Local democracy

Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): Local government in England is neither local, government nor representative.  Local authorities are ruled from above by central government departments and major quangos.  At last, with the granting of royal assent for the the creation of the Homes and Communities Agency - a merger of the former Housing Corporation and English Partnerships - the shape of effective regional and local governance is now clear. It sets the seal on a troika of power that is accountable, though imperfectly, only upwards: this new super-quango, regional development agencies and the government's regional offices will now rule between them.  Yes, there is provision for deals with the larger local authorities - some of them with populations of over a million - but the real power rests with the regional quango state.

Suzy Dean (London, Manifesto Club): Local government has recently been given the arduous task of leading the way towards “more active citizenship, empowered communities, and ultimately, the revival of democracy.” A White Paper, expected early this summer, will explain how. In the long run it is hoped that citizen involvement at the local level will lead to an increase in public confidence in the services and institutions delivering them.

The way in which local government has been rebranded the solution for broader political problems such as disengagement and lack of trust in political institutions, sets the scheme up for a fall.

There has been an understandable attempt by politicians to find out what the public are thinking. When there are high levels of apathy and widespread mistrust in the political system, it is not surprising that political elites want to know what will make people want to engage with them. So far, this has proved unsuccessful at the national level of politics where despite endless opinions polling and citizens’ juries on almost every aspect of policy, there seems to be little that really inspires people to vote, let alone join a party. Following this lack of success throughout central government, local government has taken on the challenge, on the basis that the public may be more interested in their local area.

There are a number of indications that local politics will not be able to renew a sense of faith in politics.

OurKingdom is running a short series of posts looking at various aspects of local government - you can read the series in full here.

Richard Berry (London, Knowledge Politics): Stuart Weir began this series with a piece lamenting the over-centralisation of the British state, and an anonymous poster responding to this made the argument that local government itself is acquiescent with this situation. I believe the analysis of why local authorities do not make more vociferous demands for autonomy has to take into account the party origins of most local politicians.

OurKingdom is running a short series of posts looking at various aspects of local government - you can read the series in full here.

Amelia Cookson (London, Local Government Information Unit): Though it goes against every grain of my being, I think that it might be true: things really are getting better. Well, maybe not with the economy. And the climate might be a write-off. But for the first time in a long time, local government is on the up.

Selina O'Grady (London, author): A letter from the council, a future Prime Minister and the absurdity of officialdom all made for an unusually political moment in my habitually social visits to the shops last weekend. I used to pine a bit for the Starbucks, delicatessens and boutiques full of taps, tiles and Victorian board games that the more fashionable bits of Kensington acquired. Here, we have Tastebuds for colesterol breakfasting, Dar al Hijab for Muslim fashions, Mick and John at Allen Foster Butchers, supplier of Quality Meats and Navneet Kishore at the newsagent/post office.

OurKingdom is running a short series of posts looking at various aspects of local government - you can read the series in full here.

Rupert Read (Norwich, The Green Party): Right now, I'm spending a lot of my time on the stump. In a week's time, we'll know the results of this year's local elections; a good time to reflect, then, on the prospects for local government in Britain.

OurKingdom is running a short series of posts looking at various aspects of local government - you can read the series in full here.

George Jones (London, LSE): Public Partnerships are the Government's fashionable mechanism for delivering local public services. They come in various shapes and sizes: between local authorities and other public bodies, with the private sector and with the voluntary or independent sector. And they have proliferated. Researchers in 2002 found at least 5,500 local partnerships, spending £4.3 billion a year, with 75,000 partnership board members. There must be far more today.

OurKingdom is running a short series of posts looking at various aspects of local government - you can read the series in full here.

Mike Small (Fife, Bella Caledonia): We are obsessed by food. We should be - because we have a serious problem. As Raj Patel points out in his new book "Stuffed and Starved" unless you are a corporate food executive, the food system isn't working for you.

This is the guest editorial of the current issue of Ethos on local government. Ethos is a journal of the Serco group. It's also part of a short series of posts OurKingdom is running looking at various aspects of local government - you can read the series in full here.

Peter Facey (Fowlmere, Unlock Democracy): A couple of years ago I was driving through rural Ireland, where houses and telegraph poles flew their county colours. The only county in England that has traditionally flown its own flag is Cornwall. And yes, before someone tells me, I know that for many Cornish Cornwall isn't just a county, but a nation in its own right. Even where I now live in Cambridgeshire you find cars with the flag of St. Piran on them.

This is the first in a short series of posts OurKingdom will be running in April looking at various aspects of local government.

Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): Four months ago, on December 12 2007, a major constitutional bargain was struck which attracted no attention then and has largely been ignored since. I refer to the concordat on central-local government that the government signed with the Local Government Association (LGA) and that was trailed in the Governance of Britain green paper. But government departments and ministers have not lost their enthusiasm for interfering in local government affairs and, so far as I know, the LGA and local authorities scarcely ever raise its presence in their defence.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I have just come back from one of the most extraordinary political meetings I've ever been to in a long life of such events. It was the Mayoral hustings put on by London Citizens in the Methodist Central Hall, packed with well over 2,000 people. Neither the Labour Party nor the Conservative Party was mentioned by name and may just as well not have existed. The Lib-Dems and the Greens were named by their candidates but that was a sign of their marginality. The organisers put on a fantastic demonstration of politics from below, roll-calling the dozens of local organisations, schools, churches and faith communities that combined in what was both very London yet also drew upon American style populist organising and trade union solidarity. There was singing, there was a highly professional display of human causes unfolded with dignity and enjoyment. It felt genuinely representative. More on this I'm sure.

