Memorandum from Councillor Paul H Dakers (BOP 04)

 

I write regarding the enquiry to determine the balance of power between central and local government. It is as it stands, shockingly ineffective and outdated and needs changing. I would firstly therefore ask a number of questions about possible alternatives and/or solutions.

 

 

1) What is the point of local authorities being given money, if they are to be told how to spend it?

2) Indeed, what is the point of having persons in local authority, if they have no control over where government subsidies go?

3) How can central government know of and fully understand the problems in local areas, when they change on a daily basis and have little bearing on national issues?

4) Is it not time local politics became more concerned with national issues and used that knowledge as a referal basis to solve their problems?

 

There is of course no easy answer and although Gordon Brown likes to pretend there is a 'one size fits all' solution, there is not and never will be. Area to area differ because of one common denominator, and that is the people that live in the area. Different people have different expectations and hopes, though in one particular area, you will find a remarkable amount of people that think the same way politically. This could be referred to as 'local knowledge' and in a lot of cases would stem from something as simple as generations of the same family having lived in the same area. From this we can learn from our mistakes, for example. The SNP will currently, be very aware of that.

 

So yes, local government should have more powers and a big part of that is greater financial freedom, but the system also needs radically simplified. For example, less local councillors means more accountability and also creates a vacuum, where once there were too many, less would create more of interest among the public. People are never going to be interested when there are so many elected officials and council employees. They just see it as money wasting exercise. Their money which they see going to little use. Cut the number of councillors and MP's and simplify the system so, for example, planning applications do not take nine months. That creates a sense of financial freedom whether there is one or not.

 

The case of the 'postcode lottery', is another good example. We already have it with the NHS and that is largely run by central government. Just like Gordon Brown saying you can defend your own home without fear of prosecution though, he will suggest that local authorities are responsible for the mess in the NHS. You cannot defend your own home without fear of prosecution, especially if a gypsy is doing the breaking in and I seem to remember Tony Blair saying we had 24 hours to save the NHS when he was elected. Of course, I'm not saying that either of them blatantly lied. I don't think they said it that blatantly though. Can local authorities do any worse a job?

 

This really is not an issue unto itself. You are possibly talking about changing the whole political set up here, which I do not think would be a bad thing and a scenario which should be looked at as an offshoot of this exercise. You have a chance to make a very real difference here and it should not be wasted. On a personal note, as you can probably tell, I'm all in favour of greater powers to local authorities, but this would need to be tempered with a control system to make sure that a minority of council leaders and/or controlling groups did not become power mad and run amok with ridiculous schemes. It would not be hard to set up such a control group however and the state could become that long forgotten idea of a controlling influence, rather than the near dictatorship we have today,

 

September 2008