Chris Leslie - Director, New Local Government Network

The recent local elections in England offered a useful focal point for assessing our relationships with local authorities and services. Despite a campaign that was dominated by national issues, many races were decided largely on local issues, which explains the asymmetrical nature of many results. All of the major parties gained councils that they didn’t expect to win and lost ones that they were confident of keeping. From a psephologist’s view, it must have been deeply confusing.

The elections also showed the difficulty of discussing local politics when many voters feel detached from their local services or are confused by who has responsibility for them. Local government is supposed to deliver a modern service despite operating in a medieval political system. We cannot go on with this archaic centralisation, both because local control of services mostly delivers better results and so local communities can once again become attached and involved with forming and devising what services they want, based on their real priorities. An NLGN survey of voters participating in the elections found significantly high support for local politicians to take control of key service delivery areas, including policing and housing. We also found majority support for returning the control to local authorities of business rates. This will be a key question for Michael Lyons’ inquiry into the restructuring of local government, with indications so far that it may risk the wrath of the Federation of Small Businesses by recommending that elements of business rate policy be returned to councils for the first time since 1991. This would be a brave decision, but one that, with the right safeguards, would deliver welcome freedom to local government, and a local focus on economic development.
Addressing these constitutional questions should be a priority for the newly born Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). Having taken over responsibility for ‘active communities’ from the Home Office, the DCLG has the potential to develop a new relationship with local government. There is also scope to embrace the liveability agenda, seizing upon the recent political interest in ‘green’ issues to promote the role of cleaner streets, open and inclusive public spaces, and reconnecting the link between community activity and the local town hall.

The Lyons’ Inquiry could also have fundamental ramifications on reconnecting citizens with local politics. It recently published a welcome interim paper that refreshingly offered broad thoughts on how to build effective local democracy. By demonstrating the benefits of local choice, the report shows that enhancing local government is an essential step in delivering the Government’s national pledges on public service reform and civic engagement. Public services fit for the 21st Century depend on stronger local government with the powers and resources to meet higher aspirations of the public. The challenge to Whitehall is matched by the challenge for local government to raise its game so that it is ready to take on the leading role in that wider reform.

There is scope for Lyons to go further. Central government must cease treating local government as a parent treats a child, handing it pocket money but defining what it spends it on. There is a real opportunity to embrace radical change, particularly by scaling back the capping system that perversely protects councillors from being held accountable for the financial choices they believe in. How far these ideas become political reality depends on the will of Whitehall to seriously look at dispersing powers to a local level. Should it choose to be brave and embrace a new contract with local government, we will surely be on the way to reconnecting local politics and services with the people who know them best.