1 Introduction
1. The Coalition Government has from its inception
cited a "radical devolution of power" to local level
as one of its main aims. The Coalition Agreement stated that:
The Government believes that it is time for a
fundamental shift of power from Westminster to people. We will
promote decentralisation and democratic engagement, and we will
end the era of top-down government by giving new powers to local
councils, communities, neighbourhoods and individuals.[1]
2. A series of specific actions were set out in the
Agreement to contribute to this aim: a review of local government
finance, reforms of the planning system, the end of ring-fenced
grants and the Comprehensive Area Assessment, the establishment
of directly-elected mayors in the twelve largest English cities,
the creation of a "general power of competence" for
local authorities, and new powers for communities to safeguard
threatened local facilities and to bid to take over state-run
services.[2] Elsewhere
in the Coalition Agreement, citizens were promised a power to
instigate local referendums on any local issue and to veto "excessive"
council tax increases.[3]
The Government announced its intention to support "social
action" to "make it easier for people to come together
to improve their communities and help one another", including
by creating mutuals, co-operatives and social enterprises to play
a greater role in the running of public services. The Government
stated it would train community organisers and support the establishment
of neighbourhood groups across the UK, providing finance for such
groups through a 'Big Society Bank', set up with funds from dormant
bank accounts.[4]
3. A Localism Bill was published in December 2010,
containing provisions to enact some of the measures listed in
the Coalition Agreement. The intention of the legislation was
described in the Queen's Speech as "to devolve greater powers
to councils and neighbourhoods and give local communities control
over housing and planning decisions".
4. Effective decentralisation of power along these
lines is not in the gift of the Department for Communities and
Local Government (DCLG) alone; it requires co-operation and impetus
from all government departments.[5]
Nevertheless, DCLG is expected to be influential in and affected
by the agenda more than most. The Secretary of State, Rt Hon Eric
Pickles MP, told us that DCLG
is central to the Coalition's aims of localism
and of devolving power down, and it also plays a significant,
if not pivotal, role in putting flesh on the bones of the Big
Society. […] I seriously think that over the next couple
of years we are going to rewrite the British constitution and
shift the balance of power towards local decision making.[6]
The crucial role of the DCLG is confirmed by the
location within the Department of the first Government Minister
for Decentralisation, Rt Hon Greg Clark MP. The Minister's remit
is to encourage decentralisation across all departments and to
investigate how effectively they are taking steps to achieve it.[7]
5. Localism has been accorded such prominence in
the Government's programme that we felt it was important for this
Committee to undertake scrutiny of the policy and the ways in
which it will be pursued at an early stage in the Parliament.
Although the Localism Bill, published two months into our inquiry,
clearly contains many important and relevant measures, we decided
not to consider the issue to be defined solely by the contents
of the Bill, which concerns only DCLG responsibilities, nor to
replicate the detailed legislative scrutiny undertaken by the
Bill Committee. In particular—and having recently completed
a separate inquiry into the abolition of regional spatial strategies—we
decided not to delve into the detail of 'localist' reforms to
the planning system.[8]
We are grateful for the written evidence received on this topic,
but did not examine it in detail through our programme of oral
evidence, and we do not intend to consider it at length in this
report.
6. Instead, our inquiry was designed to examine the
implementation of localism throughout Government, to consider
the rationale for decentralisation, to assess whether the Government's
idea of what constitutes localism chimes with the views and ambitions
of other stakeholders, to consider how local democracy and public
service delivery might change in response to this agenda, and
to discover what obstacles might exist to those changes.
7. Furthermore, our remit gives us an especial interest
in assessing the role of local government in localism. Two other
pieces of select committee work are particularly relevant here.
