No localism exemptions in Whitehall, ministers insist

26 Sep 11
Ministers have rejected MPs' claim that some Whitehall departments appear to be exempt from the localism drive.

By Mark Smulian | 26 October 2011

Ministers have rejected MPs’ claim that some Whitehall departments appear to be exempt from the localism drive.

The communities and local government committee’s report on localism, published in June, said that ‘some policy areas appear to have been granted an exemption from decentralisation’. It added that the Department for Work and Pensions appeared ‘particularly resistant to the arguments for devolving power to local institutions’.

The MPs accused the government of giving ‘the impression that the definition of localism is a matter only of tone and of convenience for the government as a whole, with each department permitted to ignore localism or to adopt whichever strain of the policy will facilitate its other goals’.

But the DCLG’s response, published on September 23, said: ‘No department has been granted an exemption from decentralisation.’

It added that it did not take a one-size-fits-all approach to decentralisation and that ‘different activities and functions will belong at different levels, and the techniques needed to decentralise them will therefore vary in emphasis between services and between departments’.

The department denied that the DWP was obstructing localism and said the Work Programme represented ‘an unprecedented opportunity for local government, communities and third sector organisations to get involved in back to work support’.

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