Holding pride of place above my desk is a cutting from a rightwing blogger writing about a recent pamphlet of mine, complaining: ‘isn’t it annoying when lefty think tanks get it right?’ I was reminded of this while reading the latest Conservative ‘green paper’ on local government, entitled Control Shift. The paper is in certain parts flawed and confused but does offer enough innovative ideas and radicalism to make Labour politicians around the country sit bolt upright. And if the government is smart, it should implement the good bits of it as soon as possible.
There are contradictory aspects to the Conservative green paper. It claims to want to give local councils greater freedoms, while insisting that council tax rises must be dependent on a referendum. Can you imagine if national government had to ratify every tax increase by such a public poll? The idea hardly smacks of allowing councils greater freedom. Moreover, the paper bemoans the number of unelected quangos established by Labour, but then commits a Conservative government to transferring the power to oversee how much money councils receive from the Treasury, a decision currently made by the government in consultation with local councils, to an unelected body.
The paper also isn’t clear about whether a Conservative administration would continue to follow current spending plans for local authorities. Labour has increased funding for councils by 39 per cent above inflation in its first decade in office and by a further £8.9bn over this current (and very tight) spending period of 2008-11. This has allowed councils to introduce pioneering policies such as free bus travel for over-65s and free swimming for under-16s. While he has already committed to matching the government’s investment plans on health, defence and education, George Osborne faces a real question as to whether a Conservative-led Treasury would continue to fund local authorities so generously.
On policing, Conservative policy is to replicate the recently ditched Home Office proposal for directly elected police commissioners. While greater police accountability from locally elected people is not a bad thing in itself, the plans smack somewhat of reinventing the wheel given that we already have a system of democratically elected figures in our community. Wouldn’t it make more sense to give elected council leaders greater influence – and make them more accountable – to local crime and policing priorities?
With the Conservatives controlling the majority of councils, can any lessons be drawn on exactly how committed to local government the party really is? For every positive initiative such as Essex county council taking over the running of local post offices under threat (a concept that Labour councils should seriously consider), there are other Tory councils criticised for running down local services. For instance, Tory-controlled Bexley council has cut their road safety budget and abolished meals on wheels. Writing on conservativehome.com, Hammersmith & Fulham Conservative councillor, Harry Phibbs advocated mean-spirited policies such as cutting staff at old people’s homes and cutting health and safety training for council staff. Are these isolated examples of neo-Thatcherism within local government or the true face of the Conservatives at a local level?
However, there are sufficient measures in the paper to give Labour in local government food for thought. Plans, though somewhat sketchy, to allow local authorities powers to grant discretionary business rate discounts could be an excellent tool in helping areas to regenerate and encourage inward investment. While the government has given local authorities new flexibility to introduce a supplementary business rate to pay for key infrastructure projects, it seems logical to also allow them to offer reduced rates as an inducement to potential investors. For instance, a council leader could then be able to offer lower business rates to, say, a new business park or new college and create new growth and jobs locally.
Similarly, Conservative proposals to hold referendums for directly elected mayors in large cities could help to revitalise civic leadership in England. Elected mayors are by no means a panacea, and there are some excellent existing council leaders up and down the country, but the mayoral model should at least be considered as a different form of governance. Just as city mayors are commonplace in Europe, a mayor of Birmingham, Newcastle or Liverpool could help to offer a new form of leadership. From Labour’s perspective, the model also offers the best chance of taking back control of many lost cities.
Labour of course led the renaissance of elected mayors in England when it first came into power in 1997. Tony Blair himself claimed that they could establish ‘an independent mandate to provide authority for innovative policy’ and while some elected mayors have made a considerably positive impact across the country, the model arguably needs fresh impetus. The challenge for Labour is how to construct a persuasive argument that mayors will create a more accountable and effective form of government, particularly in the face of an often sceptical public who may regard any governance changes as unnecessary or bureaucratic. However, let us not forget that the two elections that have really caught the public imagination – Obama v McCain and Ken v Boris – were based on direct election. There is a strong argument to say that new elections for city mayors would grab the public’s attention in a similar manner.
Furthermore, plans in the Conservative paper to downscale or remove elements of regional decisionmaking are also short-sighted, especially at a time when businesses are benefiting from RDA support during the difficult economic period. The Conservatives will also have to explain how long-term strategic decisions that cross local authority boundaries can be made without any regional coordination. However, the general theme of returning power from unelected quangos to elected local government may well prove electorally attractive to voters and is one area which Labour needs to counter. There would be no harm, for instance, in conducting a government review into which powers currently held by quangos could be returned to local government and which quangos could be scrapped altogether.
The vexed issue of council tax reform is also ducked in the paper, save for the aforementioned referendum idea. It remains a deeply unpopular tax but as yet no political party has developed a coherent policy for reform. The SNP’s inability to introduce a local income tax, one of its cornerstone policies at the last Scottish election, is a bodyblow for a policy also advocated by the Lib Dems. However, making council tax fairer should be an area that Labour is at the forefront of tackling, perhaps by expanding the number of council tax bands or diverting the basic rate of some national taxes to local government as a way of reducing pressure on council tax. The problem will not go away and the solution requires political bravery and vision.
Labour has made significant strides in devolving decisionmaking to a local level and reversing some of the centralising shackles imposed on councils during the previous Conservative government. However, it should think through its own new array of positive steps towards localism and tackle head-on the reforms advocated in Control Shift, rather than sticking in purely attack mode. Though in no ways a fully coherent document, the paper from Cameron and Caroline Spelman sets out a Conservative plan for civic renewal containing a sprinkling of sensible and pragmatic ideas. This should act as a catalyst – a wake-up call – for fresh thinking within the Labour party.