Now that the dust has settled on May’s electoral disasters it is clear that if Labour is to win the next general election, there must be some speedy changes to local government. There has been piecemeal reform but the system is creaking, patchy and expensive. And it is now militating heavily against a Labour victory in the next election.
Shire areas are largely dominated by Liberal and Conservative administrations but remain two-tier, retaining both county and district councils. Labour areas have blazed a trail to unitary status and have worked hard to reduce council tax, making savings that voters want. The shires, on the other hand, fight to maintain their two-tier status. Why? Because the two-tier system in the shires represents a publicly funded gravy-train for Conservative and Liberal councillors. Taxpayers foot the bill and Labour faces a large, well-motivated, well-funded group of foot soldiers for the opposition, who use their allowances to fund their parties.
The government has also just pushed through a piece of legislation which could create hundreds more town and parish councils. But voters in shire areas could, as a result, have a county council, a district council and a town or parish council: three tiers of local government. Town and parish councils aren’t all like Dibley – some parish council raise a larger tax in their area than the district does. The system is expensive, cumbersome and unnecessary.
In some cases, it seems like district councils have the sole aim of working to preserve themselves against unitary status. This useless middle tier should now be removed, including the allowances and expenses of its councillors, so reducing council tax. It would have the added party political bonus of removing paid opposition activists from the equation before the next election.
I am not advocating a massive re-organisation but a simple change. Remove all district councils from the shires with effect from 1 April 2009, pass their functions up to the relevant county council or down to a parish or town if people want one. County councils would be obliged to set future council tax precepts equal to or lower than the level under the old set-up.
Counties would have responsibility for social services, education, waste disposal and collection and housing. If local populations want additional government for smaller local matters, a town or parish council could supplement the unitary authority – so long as they are prepared to pay for it.
An exception to blanket abolition should be made for those few shire districts which are effectively towns and cities, such as Stevenage and St Albans in Hertfordshire, which effectively constitute town governments.
Staff will be unaffected – all are on largely similar terms and conditions in local government. Premises and services will be unchanged as far as the public is concerned. All that needs to be removed are the district councillors and a reduction in unnecessary ‘partnership arrangements’ between councils – which have a minimal effect on service delivery and can amount to little more than turf wars.
Unless something radical is done Labour MPs will be faced with going into battle against a well-organised, publicly funded shire army whose prime motivation isn’t serving the public or keeping costs of government down for the average family – it is about keeping their allowances and perks. That is why the shires remain stubbornly two-tier while overstretched families foot the bill. No wonder the public have sent a wake up call via the local council elections. Gordon Brown is right – the vote was about family costs. But he has to rectify the problem and cut the costs of unnecessary government, while preserving services. This is a bold solution but frankly it was being over cautious that has cost us up to now.
Whatever the theoretical virtues of unitaries the immediate effect of reorganisation would be a massive loss of Labour councillors in many marginal constituencies in shire areas. Just looks at the results inNorthumberland, Durham and Cheshire. This is particularly true of county-based unitaries
While I repect Sir Jeremy as the brightest and best of the local government, I would beg to differ in his analysis.
Durham has seen a simple swing against Labour. The loss of Northumberland is slightly more interesting. All six districts proposed a divsion of the county into two unitaries. More importantly the electorate wanted that. It would have left a labour controlled south northumberland unitary and a independant/Tory/liberal NOC north west northumberland. The Government ignored all that went for a single unitary. The counil is NOC with labour pushed into third place. There were those who took the view that the north east is heartland so there will always be sufficent labour votes to carry it. Plainly that just isn’t operating any more. The point remains that teh government has created unitaries in the areas where labour was strong and left the shires alone.
Labour members will have more influence in local councils in neighbourhoods where their voice is needed, on the basis that smaller areas reflect local conditions. That is surely preferable to perpetual opposition in larger district councils dominated by underperforming liberal or tory adminsitrations whose primary aim is to keep their seats.