30 June 2006
England's core cities are poised to receive new powers mirroring those already enjoyed by London's mayor in the drive to reinvigorate 'democratic decision-making', Ruth Kelly has indicated.
The communities and local government secretary is giving strong personal backing to the city-regions model, under which the eight major English cities would assume strategic responsibility in areas such as transport, skills and employment, and economic regeneration.
These new powers would be wielded by directly elected mayors to establish clear accountability with the public for policy successes and failures.
It is part of a wider drive to reconnect public organisations and policymakers with local people, which will underpin the reform package to be outlined in the white paper due in the autumn.
Kelly told Public Finance on June 28 that she wanted a dramatic shift in focus for local authorities, so that their primary objective would be to serve their residents rather than their political paymasters in Whitehall.
She added that she would use her speech to next week's Local Government Association's annual conference in Bournemouth to detail her current thinking on how to achieve that.
'The general principle is that we need local authorities to look downwards more, to identify local needs and respond to them to ensure local people are empowered and their voices are heard,' she told PF.
'If we're talking seriously about community empowerment, we have to think seriously about how we can devolve power from central government to local government. I'll be talking about that in more detail next week.'
New neighbourhood structures modelled on revamped parish councils, which would assume a range of budgetary and statutory powers from councils, have been widely touted in recent months.
But Kelly told PF she did not favour a centrally imposed, prescriptive model, preferring structures to be determined locally instead. 'We need to be flexible, there won't be a one-size-fits-all model,' she said.
Local government leaders said they expected her to use her speech in Bournemouth to flesh out her rhetoric on reform with some policy substance.
LGA chair Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart told PF: 'The time has come for audacious and deep-seated reform. We look forward to the minister providing a timetable and blueprint for devolving, decentralising and deregulating local government at the annual conference next week.'
PFjun2006
