Memorandum by the South West Constitutional
Convention (SWCC)(RG 60)
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
— Controversial policy issues in most
regions—for example new housing targets and strategic transport
infrastructure—do not map neatly on to the mandates and
competences of existing authorities. Leaving them to be determined
centrally is unlikely to prove politically acceptable, as bitter
debates about new housing patterns shows. There is a need for
these issues to be controlled, as far as practicable, by democratically
accountable authorities, advised where appropriate by appointed
quangos. There is also a need for wide-area issues to be addressed
by authorities—whether elected or not—whose members
are constrained neither by parochial NIMBYism nor by arbitrary
and narrow "silos" of specialism (See section 2, below).
— The referendum result for the North
East last year was a sobering—and perhaps unexpectedly stark—insight
into the depth of public scepticism about the Government's devolution
plans at the time. However, we believe that the scepticism was
about the effectiveness of local government generally, and about
the robustness of emerging city-regions in the North, as much
as about the viability of the specific model of elected assembly
being proposed in the Draft Regional Assemblies Bill (See section
3, below).
— The concern a few years ago about
a "democratic deficit"—when judging English governance
by the standards of continental Europe—seems to have been
replaced by a concern about the calibre of local and regional
governance—and of politicians themselves. The Comprehensive
Performance Assessment (CPA) regime has shown over the last three
years that some authorities struggle to reach even basic levels
of corporate competence, which is often a consequence of their
simply being too small. But nor are the unelected assemblies held
in high esteem. There is a growing consensus that better governance,
and restored public engagement in local politics, could be secured
by having fewer, better qualified, better empowered and more focused
people engaged in governance (see section 4, below).
— People are sceptical about enlarging
government, and fear that it will create additional fiscal drag
on the region's economy. This argues not only for persevering
with the rationalisation of the two-tier system, but for ensuring
that any new structure is rationally based on subsidiarity. It
is unlikely that the existing tiers of local government will muster
much enthusiasm for this, as too many personal careers and power
bases may be threatened, but the status quo is now so confusing
and inefficient that the long-term case for pressing ahead is
overwhelmingly strong (see section 5, below).
— There is a possibility—not
beneficial to the South West—that "city regions"
will take root by default. The cities face intense regeneration
needs, and many in the southern regions also face crises in affordable
housing and sustainable transport. This may mean that new forms
of governance will evolve to fill the vacuum in regional policy,
but will fail adequately to address the interdependence of conurbations
and rural England—a particular challenge in the South West
where a minority of people live in urban settings.
2. THE STATUS
QUO
2.1 The current apparatus of governance
in the South West has, in the wake of the NE referendum, needed
to carry on for at least a while, although we are aware that the
existing (un-elected) South West Regional Assembly (SWRA) is not
highly thought of, and is increasingly regarded in the region
as an expensive and over-large talking-shop which many attended
with extreme reluctance. We are also aware the Conservative party
nationally has—in the wake of the NE referendum—called
for the unelected assemblies now to be wound up, and that some
Conservative politicians see them as Trojan horses for the imposition
via ODPM of unacceptably high new house-building targets.
2.2 On the other hand, we recognise that
issues such as house-building, general land-use and long-range
transport cannot entirely be resolved at the level of district
or even county councils, and that some kind of regional decision-making
apparatus is needed. Those involved in the former Regional Planning
Conference can testify as to the degree of tension between even
upper-tier local authorities when these issues are being negotiated.
2.3 In the Regional Assemblies legislation,
the creation of elected assemblies was linked to the rationalisation
of the existing two tiers of local government to a single unitary
tier in shire areas. We have always believed that the move to
unitary government was likely to resume at some point—and
was desirable—even if temporarily stalled because of the
NE result. The existing unitary authorities are likely to want
to press ahead with their respective agendas without waiting for
a regional policy to be reassembled. Unless the problem of two-tier
local government is addressed within a year or two, it seems likely
that that existing unitary authorities—mostly centred on
conurbations—will by default seek to develop their infrastructure
and policies along the lines of city-regions. This would simply
not suit the South West, as large tracts of the region are centred
on comparatively small market and coastal towns.
