On the face of it 2012 was a disappointing
year for those wishing to see a profound and sustained shift in the nation's
political governance from the centre to the local. The public’s resounding ‘No’
to directly elected mayors and its indifference to elected police commissioners
was a huge let-down for supporters of these projects who had hoped they would
be the catalyst for more power to be transferred locally.
But look deeper and there are some
significant reasons for optimism. Not least amongst them was local government’s
largely successful response to national deficit reduction measures. 2013 needs
to be the year when it builds on that to persuade the public and central
government that localism is vital for national growth and future national deficit reduction strategies.
If power is to be ceded back from central
government, it needs to be for a reason and that reason needs to be compelling.
For the city regions in particular, and others more generally, that reason is economic
recovery. Britain needs sustainable local growth. So the argument runs,
enhanced city wide or regional governance will be a prerequisite to manage and
deliver the investment and activities to kick-start and sustain local economic
activity. In other words the conditions for growth require the conditions for
localism. Framed in this way the case for change features both congruence and
reciprocity. Local government and its partners offer responsibility and
accountability, in return for which they will be given genuine power from the
centre to enable them to act. For national government, the lesson to be learned
will be that a problem shared is a problem well on the way to being solved.
If the argument works for economic growth
then it should work for other objectives too.
Take deficit reduction. Local government has
shown it can be extremely dexterous and successful in managing its contribution
to central government’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). Indeed former
local government and housing minister Grant Shapps took to Twitter in early
December to exclaim “If whole of govt’ had achieved 8.7% Town Hall cut (the) deficit
(national) would be erased!” Those of us who live and breathe local government
know that this did not happen by accident. Nor was it because councils were
better off than other parts of government – far from it. The story of the
sector’s success is itself the case for localism. In direct contrast to the old
stereotype of stuck-in-the-mud, backwards-looking local politics, local
authorities of all shapes and sizes rose to the challenge, accepted the
obligation and navigated established patterns of political leadership and governance
to craft strategies and deliver a response. One might even argue that local,
transparent and accountable leadership has delivered on deficit reduction while
Whitehall has floundered.
As central government considers its next
CSR, local government needs to choose its negotiating stance carefully. The
temptation will be to progress defensively, argue that councils have already
taken their fair share of cuts and attempt to direct attention to bloated
budgets elsewhere in government. Worse, there may also be a temptation to argue
about regional differences and the need to rebalance the share of spending from
south to north or east to west.
There is an alternative, more ambitious proposal.
Instead of trying to push the national debt problem to other parts of central government,
localists should make the case to push more of it outwards and local. This
sounds alarming but in fact, by making the case for more public policy
objectives, service commissioning and delivery to be governed locally, local
government would in return secure acceptance that it can take full
responsibility for the future of these services, including the need for
reductions of expenditure thereafter.
The short-term dangers are obvious – that
Whitehall demands more and deeper cuts. But the long-term prize of a permanent
shift in political governance should be a goal worth playing for.