Jon Bright (London, OK): Any Londoners out there unsure of where to cast their vote in the upcoming elections might want to check out "Vote Match 08" - a new website launched by Unlock Democracy and the Dutch Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek. The tool poses a range of policy based questions, then asks you to select which areas are of most importance for you, before fixing you up with a politician to suit your needs. The candidates themselves have already answered the same set of questions, so you'll be getting someone who thinks like you on the issues you feel strongly about (hopefully). To my slight disappointment, I was paired off with Boris Johnson, who I am not exactly a massive fan of. But it's nice to know we're not so different after all. Who will you end up with?

Rupert Read (Norwich, The Green Party): Local election campaigning kicked off this week - what will it mean for the UK's fourth party?

A lot of focus will inevitably be on the situation in London. The London Mayoral race is hotting up. At the top, it is closely-contested by Ken Livingstone of Labour and Boris Johnson of the Conservatives. But the election system used for Mayor of London means that voters can pick as their first preference whoever they want, and transfer their vote tactically using their second preference vote. The Lib Dems are polling poorly, and are likely to drop below their score in '04 - the Green Party candidate (Sian Berry), on the other hand, is charismatic and dynamic, and it may well be that it is the Green Party that profits from the AV system. Sian Berry will quite probably get the highest-votes ever received by Mayoral candidates for the Green Party in a mayoral race.

CoSERG (Cornwall): In January a CoSERG member was approached by a television company making a programme for ITV on the change to unitary local government in Cornwall. The programme researcher explained that the programme would be about the costs of the transition; was it costing more than the County Council had predicted, as forecast by the opponents of unitary local government? A fair question; but we asked whether they also intended to include the issues of the loss of democratic accountability, devolution to Cornwall or local community empowerment. They weren't - these issues had "already been covered." Moreover, it became clear that our TV person had not even heard of the soon to be unlamented South West Regional Assembly.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Had a coffee with Martin Bright this morning. He is very angry with me for signing the Compass letter in support of Livingstone and made his feelings known in his blog. Meanwhile Sunder Katwala who heads up the Fabians has written his, longer version, of why I signed, like me he rejects the letter's Compass statement's criticism of journalists on the left (aka in this instance Martin Bright) who criticise Ken. I've put my case. We also talked about the drink issue and my distinction between politicians taking whatever they need to stiffen their nerves - but not to tolerate drug use that incapacitates them or makes them feel sorry for themselves. More important, perhaps, Martin and I agree that even if elected Ken may not last the course of another four years. Who should replace him? Not an ex-Cabinet minister. Please! The political establishment (and I include media reporters in this) still do not understand what is happening with devolution. London demands a different kind of politics. It is an executive post not a ministerial one. A point I've made before. It should be a stepping stone to national politics not a consolation prize. Livingstone has made the impact he has, not because he was an MP or is a "maverick" as Sunder describes him, but because he was formed by running the GLC. It was there that he came to the view that in executive terms one looks for "the best person for the job anywhere in the world and pay them accordingly". Eyebrows have been raised at my suggestion that a better left candidate would have been Neal Lawson. Should Sunder be drafted? The position needs someone with executive abilities and a political will to mobilise a wide range of constituencies outside the usual party routines.

Stuart Weir reviews You've been Quango'd! Mapping power across the regions by Chris Leslie and Owen Dallison, NLGN.

A new NLGN report calls for quangos to be more representative.

Peter Bradley (Nottingham, Speakers' Corner Trust): Last Friday Nottingham became the first city in the UK to adopt a Speakers' Corner since an Act of Parliament paved the way for the original in London's Hyde Park almost 150 years ago. It's first of what Speakers' Corner Trust hopes will become a national network of locally-run initiatives promoting public debate and active citizenship.

Jon Bright (London, OK): One of the aspects of the global war on terror which, as it were, would have been funny if it wasn't so tragic, was the often repeated desire to "win hearts and minds": often repeated by people who seemed to be going out of their way to do exactly the opposite. Forward Thinking's new report on "Forgotten Voices", which investigates the opinions of young Muslims through conversations with their peers, exposes the extent of the damage - and the rather worrying level of concern Muslim youth feel about their lives and their prospects. It reveals both that a "great majority" of them felt "British", and yet also felt isolated within their society - fearful of their prospects of educational and professional development.

Jill Grieve (London, The Countryside Alliance): 2008 could be a big year for rural Britain. A host of bills and important landmarks await:

6^th February - the winners of the Countryside Alliance's third annual Best Rural Retailer competition will be announced - check bestruralretailer.co.uk for regional winners. The competition seeks to celebrate rural Britain through the retailers who work so hard to keep their communities together.