28 June 2002
The former Northern Ireland secretary, who has become a strong advocate of regional government since leaving the Cabinet, said the government's demands for audit and accountability were excessive.
This had translated into a culture of 'target-itis and initiative-itis', which had tied authorities' hands and restricted their ability to respond in fresh ways.
'Both have their role and both serve a certain purpose,' he said. 'But if you are on the receiving end of that blizzard of targets and initiatives and programmes and plans and demands for inspection, audit and accountability…then I don't think you would need persuading that they need just to be parked somewhere out of harm's way in our second term.'
Mandelson made his comments at the publication of a pamphlet on mayors on June 24, organised by the New Local Government Network think-tank. He told the audience that Labour should use its second term to devolve power to a regional and local level.
This would allow communities 'to innovate, to experiment and to devise new locally relevant solutions to age-old problems'. He backed government plans to streamline the number of strategies that authorities have to produce.
'I do not believe we can see local government acting as the battering ram of change and improvement in our localities without these changes,' he added.
Mandelson said he continued to support the policy of directly elected mayors, even though it had led to the election of H'Angus the monkey, aka Stuart Drummond, in his Hartlepool constituency.
'The point of directly elected mayors is real transparency of decisions. Everyone will know who to applaud and who to blame,' he added.
PFjun2002
