Localism - A Conservative view

In response, and to balance out the earlier post, one of our Conservative consultants has given his views on the Localism concept below......................

Localism Bill - A Conservative view

The Localism Bill has been applauded for its emphasis on decentralisation and is seen as a first crucial step away from the top-down and inefficient system inherited from the last Labour Government. It was conceived as a way of releasing local councils from the controlling hand of the oligarchical State and enabling them increased autonomy, thus accountability and economic efficiency.

Eric Pickles today stated that:

“For too long, central government has kept local government on a tight leash, strangling the life out of councils. This has stopped councils doing anything without running to ministers first. It means that local public services are run on the whims of bureaucrats many miles away. It has stopped councils from using their creativity to improve services and from focusing on what residents want.”

The system of control over local government by the State has had a two-fold effect: first, it has bred complacency among local councils. They have found a convenient scape-goat on which to pass the buck. Second, it has resulted in apathy among the general public who realise that their local council is essentially powerless up against the State’s bureaucrats- resulting in declining turn-outs in local elections.

The Bill has been described as a “triumph for democracy” on two fronts. First, by increasing the powers of locally elected Councillors to set up services and to better create tailored responses to the financial challenges ahead. Second, by empowering local individuals:

• Communities can question how services - such as children's centres, care homes and transport - are being run and potentially take them over.

• Directly elected mayors in 12 cities.

• More power for local people to overrule planning decisions, decide where new homes should go and protect green spaces.

• Powers for people to approve or veto "excessive" council tax rises.

• Giving local people and organisations the right to buy community assets like shops, pubs and libraries. If a council decides to sell a property community organisations will get extra time to develop their bid.

Critics of the Bill have argued that it amounts to no more than “swingeing cuts”. In the short term these cuts will of course be felt. The logic behind the Localism Bill, however, is that by granting councils greater autonomy and, by proxy, accountability, they will rise above the simplistic mindset that you can solve problems simply by throwing money at them. As such the Localism Bill is the long-awaited shot in the arm needed to deliver the public, faced with continually rising Council Tax bills, a remedy from the disease of local government profligacy.

George Saliagopoulos, Curtin&Co Conservative consultant

Localism - A Labour view

With the Localism Bill being published this afternoon and already elements of it seeping out we asked one of our Labour consultants for his thoughts on it ............................................

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." Thomas Jefferson.

The Localism Bill has been one of the most trailed and well publicised bills of recent years, but it is hard to find anyone who can truly tell you what Localism actually means. And that is the point. Simply devolving power and saying in effect ‘here you go, you do it now’ is not enough. That is the coalitions biggest mistake, because while localism is in principle right, the approach being taken is one of potential disaster not enlightenment – think of the Titanic sailing towards the ice berg, think of Local Government sailing towards 27% cuts and then overlay the Localism Bill’s proposed free-for-all.

The Government’s big idea is that the bill will enable local communities and councils to quite literally do their own thing. Therein localism truly means different things to different people and will in reality be interpreted and implemented differently all over the country.

The cry of power to the people only has resonance if it is also matched by the resources to achieve. The Achilles heel of the Localism Bill is that it is based on the largest and most swinging cuts to the budgets of local government in post war Britain. The funding cuts will in themselves change the face of service delivery to local people across England and will result in some of the hardest choices councils will have to make. Do they cut education, social services, youth services, or community safety? In reality all will be cut and hit very hard. Indeed one senior local government officer commented recently that the cuts proposed were catastrophic and the most vulnerable in society would literally be cut adrift.

The New Local Government Network has described the Localism Bill, already, as ‘a real disappointment to communities’. ‘If you are a council facing frontloaded cuts of up to 40 per cent, then greater freedom in how you spend it means little but a devolved axe.”

What the bill will do:

• Give councils a general power of competence

• Give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue and the power to veto excessive council tax increases

• Grant greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups

• Return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils and communities

• Abolish Regional Spatial Strategies

• Give communities the right to bid to take over local state-run services

• Require public bodies to publish online the job titles of every member of staff and the salaries and expenses of senior officials

• Create Local Enterprise Partnerships (to replace Regional Development Agencies)

• Review the Housing Revenue Account

The Localism Bill will include proposals to make councillors approve and publish pay rules for their chief executives. It will also include powers to create directly elected mayors in 12 of Britain’s cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Of real interest is the power for people to approve or veto "excessive" council tax rises, which will impact very heavily on those councils whose revenue budgets to deliver services are dependent on council tax income.

The Bill will create a "community right to buy" which will give local community groups and parish councils a legal right to name assets like shops, libraries and community centres as critical to their neighbourhoods and if they are put up for sale, local people will be given time to prepare a business plan and raise the funds they need to bid for it.

There will also be a "community right to challenge" - whereby community groups and parish councils will have the power to challenge and take over a local service. This could include running children's centres, social care services and local transport links. Councils would be forced to publish the reasons why the service could not be run by local groups, the onus being placed on the principle that they should be run by the community.

This is paternalism writ large and is essentially a ‘do gooders charter’. Every religious, community and neighbourhood group will be coming out of the woodwork to potentially take over services that until now have been professionally run by local government civil servants in the interests of the whole community and those most vulnerable. Without that professionalism local groups will likely choose who is deserving and who is not – can you imagine the impact that will have on those in most need. It has Dickensian overtones of the poorhouse running throughout the idea. Consider a local children’s social services department which could be run by a community group? The bill while well meaning will open a Pandora’s Box of paradox’s to be unravelled sometime after the initial damage is done.

The result of the bill will be confusion, much introspection amongst local government mandarins as the implications are slowly understood. The landscape of local government will be changed that is certain, not many people have yet realised just how radical these reforms are, and in terms of ambition set against available resources to deliver the bill the reality is that while it may read well and look good on paper, its implementation is another story all together.

Dr. Paul Harvey, Curtin&Co consultant and Labour councillor

Localism Bill will be introduced on Monday 13th December

After several weeks of 'will they won't they' and various dates flying around, the government have finally announced that the Localism Bill will be out on Monday 13th December. The news was first announced by Eric Pickles via Twitter in a post that read, "Localism Bill will be introduced next Monday. Lots of power to to Councils".

Stay tuned for more information and analysis..

http://www.planningresource.co.uk/bulletins/Planning-Resource-Daily-Bulletin/News/1046146/Localism-Bill-on-Monday/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin