Written evidence submitted by the National
Association of Local Councils (LOCO 111)
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) encourage greater participation and involvement
of people in decision making, civic duty and social responsibility,
and supporting and enhancing local democracy by reviewing the
costs 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) invest 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, Society of Local Council Clerks and LG Group (including
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 this 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; and
(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:
¾ NALC
Manifesto for the Future of Local Councils.
¾ What
is localism?
¾ Power
to the People toolkit.
¾ NALC
submission to CLG on reforms to help cut red tape.
¾ 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
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