3. RELEVANCE
OF THE
NOVEMBER 2004 REFERENDUM
IN THE
NORTH EAST
3.1 The result on 5 November last year of
the referendum held in the NE region appeared to show a high degree
of public rejection of the proposal to create an elected NE Assembly.
We believe that the referendum had probably offered a "lightning-rod"
for a local electorate who might have reacted against a whole
series of secondary issues, apart from the specific idea of an
elected North East Assembly.
3.2 Among the dislikes encountered during
the campaign were (a) a general disenchantment with the current
Government and anything it proposed, (b) a non-specific suspicion
of politicians generally (perhaps especially a new tier of politicians),
(c) a worry that an extra tier would be costly in relation to
the limited powers on offer, (d) an unease about the prospect
of regional power being concentrated in one locality (probably
Newcastle) at the expense of others, (e) worries that regional
government was the first step towards dismantling the sovereignty
of the UK, and (f) a general conservatism about the notion of
changing patterns of government at all. In short, it was difficult
to be sure precisely what people were saying "no" to,
but the effect was undoubtedly to blight any immediate prospect
of parallel referenda in other English regions.
4. THE EXTENT
AND QUALITY
OF DEMOCRATIC
REPRESENTATION
4.1 The calibre of local politicians—whether
members of the SW Assembly or not—is not universally high,
or at least not as high as it needs to be to restore public faith
and engagement in local politics. A few years ago, the concern
being voiced was of a "democratic deficit"": of
there being too few elected politicians to represent the diverse
territory of the region. There is still concern in some quarters
that an elected assembly with not less than 25 but not more than
35 members (as originally proposed in para 3(5) of the Draft Regional
Assemblies Bill) would have struggled to secure fine-grained local
knowledge of a region as extensive and diverse as the South West.
Even so, more often nowadays one hears complaints that the members
in office in the existing authorities are unimpressive, and that
good governance could be secured by having fewer members who were
more focused on their mandate.
5. SUBSIDIARITY
AND POWERS
5.1 We in SWCC support the principle of
subsidiarity in shaping governance structures. But that is not
what we currently have in England. On a rigorous application of
subsidiarity, one would expect to see truly local services, such
as the running of a local library or the management of a local
care home, administered by the most local democratic tier of government,
and yet these are two examples of county council functions. Most
county councils run these services well enough, but need to set
up sub-county teams—often with their own local offices—to
achieve this.
5.2 By the same token, one would expect
to see very wide-area functions such as strategic transport through
the trunk road network, accountability for rail franchises, the
shaping of land-use policy, such as the handling of waste disposal
or the protection of amenity land, handled at a regional level.
There seems currently to be an acceptance by Government that police
and fire services need to be seen as at least sub-regionally structured,
as strategic health service management is already. And yet strategic
transport and land-use functions are rather awkwardly scattered
among non-democratic regional quangos, individual county councils
with different cross-boundary policies, or else are subject to
diffuse influence through the non-elected regional assemblies.
5.3 For their part, the district councils
seem to us to hover rather uncomfortably between cohesive local
communities—such as urban neighbourhoods, market towns or
clusters of villages—and arbitrarily-drawn larger entities
(such as Torridge or West Somerset) which have neither the self-awareness
of natural local communities nor the strategic detachment and
critical size needed to escape NIMBYism. The result is—in
the South West—far too many small bureaucracies, each struggling
to sustain a huge breadth of functions for a relatively small
area. Again, within these constraints, most perform surprisingly
well, but we cannot help thinking that this same level of ingenuity
and industry applied within a more appropriate framework would
work better for the populations they serve.
5.4 The South West is also a region still
governed predominantly through two-tier local government structures.
Now that we have had three years' experience of formal performance
rankings for local authorities through the Comprehensive Performance
Assessment (CPA) regime, we can see all too clearly the effect
of some of the smallest districts in the South West struggling
to maintain basic corporate functions. Even where new unitary
authorities were created in the late 1990's, as in Torbay and
Plymouth, it was painfully obvious that they struggled to apportion
resources with the pre-existing county council—in that case,
former Devon—and neither has yet regained financial stability
even seven years after incorporation. While SWCC values the democratic
sensitivity which can flow from two tiers of elected local government,
we are concerned by the spectacle of 51 sovereign authorities
each seeking to support administrative back-of-house functions,
with—inevitably—51 sets of mostly purpose-built premises
for a region of only 5 million people.
