Local Government

Peter Facey (London, Unlock Democracy): Yesterday David Cameron in an article in the Guardian stated “I am a confirmed localist, committed to turning Britain’s pyramid of power on its head.” Now to someone like me who believes that the centralisation of power in England is one of the great democratic deficits, this is a joy to hear.

The reason for the article and the soaring rhetoric was the publication of the Conservatives green paper on decentralisation, Control Shift – Returning Power to Local Communities.  

The paper is genuinely welcome and contains ideas such a allowing local referendums if five percent of the local electorate sign a petition and giving local authorities the power to reduce local business rates. It also talks about giving the local councils a general power of competence, which has the potential to increase Council’s power. If these specific ideas make it into the Conservative manifesto and eventually into legislation I will be genuinely pleased.

But this paper does not match David Cameron’s words and turn Britain’s power pyramid on its head.  At the risk of sounding like of a reformed Marxist one of the true tests for a localist is money, not just giving local authorities greater power to spend the money given to them, but also the power to raise and spend more of their own money. This will eventually have to involve reforming the present system of local government finance and replacing the Council Tax with a fairer system of local taxation. On this the paper is not surprisingly silent.

Chris Game (University of Birmingham, Institute of Local Government Studies): Every cloud, as the saying goes. It seems that one of the collateral victims of the global economic crisis may be the current round of English local government reorganisation.  

Speaking at a recent Belfast conference of local authority chief executives, Communities and Local Government Secretary, Hazel Blears, claimed her department had gone ‘back to the drawing board’ on any issues that might help local government ‘in the tough times ahead’. These included a possible reconsideration of the Government’s latest bout of restructuring, taking place under the controversial auspices of last year’s Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act (see Michael Chisholm and Steve Leach, Botched Business: The damaging process of reorganising local government, 2006-2008 (Douglas Maclean Publishing); and Chisholm’s ‘Fears for tiers’ in Public Finance, 23 May 2008).

Those of us in the local government world learned long ago to be thankful for small mercies. So, if it takes an economic crisis to prompt at least a delay in what to most outside observers looks like the final destruction of much of English local government, we’ll welcome it as the proverbial silver cloud. It’s sad, though, that there wasn’t even a hint from the Minister that considerations of that quaint concept of local democracy played any part in her thinking.

 Tom Griffin (London, OK):The Scottish Government's plans to replace council tax moved centre-stage in the Glenrothes by-election yesterday. On a visit to the Fife constituency, Chancellor Alistair Darling condemned the SNP's local income tax proposal as a "ridiculous idea."

In the past few days, SNP Ministers have announced significant changes to the policy, with councils being given the power to set their own income tax rate of up to 3p in the pound. This could prove crucial in winning the support of the Liberal Democrats, who have long called for a local income tax that is truly local. Without Liberal Democrat support, the SNP minority government stands little chance of getting its proposals through the Scottish Parliament.

The revamped proposals seem to have got a fair wind from Lib Dem blogger Stephen Glenn. If his colleagues at Holyrood feel similarly, council tax could yet be on the way out north of the border.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Scotsman brings us news that the SNP is preparing to do a deal with the Liberal Democrats to abolish the council tax in Scotland.

As the SNP is running the Scottish Government as a minority administration, it needs the support of one of the other main parties to get its plans through. The Lib Dems support the principle of a local income tax, but are adamant that it must be set locally, by individual councils, rather than by the Scottish Government at 3p in the pound.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): In today's Sunday Herald, former Labour Scottish Finance Minister Tom McCabe delivers a brutally frank assessment of Labour's diminished place in Scotland's political landscape, and one of the starkest calls yet for the Scottish Party to set its own agenda:

So how can Scottish Labour respond? First, with a leader who is seen to be in charge, taking responsibility and being prepared to say and do what is best for Scots, no matter who it might upset.

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.

Andrew Blick (London, Democratic Audit): Is there a 'mental Berlin Wall' that separates unease about democratic issues such as 'executive dominance of Parliament, the unreformed House of Lords, the obsolete parliamentary election system, 42 days and the data-base state' from concern over the existence of 'local government that is neither "local" nor "government."'?

That at any rate is the view of Stuart Weir, Director of Democratic Audit, who led the discussion at Wednesday's CAOS (Combining All Our Strengths) seminar for civil society organisations.  Stuart described  domination by Whitehall managerialism, a complexity of structures and the financial and constitutional weakness of local government to ask, "Is democratic accountability at local level possible?  Is there space for genuine participation, and if so, is it confined to a very low level at which government is willing to tolerate ordinary people getting involved?' 

As it happens, the seminar coincided with a white paper on community engagement that illustrates how uneasy Whitehall is about any ideas that might break the managerial mould.

Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): There was the official welcome from the chair, "Hazel Blears is here", following an informal clue to her arrival as a man in black slid two blocks behind the speaker's plinth from which she was to speak. So in she bounced to deliver a brisk and rousing speech to local council delegates from across the country at the Local Government Information Unit's "Power to the People" conference in London. I think the delegates were roused, and I myself was not immune to her spirited commitment to empowering people; and also, to the general spirit of optimism that seems to have overtaken many in local government about the government's commitment to "new $localism".

Blears promised a white paper on empowerment in a few weeks which was, she said, still open for ideas. It is all part of the Queen's Speech agenda introducing bills to increase accountability in the NHS, police, local government, schools, housing and regeneration policy. And while she is at it, she is also promising empowerment for local authorities who desperately need it. Quite whether she or her master will go as far as speakers and delegates at the conference were demanding is another matter. Among their proposals, for example, were a merger of primary care trusts and local authorities, handing the proceeds of the business rate back to local councils (this would apparently double their money at a stroke) and finally resolving the whole of local government funding and the future of council tax. It was I think Chris Leslie, the former minister who is now director of the New Local Government Network, who said that council tax could be revalued so long as government would chuck £4 billion at people in the form of transitional relief - money that could be raised by a one-off tax on the super rich. Now there's an idea that would secure Gordon Brown's fortunes (with me at least).

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.

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

This is an anonymous post from someone working within local government.

As a local government practitioner, I would like to say that Stuart Weir's argument (which began this series) is right in an ideal world. But the centralising tendencies of central government are only one part of the problem. The other is the lack of real 'demand' from the majority of people in local government for autonomy; the relative lack of capability or vision of councillors to make their place different; the dominance of councils who want to be left alone to be incompetent. Some of this is not surprising, since very few people with real ambitions or vision have stood to be a councillor for so long. It's interesting when you do find one of those, in a big city or in a local area, to see what a difference they can make. Plus it is only recently that young bright people have come into local government - and then usually via a 'profession', e.g., regeneration, where you can work for many different agencies, rather than those making a career as a local authority officer. This is a real issue, as it takes time to attract the capabilities into the sector to take advantage of the much greater potential for localism that does exist.

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

Dominic Potter (London, Involve): There is currently a re-ordering of some of the relationships that are central to how we all live our everyday lives. In Stuart Weir's interesting piece on this site, the focus was on the relationship between central and local government. What we at Involve find really intriguing is the relationship between local government and citizens.

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 localism and local government - you can read the series in full here.

Anthony Brand (London, New Local Government Network): Stuart Weir's first piece in this series rightly argued that a local government ruled through central dictat will not drive interest in local democracy. Nor will it produce the innovative, personalised services that 21^st Century citizens deserve.