Written evidence submitted by Communiqué
(LOCO 035)
The extent to which decentralisation leads to
more effective public service delivery; and what the limits are,
or should be, of localism
The most profound benefits of localism are:
¾ the
ability of local councils to innovate and set local objectives
in ways which work better for their local area and exploit local
social, economic and geographic peculiarities.
¾ the
ability of local people to engage more in local decisions, making
them feel more empowered and less critical of authority as they
understand why decisions were made; and
¾ the
ability of both local people and councils to intervene to prevent
negative local outcomes which could otherwise be produced by a
more bureaucratic system.
The limits, or dangers, of localism are:
¾ the
views of local people are not accurately represented and could
be biased by vocal minorities. There is a significant risk that
the actual views of local people will be drowned out by those
who shout the loudest, are NIMBYs or misunderstand the implications
of change to the detriment of the community;
¾ Council
inertia provoked by a lack of direction from above and/or a breakdown
in communication with the public;
¾ the
best interests of local people are not served, either by misrepresentation—deliberate
or otherwise—of local sentiment, or the unintended consequences
of decisions made by citizens with an incomplete understanding
of the consequences of certain decisions; and
¾ there
is a real risk that instead of enabling consensus and co-operation
amongst local communities, the opposite could happen and localism
is used as a toll to stifle rather than stimulate development.
Most of these dangers can be mitigated through meaningful
engagement between the public and local authorities as well as
ensuring that informed debate takes place locally. These are both
aspects of an effective consultation process.
It will not be enough to rely on an expanded role
for Councillors in channelling public sentiment, as most elected
members will at some point experience a conflict of interest in
relation to their work on council committees. Expanded and direct
public engagement will therefore be needed on the part of council
departments.
When determining what the views of local people are,
it is important to understand that respondents to consultations
which simply involve basic contact methods such as a letter or
advertisement are self-selecting and often over-represent those
people who are angry about or opposed to a proposed course of
action. Reaching the majority of reasonable local people, including
those in hard-to-reach groups, and giving them opportunities to
respond discreetly and independently will be essential if localism
is to assist in delivering rather than hampering public services.
Furthermore, responses can be based upon an incomplete
understanding of the wider context of proposals such as a policy
context or a local need which had not been hitherto been perceived
by the respondent. It is telling that the number of stated objectors
tends to fall off dramatically when comprehensive information
about the context of the decision to be made is provided to the
general public.
The need for debate to be informed has been recognised
since the earliest inception of democracy, and is no different
today. In terms of public engagement, this means applying a process
which first sets out the context of decisions to be made.
Next, it means using a variety of methods and techniques
to engage with what is often a cynical, time-poor or socially
disengaged audience often with little interest in the issue being
considered. Equally, there will be those hard-to-reach groups
who, for a variety of cultural, social or faith reasons, may wish
to engage, but do not typically respond to such consultations.
Local authorities' communications strategies should take into
account the fact that it may be possible to build an ongoing relationship
with the public, as consultations are promoted from marginal,
rare activities to a higher-profile part of the policy development
process. The costs of engagement may be expected to diminish as
the quality, reach and depth of engagement increases, but only
if the process is managed correctly.
Local authorities which fail to instigate effective
and comprehensive community consultation and engagement risk being
perceived by the public as failing to deliver localism.
The action which will be necessary on the part
of Whitehall departments to achieve effective decentralised public
service delivery
Without external objectives, there can be inertia
of local government activity and a lack of public service delivery.
Centrally-specified objectives can of course have an extremely
wide scope, such as simply being a requirement to produce guidelines
for how much housing or regeneration is desirable in each area.
These targets can themselves be agreed with local people and much
work may have already been done locally via the production of
LDFs. The role of Whitehall should be to set the overriding categories
which need to be addressed by local authorities. Local authorities
may then add extra categories to reflect local priorities.
It is important that Whitehall creates a requirement
for local authorities to raise these issues meaningfully with
local communities, and may play some role in policing local authorities
to ensure they adhere to what policies are agreed with the public.
Whitehall might further wish to require local authorities
to explicitly announce localism to their local audiences, perhaps
via advertisements, newsletters and other communications to households.
Whitehall should also encourage local authorities to embrace new
media consultation techniques that are becoming widely used. This
would make Localism and the Big Society seem less like some distant
policy initiative and more like something which can affect the
everyday lives of citizens. At the same time, it will be necessary
to encourage local ownership of localism as a means to delivering
what's considered best for the community rather than the risk
of it being used as a means for objection. Additionally, it might
focus minds within local authorities as to how they intend to
deliver this agenda in their area.
What, if any, arrangements for the oversight of
local authority performance will be necessary to ensure effective
local public service delivery?
Councils should be free to make their own policies,
but then be held more strictly to those policies. In some cases,
councils have found themselves fighting costly Judicial Reviews
against those who disagree with their application of policies.
In others, less than ideal decisions have been taken by councils
operating under threat of Judicial Review. Finally, both businesses
and the general public balk against this lack of policy certainty.
It would be in the public interest to employ tighter and more
binding policy at the local authority level, decided at the local
authority level with an oversight function to provide a cheaper
alternative to Judicial Review. This oversight could be provided
regionally via LEPs or centrally and feature a limited appeal
function.
October 2010
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