5.5 It seems clear to us that the rather
unimpressive array of powers on offer to proposed regional assemblies
in the last legislation has been a factor in failing to capture
public enthusiasm for elected assemblies, and has allowed the
allegation that they would be little more than expensive talking
shops to take root. The Campaign for the English Regions (CFER)
has campaigned strongly for the range of powers to be extended.
A report recommending this, "Regions that Work", was
published jointly by the CFER and the Local Government Information
Unit in March last year. But ultimately some (including SWCC)
had allowed themselves to be persuaded that assemblies with initially
few direct powers might be a basis for regional policy growth
in future years. This was a tactical error. The "expensive
talking shop" epithet has stuck—for at least some people—and
will now require that there should be clear moves towards properly
empowered assemblies before there is any chance of future public
support for the concept.
5.6 There is a particular difficulty over
the current planning regime, in that development control authorities
are the lowest available tier of government (excluding the parishes),
and this seems likely to encourage members on planning committees
to pursue very parochial interests or simple "NIMBYism",
safe in the knowledge that the Secretary of State could always
take the flack in over-riding their decisions in the wider interest.
This had over the years fostered an unhealthy disregard among
local politicians for issues which benefited any area outside
their immediate "patch".
6. REGIONAL BOUNDARIES
AND CITY-REGIONS
6.1 The South West is England's most extensive
region, and probably also its most culturally and economically
diverse. At its eastern end, around Swindon, it effectively contributes
to the economy of the south-east through the M4 corridor, where
connections to Heathrow and Greater London make the sub-region
attractive as a location for national headquarters offices and
to new technology inward investors. At its western end Cornwall,
Plymouth and Torbay struggle with economic fragility and some
of the highest levels of social deprivation anywhere in Britain.
This size and diversity has encouraged some dissenting groups
in the South West to campaign for smaller sub-regions—perhaps
most conspicuously one centred on the county of Cornwall—or
to promote the re-drawing of boundaries. We believe these to be
dangerous distractions from the more pressing issues of critical
mass and subsidiarity.
6.2 The issue of regional boundaries has
been played down both by Government and by CFER for the last few
years, on the grounds (a) that economies of scale demand that
a viable region in the mainland European mould be of about five
million population—roughly equivalent to that of the whole
of the current SW region, and (b) that it will probably never
be possible anyway to reach a universal agreement about where
a region actually begins and ends. For the SW, the main friction
points have been Cornwall (some of whose residents oppose any
continued association with points north and east, and contend
that Cornwall is an economic, linguistic, and cultural region
in its own right) and the "Solent fringes" of East Dorset,
Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole, whose economic and cultural
hinterland extends more naturally to the east than to the west.
To a lesser extent, there are also boundary ambivalences in Gloucestershire
(tending to look north towards the West Midlands conurbation)
and in Swindon and East Wiltshire (tending to look east along
the M4 corridor).
6.3 These issues are a minefield, and suppressing
debate about them might alienate certain would-be supporters of
devolved governance. Rekindling them might, however, divert attention
away from the less popularly visible shared resource and infrastructure
problems of the region. In the current climate the Government
might well be tempted to re-cast its proposals on different geographic
boundaries, if that meant capturing more local support. This is
a particular issue for the South West, because open support for
devolved government here is lower than in other parts of England
anyway. If the towns and cities along the M27 arc bordering the
Solent were, for the sake of argument, to evolve by default into
a Solent city-region, than that would further deplete any political
will to create a wider SW region incorporating Bournemouth and
Poole. And that in itself could make the Cornish tension greater,
even if it meant moving the regional centre of gravity further
west.
6.4 The concept of city-regions is now gaining
ascendancy by default, and they may well offer a suitable model
in those parts of England which are more urban in character than
most of the South West. City regions are less prone to boundary
disputes, simply because most of the debates about land-use and
economic activity are focused on the conurbations themselves,
allowing the gravitational pull of the cities to feather out into
their economic and cultural hinterlands. But in the case of the
South West, this would inevitably lead to a loss of political
profile for those parts of the region—the great majority—lying
beyond the travel-to-work areas of Bristol, Bournemouth and Plymouth.
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