Ed Miliband says every town and city should have ‘its own Margaret Hodge’, and is pledging new local powers and greater accountability for councils. So how’s that going to happen?
‘The Future is Local’ says the Guardian headline this morning above an article by Ed Miliband. This is greatly encouraging.
In this article the Labour leader is endorsing the impressive report from the Labour Party’s Local Government Innovation Taskforce, and linking this to the Adonis Review and the commitment to devolve £30bn of funds for economic growth.
These initiatives and Miliband commitment’s bring Labour to a place far away from the very ‘top down’ approach that dominated much of the New Labour government period from 1997 to 2010. Of course that government devolved significant powers to Scotland and Wales but it did not match that level of devolution in England.
The Labour government introduced a number of initiatives to free up local government; to enable community empowerment; to establish the concept of ‘Total Place’; and much more. It seemed at best ambivalent to local government and in terms of localism there was much unfinished business.
If there is a Labour government in May 2015 it could not simply turn the clock back to when Gordon Brown left Downing Street in 2010. The country, the economy and public finances are very different today as are local government and local services. Local government has been disproportionally hit by public expenditure cuts under the coalition. Public services latter have been further fragmented with many services being taken further away from local authority oversight.
The Labour Local Government Innovation Taskforce led by Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, Jules Pipe, mayor of Hackney and Sharon Taylor, leader of Stevenage Borough Council has produced a comprehensive set of proposals to re-balance political power between Whitehall and town hall and set this rebalancing in the context of a bold political narrative – based on local control by local people, local government’s potential contribution to economic growth and the importance of responsive public services to secure fairness and social cohesion. They have drawn on examples of innovative practice across local government.
Whilst purest localists and those who argue for maximum local government powers may be a tad disappointed, they should consider where we are starting from and political reality and acknowledge that this report represents a massive opportunity for local government. Of course there is always scope for greater boldness and local government must continue to argue and press for more when that is right for their communities.
Meanwhile the Taskforce set out six key areas for action
• integrating social care and health
• enhancing opportunities to develop skills for young people by giving councils control over further education and elements of employment and work programme services
• replacing police and crime commissioners with local authority oversight of policing in order to combat local crime and the causes of that crime
• putting Sure Start centres at the heart of family support in communities
• strengthening local accountability in education with new directors of school standards able to work across and with local authority and academy schools
• requiring local authorities to set up local public accounts committees with the powers to challenge and hold to account all those responsible for spending public money in their area
As Ed Miliband wrote in his Guardian article – ‘every town or city should have its own Margaret Hodge‘. That is certainly a prospect to think about but the concept is absolutely right!
I believe that these ‘local public accounts committees’ together with the extended powers being promised to local government, the devolution of services and resources and more cross service integration and pooling of budgets have the power to create a local government renaissance but only if Whitehall is really willing to let go.
Labour has to consider the democratic deficit where there is devolution to city and county regions but there is no directly elected responsible body. Consideration has to be given to the effectiveness and accountability of joint boards (as the Taskforce is proposing to replace police and crime commissioners) or for city region economic development and whether or not directly elected mayors may be part of the answer.
This requires a serious debate and the solutions may be different in different places.
Successive opposition parties have committed to greater devolution but then when in office have either failed to let go or often actually increased central power. Ministers and civil servants want to hold onto the levers of power and to justify their roles.
So Labour to consider how its proposals for local government sit with other proposals such as that for directors of school standards. Who will appoint them and how will they will be accountable to local government whilst having a very strong relationship directly with the Department for Education.
Similarly how much power is the Department of Health going to allow to be controlled by local authority health and well-being boards in terms of strategic health and social care commissioning?
In these are other areas we need to consider new models based on shared local and national responsibilities and accountabilities and not assume it always has to be one or the other. The default option should, of course, always be the local one! Labour will have to demonstrate that it means and practices what it is currently saying about localism. This means that it should
• move towards to a ‘local government’ constitutional settlement defining local and central government
• establish a Cabinet committee with local government representation to oversee the transition and sustainability of this localism
• charge every department and minister with the responsibility for exploring further devolution over time; and if necessary undertake pilot schemes on greater devolution
• commit to devolve the necessary resources and finance when devolving or extending local government duties and powers
• re-introduce ‘Total Place’ with local ability to vire money between budgets and agencies
• extend the powers of local authorities and devolve resources on an universal basis not through an ‘earned autonomy’ or a bidding approach
• establish with local government a joint long term review of local government financing whilst retaining central government redistribution of resources
• commit to not disadvantage local government disproportionally financially any further
• agree with local government how systemic under-performance or complete dysfunctionality in specific local authorities will be adequately addressed
• reach agreement with local government on national benchmarking and public information arrangements to enable the public to hold their authorities to account
• agree with local government those national programmes and entitlements for citizens, communities and business that every local authority will be required to provide
In turn local authorities will need to be ready to step up to plate if they are to be offered what seems to be on offer. In my view this should include
• ‘double devolution’ to communities and neighbourhoods
• engagement with local residents, local businesses, and the voluntary and community sector
• supporting the development of the voluntary and community sector’s capacity and respecting its independence
• being exemplar employers paying decent wages and salaries and requiring the same from their partners and suppliers
• place-based leadership and fostering a strong local civil society and collaboration across the public sector and with other sectors
• exploring mergers and sharing of resources and people
• demonstrating value for money and social value in all that they do
Between now and May 2015 all the major political parties will be producing their policy programmes for localism and local government. It is unlikely, given their track record of the last four years, that the coalition partners will be able to match Labour’s commitments.
However, there is unlikely to be any more money. So local government continues to face this immediate challenge and has to prove once again its resilience as well as its appetite for change and desire to serve its communities.
The Labour Party’s Local Government Innovation Taskforce has produced an imaginative set of proposals for pro-active, democratic and exciting local government which I suspect will find favour with local government politicians from across the political spectrum. Its proposals need to become reality as soon as possible!