In May 2009, our predecessors on the Communities and Local Government
Committee published a report entitled The Balance of Power:
central and local government.[9]
That report's principal conclusion was that power in England remained
too heavily centralised to be efficient or effective. It argued
that a shift in the balance of power was needed and should be
given a degree of permanency, in order to insulate local government
from all-too-frequent changes in policy at national level. Consideration
was given to ways of achieving permanency, for example by putting
the European Charter of Local Self-Government on a statutory footing.[10]
Some respondents to the current inquiry have echoed these concerns;
Barnsley Council, for example, argued that without a permanent
constitutional settlement, no matter what the enthusiasms of the
present administration, "localism will continue to be buffeted
by the winds of political preference".[11]
8. Concurrently with our inquiry into localism, the
Political and Constitutional Reform Committee undertook an inquiry
into the prospects for codifying the relationship between central
and local government, such as through a constitutional settlement.
Although our areas of interest overlap, we have endeavoured not
to go into too much detail on the issues central to the previous
CLG Committee report, nor to anticipate the ground that will be
covered by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee.
9. In February 2011 the Public Administration Committee
announced an inquiry into the Big Society, a concept closely related
to (and in some manifestations practically indistinguishable from)
the Government's idea of localism; inevitably we will tackle some
of the same questions, from different perspectives. We look forward
to discussions with our parliamentary colleagues about how our
Committees' respective conclusions compare and complement each
other.
10. We issued a call for written evidence in July
2010 and received over one hundred submissions, from local authorities,
voluntary sector organisations, professional bodies, academics,
think tanks and others. The themes and questions raised in these
submissions were then explored through a programme of oral evidence
from November 2010 to February 2011; witnesses who took part are
listed at the back of this report. We also undertook visits to
Devon and Croydon, during which we heard from a wide range of
organisations about how they thought the Government's localism
policy would affect their communities, and ways in which they
were already exhibiting the kind of activity that the Government
wishes to encourage. We are very grateful to all those who allowed
us to benefit from their knowledge and insight, to our hosts in
Devon and Croydon, and to our specialist advisers, Professor Tony
Travers and Iain Hasdell.[12]
11. All conclusions on this topic are necessarily
provisional at this stage; this is a subject we anticipate returning
to throughout the Parliament as Government policy and its practical
workings continue to develop. We are mindful of one of the findings
of our predecessors' report into The Balance of Power:
that many governments start out by trumpeting their intention
to return power to the people, but most, over time, turn out to
be considerably less localist than their early proclamations suggested.[13]
We intend to check periodically whether this will prove true of
the current administration.
1 HM Government, The Coalition: our programme for
government, May 2010, p.11 Back
2
Ibid., p.12 Back
3
Ibid., p.28 Back
4
Ibid., p.27 Back
5
Ev w212 Back
6
Oral evidence taken before the Communities and Local Government
Committee on 13 September 2010, HC 453-i, qq 1, 5 Back
7
HM Government, Decentralisation and the Localism Bill: an essential
guide, December 2010, p.3; Oral evidence taken before the
Communities and Local Government Committee on 21 December 2010,
HC 699-i, qq 42-3 Back
8
Communities and Local Government Committee, Second Report of Session
2010-12, Abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies: a planning
vacuum?, HC 517 Back
9
Communities and Local Government Committee, Sixth Report of Session
2008-09, The Balance of Power: central and local government,
HC 33-i Back
10
CLG Committee, The Balance of Power, paras 134 and 149 Back
11
Ev 226; see also Ev w10. Back
12
Tony Travers declared the following interests: employment at the
London School of Economics, paid consultancy for organisations
and institutions in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors,
conference speaking and freelance writing, current consultancy
for New West End Company and London Councils, member of DCLG commission
on housing delivery and London First commission on infrastructure.
Iain Hasdell declared the following
interests: paid employment at KPMG as Senior Partner (UK Head
of Local and Regional Government), Honorary Member, Institute
of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, regular paid commercial
advice and consultancy to a range of public and private sector
bodies, regular unpaid contributions to a number of national and
regional publications. Back
13
CLG Committee, The Balance of Power, para 144 Back
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