Examination of Witnesses (Questions 440-441)
PROFESSOR VERNON
BOGDANOR CBE AND
PROFESSOR TONY
TRAVERS
8 DECEMBER 2008
Q440 Chair: Is there anything the
Local Government Association could be doing which would help to
change the relations between local and national government?
Professor Travers: Yes. I think
the LGA needs to act slightly more as battering ram on national
government to make the case for some of the issues we are discussing
here. There is a powerful argument for a whole array of relatively
minor freedoms in the short term—bigger ones in the long
term—which the LGA could lobby for very hard and occasionally
needs to be a bit tougher on the Government than it is.
Q441 Andrew George: Regarding the
dynamics I was talking about earlier with the previous witnesses,
national discourse in the sense of ministers always having to
appear to be relevant and decisive on the recent childcare case
in Haringey. Who is responsible for that? Is it because the national
politicians are wanting to appear to be relevant? Or is it because
of the media? Who is to blame for that? Rather than going to the
national level the media should be going to the local authorities
or those taking decisions at a local level.
Professor Bogdanor: I suppose
it is because politicians believe that these are matters of electoral
significance and that flows, as I have said before, from cultural
factors within Britain which may not be there in other countries.
Local people are not prepared to hold their local councillors
to account for local matters but demand accountability from national
politicians and therefore national politicians acquire the power
to catch that responsibility. Again, as I said earlier, I think
these habits are changing in Scotland and Wales because I suspect
that on matters connected with Scottish education people in Scotland
now do not necessarily blame central government if they think
things are wrong, they blame the Scottish Parliament and it is
possible that this may encourage an understanding and a demand
for greater diversity which would mean that less would be attributed
to national politicians. They would be held responsible for less.
Professor Travers: This is the
curse of the postcode lottery really. It is hard to blame either
national politicians or the media in a sense because it is hard
to see where it all began. It probably began with the failings
of the LSE (London School of Economics) in the early 20th century,
but wherever it began we are stuck with this world and the only
way to escape from it would be in the first instance to get away
from the presumption which is very widespread that differences
from authority to authority would mean a race to the bottom. There
is no evidence that it would be a race to the bottom. If you look
at 19th century local government in Britain major municipalities
actually tried to have the best public services; they did not
try to have the worst public services. Do we honestly imagine
that left to their own devices the great cities and counties of
England would all fight to have the lowest possible service? They
would fight to have the best.
Professor Bogdanor: It is worth
pointing out very briefly that in London you get the opposite
phenomenon to the one that Mr George mentioned, that people attribute
more responsibility to the mayor than he actually has and not
less. And that I think, if I dare mention it, is a sign of the
strengthening of local government.
Chair: Thank you both very much indeed.
The Committee is adjourned until after the last vote.
The Committee suspended from 5.35 pm to 6.04
pm for a division in the House
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