12 May 2006
Town hall leaders have welcomed Sir Michael Lyons' latest report on local government reform, which gives a boost to the localism agenda as it calls for greater decentralisation.
Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, chair of the Local Government Association, said the report, published this week – and the second to emerge from Lyons' review – presented a clear evidence base for greater devolution to councils.
The report suggested fewer and better-focused targets from Whitehall, coupled with clearly defined roles for both central and local government. Greater freedom would allow councils more opportunity for 'place-shaping' – where local government takes responsibility for an area and its people.
Sir Simon Milton, leader of Westminster City Council and chair of the LGA's improvement board, also backed the report, saying a broad consensus was developing between the LGA and Lyons' emerging conclusions.
But he added: 'Local authorities must also rise to the challenges ahead and must step up their performance to match those of the best, so that residents easily understand how their local authority is performing, and can be reassured that they are getting value for money.'
Presenting his findings on May 8, Lyons said not all of local government was ready for the challenge he set out because they were focused on service delivery.
'Services are important, but not the whole story. Place-shaping needs to be taken more seriously,' he said. 'Local government has become caught by the gravitational pull of government. It spends its time looking up at central government, rather than looking out at its communities.'
Lyons suggested that councillors were spending too much time shut up in town halls and not enough out in the community talking to the people they were supposed to represent. He suggested that lessons could be learned from the private sector.
'How come we can't use the model of a non-executive director of a blue-chip company? If it is possible to be a non-executive director two days a month and to make an impact, why does it take the non-executive elected councillor 80 hours a week and yet end up with [a situation] where nothing is achieved? What are they doing for 80 hours a week?' Lyons said.
Despite government changes, Lyons told Public Finance he was confident that his recommendations would be taken seriously. 'I don't think there's any lack of interest in finding a solution, but it is very difficult territory,' he said.
A spokesman from the Department for Communities and Local Government said Lyons' paper was 'a valuable contribution to the debate on the role and function of local government.
'It is a helpful piece of work for Ruth Kelly and her ministerial team to consider how they take forward the important local government reform agenda.'
PFmay2006
