Education: Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (Public Sector Stream), West London Institute of Higher Education 1982–84; MA, Manpower Studies, Polytechnic of Central London 1989; PhD, Queen Mary and Westfield College 1997

Career: Colin Copus is a Senior Lecturer in Local Politics at the Institute of Local Government Studies in the School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham. His main teaching area is local politics and his current research interests are local government political management arrangements, structures and processes, the political party group and new forms of political management arrangements, the political party group in local democracy and politics, party group influence on the processes of public participation, representative democracy and participation at the local level, and the developing role of the councillor. Colin Copus was a London Borough of Newham Councillor between 1986 and 1990, where he was Chairman of the Area Housing Committee, a Staffordshire County Councillor between 1993 and 1997, a Parish Councillor from 1993 to 1997, a Cannock Chase District Councillor between 1994 and 1998, where he was Chairman of the Planning and Works Committee. He has worked closely with councillors and officers from a wide range of Borough, Unitary, County and District Councils on political decision-making and new political management arrangements. He is a member of the Political Studies Association and the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. He is co-editor of Local Government Studies (see url below).

Publications include: Party Politics and Local Government (major study of the role and impact of political parties within local democracy), Leading the Localities: Executive Mayors in English Local Governance 2006; numerous articles in professional journals

Contact details: Address: Institute of Local Government Studies, The School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, B15 2TT, England; Tel: +44 (0)121 414-4988; Email: C.M.Copus@bham.ac.uk ; Website: http://www.inlogov.bham.ac.uk/ ; Website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/03003930.asp/ .