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Memorandum from The Local Government Association (BOP 55)
1 The Local
Government Association represents nearly 500 local authorities in
2 The LGA has been campaigning for greater devolution of decision making for a decade. We signed, on behalf of our member councils, the Concordat between local and central government in December 2007. The LGA occupies a unique position at the pivot of the relationship between central and local government. We are extremely pleased to be able to submit evidence to this Inquiry.
3 We have encouraged councils to send the Committee practical examples and ideas in response to the Committee's questions. Our submission focuses on broader questions to do with the central-local relationship and the place of local government in the constitution.
4 This country continues to have an extremely centralised state. We do not believe this is in any way a controversial statement. It reflects the consensus among constitutional experts in academia across the world, as well as the verdict of the Council of Europe in its periodic assessments of states which have adopted the European Convention on Local Self-Government.
5 The effects
of this centralisation are pernicious. It is administratively inefficient,
creating the need for elaborate and costly bureaucracy. It establishes perverse
incentives, in which delivery organisations have excessive regard to targets
and rewards that have no anchor in the demands of the communities they serve.
It leads to suboptimal outcomes, especially in the economic sphere: of our
major cities, none except
6 We do not, however, see this overcentralisation exactly in the terms of this Inquiry's title. There is not, in our view, a fixed quantity of political power which we should attempt to redistribute through bureaucratic reorganisation. Rather, we consider that the total effectiveness of the system of government, and the empowerment and engagement of citizens, would be increased if central and local government worked together better in a more joined-up, and more localised, way.
7 Central and
local government are not alternatives. They are both part of a system. We need
to develop a more mature understanding of the system, and rebuild a stronger
sense of the constitutional and democratic continuum between
8 At the local
level, we need to see all arms of government working better together under locally-accountable
democratic leadership. Multi Area
Agreements, Local Area Agreements and Local Strategic Partnerships have moved
things in this direction, with councils rising to the challenge, but remains
too fragile and gradualist an approach on which to build a permanent
constitutional settlement. At national level, we need a stronger sense of
the diversity of the nation, and greater realism about what national
politicians can realistically be accountable for. At all levels, we need to see
a greater faith in what self-organising communities can do for themselves. And
elected politicians in
9 In order to achieve this, we need to fully understand and then modify the deep-seated incentives in the system. Giving councils greater powers achieves little if they have little to gain from using them, or if arms of central government continue to have powers that override or conflict with them. Devolved structures do not achieve better local integration if their managers still depend for their rewards on complying with central instructions or targets.
10 It follows from this that, while we welcome the Committee's desire to see recommendations for straightforward pragmatic changes, we would not suggest that such reforms could deliver more than modest incremental change. Avenues we would hope the Committee might pursue include:
- removing the need for Secretary of State consent for many council actions[1] (either through a process of systematic review of existing provisions, or by instituting a "sunset clause" under which consent requirements would lapse after a time unless specifically retained by order); - removing restrictions on councils' powers to charge fees - for example the fixed fees for licensing which have left councils carrying a collective deficit on their licensing activity of £102 million - and establishing a general principle of full audited cost recovery[2]; - clarifying the law on council trading to remove the procurement policy issues which make the use of council-owned arms' length vehicles difficult; - actually implementing the reduction in the volume of central guidance to which the Central-Local Concordat commits the government.
11 But the systemic nature of the issues is illustrated by the debate over the existing Wellbeing Power. Although it is the government's clear policy that the Wellbeing Power allows councils to do anything that is not forbidden elsewhere in statute, the reality is that use of the power is constrained both by culture and by experience of court rulings[3]. The government has promised[4] a clarification of its understanding of how the power can be used, which we look forward to seeing. But we believe that widespread, assertive use of the Wellbeing Power requires a shift of culture on the part of councils, government departments, and the legal profession which has yet to take place.
12 Such a shift may well be accelerated by the implementation of the Sustainable Communities Act. Councils are already exploring options for using the act to achieve more integrated public services locally. In order to do this, it will be important that the government release as early as possible its Local Spending Reports as required under the 2007 Sustainable Communities Act.
13 Changes such as these only affect the regulatory framework for local government, though. The issues at stake in considering the central-local relationship run far more widely into the working of the public sector. The LGA considers that genuine change can only come about if we take that whole-system view and attempt to restore the constitutional continuum between individual voters, communities, councils and national government. This, in our view requires:
- reform of the local government finance system; until councils are genuinely accountable for the tax they raise and the money they spend, and have real economic incentives to care about changes in their tax base, local democracy is systematically shackled; - further developments in the way councils work in partnership with other public bodies in their places, both in the leadership shown by councils and in the way in which local managers of central departments and NDPBs are empowered to take decisions; - changes in the way Parliament works, and in particular how it scrutinises legislation affecting local government, to ensure both that voters understand better how their place is democratically represented[5], and that legislation is better informed by an understanding of how it might be implemented[6]; - developments, going beyond the existing Central-Local Concordat, in the core constitutional account of the role of local government.
14 Many of
these changes are in any case required in order to bring the
15 Finally, we also consider that there is much councils can do to change the centralised nature of the system, simply by shifting the nature of debate from one about the central-local relationship to one about the relationship between government as a whole, and the individuals, families and communities it serves. Councils have a role both in leading the right provision of taxpayer-funded services, and in creating the space for communities to solve their own problems themselves. They are a forum for debate and problem-solving, an enabler, and a mechanism for giving voice to voters' needs. Whether through community ownership of assets, working with the local third sector, or providing a way to turn grassroots demands into action - whether for voters to keep post offices open, a village to set its own requirements for road maintenance, or a community to bring forward proposals for a new school - councils are at the forefront of empowering citizens. Their success at this will in the long run condition the further evolution of all levels of government, with people and places, rather than the structures of public provision, increasingly giving the lead.
16 The LGA will be bringing forward further proposals in this area during the autumn. We would be pleased to submit them as supplementary evidence to the Committee.
October 2008
[1] For example, a council needs consent to dispose of even a small plot of land on a housing estate. [2] Statute law is littered with redundant provisions such as Section 87 of the 1936 Public Health Act, which prevents local authorities from charging for men's urinals; it is hard to imagine the task of identifying, let alone modifying them all. [3] Such as the recent ruling that
overturned [4] In the Central-Local Concordat. [5] Half of parliamentary constituencies do not align with local government boundaries. 30 parliamentary constituencies cover parts of 3 council areas and 2 cover 4. [6] For example, an Order under the recent Traffic Management Act accidentally invalidated the parking controls of all district councils. |