploiting vulnerabilities (21.3%) as access vectors, showing why having strict protections in place is so important.  Due to this growing threat, the European...

4 Community Engagement Best Practices for Greater Impact

In its 2025 Report on Citizen Engagement and Participation and Local Governance in Europe, the European Association for Local Democracy (ALDA) examined the importance of government bodies working together with community members. It states that “effective local governance and meaningful citizen engagement are essential to ensuring that democratic systems remain responsive, inclusive and trusted.”  This is especially relevant when, as the EU’s Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) reports, “In Europe, there is growing disaffection and a lack of trust in democratic processes, driven by widening inequalities and anxieties concerning social, economic and cultural change.”  CORDIS quotes James Scott,...

Complete Guide: How to Improve Accountability in Local Government

A 2024 Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) survey of English citizens found that only 43% trusted local councillors to work in the best interests of local people and that 62% wanted greater insight into how councils took decisions. These results feed into each other. The more we know about the processes involved in converting our local taxes into services for the community, the more we can trust those processes are carried out with the right intentions.  Transparency over decision-making and service delivery allows the public to hold local government organisations accountable for their actions. In turn, this encourages councillors to...

5 Non-profit Best Practices to Implement This Year

The effectiveness of a non-profit organisation hinges on robust governance. If it was ever just seen as a compliance obligation, that is no longer the case. With the non-profit sector contributing on average around 5% of a European country's GDP, you need a sophisticated approach to leadership and oversight. Today’s non-profit boards must become strategic stewards, actively steering their organisations toward greater impact, resilience and sustainability. This requires a re-evaluation of traditional board functions, embracing new strategies for composition, engagement, decision-making and risk management to ensure non-profits thrive in an ever-changing world. This article explores the best practices non-profit boards...

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