Options for embedding local government within the constitution

The context

• The relationship between local and central govt. for the last 40 years has been characterised by centralisation and the disempowerment of local govt.

• Our insight is that this is because our democracy is polarised between Westminster and local govt.

• Rhetoric has changed, but it’s harder to change people’s behaviour

Our vision

• We need to move towards a system of democracy in which there is a continuum between the local and central

• We want a new relationship based upon partnership, leadership & better accountability

What do we need to do?

• To achieve this, we need to address:

• The way Parliamentary constituencies work• The way Parliament works• The central-local concordat and compliance with the

European Charter on local self-govt. • The way Whitehall is configured to deal with local govt. • Local government finance• Inspection, improvement and minimum standards

• We will be setting out quite a lot of options to make a difference, some of which are small, some are big

• But our insight is that it’s about reforming the system, not simple things that can be changed in a isolated way

Problem 1 – Parliamentary constituencies

• The absurdities of Parliamentary boundaries means that there is no longer a clear geographic link between MP and a single council

• Our split system divides Parliamentarians from councillors, creates incoherence, and erodes voters’ sense of identification with places and their elected representations

• Net result: It often looks and feels as if we operate two parallel, self-contained, systems of democratic representation in England

Options to reform Parliamentary constituencies

• Merge the Boundary Committee and the Boundary Commission under a single legislative framework

• Amend the parliamentary Constituencies (Reorganisation) Act to require parliamentary constituencies to be coterminous with local government boundaries and to remove the population rule

• Require the alignment to be done as part of the next 15-year cycle of review

Problem 2 – the way parliament works

• We need to improve the way local govt. and parliament work together to ensure continuity of local representation and better scrutiny of legislation affecting local govt.

• Many countries’ constitutions explicitly link parliament and local govt. France, Italy, Germany, Spain and SA all have indirectly-elected reps of sub-national democratic tiers in their second parliamentary chamber

Options to reform the way parliament works

• Councillors in the House of Lords

• Parliament should set up a Committee charged with pre-scrutinising legislative proposals with local government implications

• Parliament should reform the process for initiating Bills and the way Sessional Orders allocate legislative time to allow councils to propose Public General Acts within their sphere of competence

• Amend the LGPIH Act 2007 to give MPs the right, if they wish, to a member of LSP(s) within their constituency

• More formal consultative arrangements with councils/the LGA

• That the Audit Commission, like the NAO, should become directly accountable to parliament

Problem 3 – The concordat & compliance with the European Charter on local self-govt.

• The Concordat was signed against the backdrop of the government having unconditionally ratified the Council of Europe’s Charter of Local Self-government (1997)

• Good progress on LAAs and accountability of local services (although we disagree with the conclusions on the police), but v. limited progress on the other commitments

• The terms of reference of the new CLP have not yet been settled and there has been no collective monitoring of the Concordat’s operation

• A 2006 Council of Europe review of central govt. control over local govt. placed the UK in the “control/supervision increasing” category, alongside Azerbaijan

Options to strengthen the concordat & compliance with the European Charter on

local self-govt

• Put the Concordat, possibly in a revised form, on a legislative footing

• Enact a single clause requiring that there be a Concordat and giving its provisions legal force. But, it would be unwise to give all fifteen of its clauses legislative force before it has been evaluated

• Legislate along the lines of article 118 of the Italian constitution, providing that councils should be presumed to have the powers to provide any public service not explicitly reserved as the unique responsibility of a national body in the interests of assuring uniformity of service

• Impose on central government a new subsidiarity requirement, or Duty to Devolve

• Rolling programme of identifying and removing SoS consents

Problem 4 – the way Whitehall is

configured to deal with local govt.

• Whitehall is fragmented and this fragments councils

• Fragmented councils have more trouble asserting a joined-up vision for their place and defending that local vision against central control and interference

• Local government’s sponsor department has a strategic coordinating role of combating that fragmentation and the resulting centralisation

• But that role is obscured by frequently-reorganised functional responsibilities and is subject to second-guessing and appeal because the backstop of policy coordination rests with the Cabinet Committee system, in which the strategic coordination of local government policy is (mis)represented as a departmental interest like any other

• Lack of regional accountability

Options for reforming the way Whitehall is configured to deal with local govt

• Government should make a clearer distinction between functional responsibilities for (eg) planning and housing, and the sponsorship of local government

• As part of wider financial reforms, CLG should give up its finance function to an independent commission

• Create a new Cabinet Committee on Local Government with a remit to consider any policy affecting councils, and make CLG its secretariat and its Secretary of State its chair

• Make GOs more accountable through regional leaders’ forums

• Greater accountability of NDPBs and other agencies through

development of duty to cooperate and the LAA / MAA model

Problem 5 – local govt. finance

• We need serious reform of the local government finance system to bring back to local people power over raising money for the financing of local public services

• The present system is so complicated and so difficult to understand, it would be necessary to take reform in stages in order to navigate safely to a fundamentally stronger financing system

Options to reform local govt. finance

• First steps: deregulation of fees and charges, abolition of council tax capping and the establishment of an independent commission to oversee issues of equalization and grant distribution

• Next would be real encouragement and incentive for councils to grow locally raised sources of income – not centrally controlled grants dressed up as incentives, like some of the current schemes

• Then, grant funding needs to be made much simpler and more transparent, with the help of the Independent Commission, so that the public can understand how much of the national taxes they pay goes to fund local public services

• At that point, the climate might be right for more ambitious reforms: revaluation and modernization of council tax, and the development of assigned national tax revenue streams or local income tax

Problem 6 - Inspection, improvement and minimum standards

• The centralisation of power over the last 60 years has been and remains, albeit to a lesser extent, evident in the performance management framework that is imposed on local government by the centre

• And councils can now proudly claim to be the highest performing, most efficient part of the public sector. The 2007 CPA results showed that 123 single tier and county councils (83%) achieved 3 or 4 star –up from just 76 excellent and Good councils in 2002

• For the second year running no councils are in the bottom CPA category and the number of 0 or 1 star councils has reduced from 34 in Dec 2002 to just 2

Options to reform inspection, improvement and minimum standards

• The new performance framework should be implemented in full by all departments, councils and their partners

• A full evaluation should be conducted after the 3 year cycle of LAAs before any further change is made to continue the direction of travel

• External challenge should be carried out by a single inspectorate that is accountable to Parliament and should move increasingly towards self evaluation and self regulation