Localism

Memorandum from the National Association of Local Councils (LOCO 111)

Developing the role of local councils: localism in action

1. Introduction

2. The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) fully supports a fundamental shift of power to encourage initiatives by councils, communities, neighbourhoods and individuals. Empowered local people coming together to take more responsibility for their community through local councils is a tried and tested and trusted model of grassroots neighbourhood action.

3. We very much welcome the opportunity to provide written evidence to the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee on localism.

4. This short paper sets out some ideas to unlock the potential of local councils to play a greater role at community and neighbourhood level, to facilitate and enable more voluntary activity and involvement in decision making and also to improve their productivity and effectiveness.

5. NALC is the nationally recognised membership and support organisation representing the interests of around 9,000 local councils and their 80,000 local councillors in England.

6. The local (community, neighbourhood, parish, town and village) councils we support and represent serve electorates ranging from small rural communities to large towns and small cities, are all independently elected, and raise a precept from the local community. Over 15 million people live in communities served by local councils, around 35% of the population, whilst over 200 new local councils have been created in the last 10 years.

7. The first tier of local government works towards improving community well-being and providing local services through representing the local community, using an extensive range of discretionary powers to deliver services to meet local needs and working to improve quality of life and community well being.

8. Within our submission the term ‘local councils’ refers to community, neighbourhood, parish, town and village councils in England. The term ‘principal authorities’ refers to district, borough, unitary and county councils.

9. Localism in action

10. Localism has for decades been the guiding philosophy of the NALC. We have long supported the notion of devolution and a fundamental shift of power and responsibility to the local level.

11. The important role of our grassroots councils has also long been supported by the three main political parties. Enclosed is a copy of our recent ‘What is localism?’ booklet which sets out the views of a range of parliamentarians and other influential thinkers on localism and what this means to local councils.

12. NALC still strongly supports the concept of double devolution. Central government should extend more trust to local government, and local government should extend more trust beyond the town hall to local communities and neighbourhoods. We still very much support the recommendation on this made by the Commission for Rural Communities in their participation inquiry into strengthening the role of local councillors.

13. In our view local councils play an integral role in the localism and indeed Big Society agendas, therefore in order to further develop the contribution and role of local councils the Government should take forward the issues set out in our enclosed Manifesto, which are expanded upon below:

a) introduce a new power for local councils to provide services, facilities and assets of community value (such as pubs, shops, post offices, camp sites etc).; ensure local councils are defined as community organisations for the purposes of the new Community Right to Build and as such able to bring forward proposals for development.

b) e ncourage greater participation and involvement of people in decision making, civic duty and social responsibility, and supporting and enhancing local democracy by r eview ing the c osts of local council elections, with the cost of democracy being met either centrally or at principal authority level , to take effect from elections in 2011 ; fully introduce the duty on principal authorities to promote local democracy ; support other initiatives and projects aimed at promoting local democracy .

c) introduce a new Community Right to Self Govern, with communities, via local referendums, to decide to establish local councils throughout England, in urban and rural areas; provide investment to build the capacity of NALC to help promote and support the establishment of local councils in all unparished areas. (Enclosed for further information is our recent Power to the People resource aimed at helping people and communities establish a new local council.)

d) i nvest fair and sensible funding ( in proportion to resources made available to principal authorities through the Local Government (LG) Group ) to increase the capacity and effectiveness of local councils through: encouraging all councils to achieve Quality Council status; recognition and support for the implementation of the new National Training Strategy for local councils; a requirement that all new local councillors engage in induction training; encourage greater collaboration and provision of joint programmes and shared services between local government representative bodies such as NALC, S ociety of Local Council Clerks and LG Group ( i ncluding LG Improvement and Development).

e) encourage local councils to facilitate the development of a community led plan for the local area; invest funding to support the development of high quality community led plans; formalise the connection between community led plans and the statutory planning system.

f) review with NALC the citizenship curriculum and introduce new initiatives for engaging and involving young people, such as volunteering programmes for 11 to 18 year olds with local councils, shadowing programmes with local council clerks and councillors, and a youth advisors scheme.

g) reform outdated legislation to allow local councils to operate more efficiently and effectively by reforming rules regarding councilors allowances, parish polls, vexatious use of the audit system, electronic banking, electronic circulation of agendas, appointed councilors, exemption from National Non-Domestic Rates, bylaws, VAT partial exemption limits, closed churchyards. (Enclosed for further information is our recent contribution to the CLG call for ideas to help cut red tape so that councils can get on with their job.)

h) invest in reinstating the Quality Parishes Investment Fund ; provide access to the Business Rate for local councils ; give consideration to the equalisation challenges facing local councils in their abilities to precept as there are difficulties for more disadvantaged local councils in raising sufficient local resources to meet the needs of their communities, limited match type funding to the precept for local councils in thi s position should be introduced.

i) encourage positive precepting by local councils to respond to community priorities and exclude local councils from proposals for referenda on council tax increases ; reform to the layout of council tax bills to show all precepting authorities charges gross with a deduction of the value of income from central government.

j) through legislation and/or guidance, ensure that local councils, or their representative organisations, have representation on regional and county level strategic bodies such as the Leaders Boards, Local Strategic Partnerships, Fire and Rescue Boards, Police Authorities and Local Economic Partnerships.

k) incentivise and strongly encourage local councils to become eligible for, and make use of, the power of well being; and through the Localism Bill extend the new power of general competence to local councils. (Our new Localism in Practice publication – the first in a series over coming months – includes some examples of local councils use of the well being power. This is due to be published next month and a copy will be sent to further support this submission).

l) include local councils in legislation, statutory guidance and all policy documents as local authorities and the lead bodies democratically representing all parts of a community. Government should work with NALC to learn from the successful approaches to rural proofing and introduce a similar localism/parish proofing approach to all legislation and guidance.

m) introduce a new concordat between the local council sector and the Government, as well as between NALC and the LG Group.

n) strongly encourage principal authorities to work with local councils to provide services in the most efficient and economic manner; encourage greater devolution of services and functions – such as planning and development control – with delegated funding; provide detailed statutory guidance to avoid double taxation with refreshed approach to charters and neighbourhood agreements. (Enclosed for further information is Working Together for Communities, a joint publication with the County Councils Network setting out examples of partnership working between the tiers of local government to support localism).

o) ensure that local councils, or their representative organisations where appropriate, have greater influence on behalf of local people as statutory consultees on all matters affecting their area such as licensing, planning and development control.

p) encouragement for local councils to have a functioning and informative website and an email address; work with NALC to consider e-government opportunities and develop an e-government /digital strategy for local councils coupled with investment and support .

q) discuss with NALC a policy initiative to extend to local councils the power to have a directly elected mayor.

14. Supplementary documents

15. In support of this submission are a number of reports/publications which are referred to in the paper. These documents – which all available on the NALC website at www.nalc.gov.uk – are:

- NALC Manifesto for the Future of Local Councils;

- What is localism?

- Power to the People toolkit

- NALC submission to CLG on reforms to help cut red tape

- Working Together for Communities

16. Providing Oral Evidence to the Committee

17. In addition to this written submission, NALC would be more than willing to provide oral evidence to the Committee, if required, in order to discuss further any of the points contained in our submission.

18. Conclusion

19. The proposals and ideas in this paper are intended as a positive contribution to the localism debate and to developing the role of our most local level of democracy and grassroots community action. We would be very pleased to meet with officials or members of the Committee to discuss our ideas in more detail.

December 2010