30 January 2004
Normal political debate has pretty much been forgotten amid the tumult of the Hutton Inquiry report and the vote over university top-up tuition fees, but in recent days senior Labour figures have been trying to snatch back control of the domestic agenda.
Cabinet ministers both past and present have been spelling out the party's big idea for a third term in government: giving power to the people, or, in Labour parlance, new localism.
But alarm bells are sounding among local government leaders, who fear that 'devolution of power' will be at their expense. They are suspicious that the localism agenda is camouflage for the latest attempt to bypass town halls in the delivery of public services.
Former health secretary Alan Milburn entered the party's Big Conversation last week when he called for elected councils to tackle the 'crime and grime' issues that so often exercise residents.
He also mooted the possibility of directly elected boards for primary care trusts, and of 'community interest companies' to take over failing local services.
This is hardly music to the ears of town hall leaders, who believe such a move would dilute their own democratic mandate and threaten their status as representatives of the community.
Home Secretary David Blunkett offered some comfort when he used his speech to the annual conference of the New Local Government Network think-tank last week to outline his policy of an 'enabling' central government that would foster local engagement.
'The challenge facing all of us who want to renew democracy is not to undermine the role of local government but to use the framework it offers as a means to build up communities,' he told delegates.
Even so, Blunkett has already floated plans for elected sheriffs, neighbourhood panels and directly elected police authorities.
Blairite Home Office minister Hazel Blears, meanwhile, has been calling for community groups to be given direct powers over the management and finances of local services.
Local Government Association chair Sir Jeremy Beecham this week launched a counter offensive, giving a speech to the Public Management and Policy Association in Newcastle called 'New localism: road map or bypass?'
Beecham soon plumped for the latter, reflecting a growing concern among his council colleagues that, despite its Big Conversation, the government is not listening to them.
He argued that the localism agenda risked 'undermining the political process' and predicted that introducing a plethora of new elected bodies would result in 'voter fatigue'.
He also warned of the danger that a series of elected bodies, each responsible for a single service, would lead to a fragmentation of local services.
He said: 'Separately constituted, and, still worse, separately elected bodies with partial responsibility are not likely to be able to deliver a coherent strategic approach.'
No wonder, then, that senior local government figures are increasingly concerned by the potential threat to their traditional function.
Dan Corry, director of the NLGN, which claims to have invented the new localism concept, says local authorities need not be so suspicious of the government's intentions.
He told Public Finance: 'New localism is about devolution as far as possible and does not in itself imply exactly how that should be done. Jeremy is quite right to point to [problems with] single service directly elected bodies, but that doesn't mean they should be excluded entirely.'
In the welter of debate, it is still unclear what role Westminster politicians envisage for councillors and their authorities. Indeed, one could be forgiven for concluding that the issue had not been given much consideration.
At the same time, the recent speeches by Blunkett and Milburn, with their apparently contradictory views on the future role of councils, point up a continuing confusion.
Until the government can offer some clarity on these issues, town hall leaders will continue to resist an agenda they fear may ruin, rather than revitalise, their councils.
PFjan2004
