6 Comments on Can the centre be saved?

Ian Christie on Thu, 25th Aug 2011 9:14 am


Agreed, Matthew.
One perennial feature of English politics for the past few decades has been ritual acknowledgement by ‘the centre’ of the virtues of local governance combined with determination not to give localities any real powers or money-raising capacity. We have a very caricatured approach from the Conservatives in particular, who are keen to praise localism and damn ‘the centre’, while still failing to devolve power adequately to councils (indeed, undermining them in some ways) and exercising brute force command and control from Whitehall when it suits them.
In England there has not been for a long time any serious debate and analysis on what we know about the appropriate levels of governance for particular issues. Some should be dealt with locally; some by the national centre; and some at some form(s) of regional scale. To have such a debate, we’d need to get away from the idea that England doesn’t have any scope for democratic governance at regional or sub-regional level. And we’d need to consider carefully what the relationship is between community-level governance and established local councils. In other words, we should have a careful analysis and discussion of what a proper settlement between local and central government, and a sensible spatial planning regime, could look like for England and the UK. The Localism Bill from the Coalition is very far from providing what is needed.

Jonathan Carr-West on Thu, 25th Aug 2011 11:53 am


Matthew

You’re right of course, that it’s important not to be a lazy, or worse a fundamentalist, localist , although I’m not sure central government’s hold on the national political consciousness has been weakened to the extent you describe.

Responding to some problems requires local variation and the sort of evolutionary, adaptive innovation Tim Harford has recently described. These sorts of problems include at least some aspects of the big issues like climate change and the banking crisis. At the same time we also know that we sometimes need clear direction and strategic grip at a national or regional level. Balancing these seemingly competing needs is a real challenge.

But I worry that we can end up by perpetuating a fairly sterile debate if we get into the business of assigning different sorts of issue to different levels of government. Instead we should try concentrate on improving the interaction between national and local politics so that policy making on particular issues can draw on and move between each level. At LGiU we call this ‘connected localism’.

It’s tough though, in part because it requires both local and national politicians to collaborate on rather than ‘own’ solutions and that’s not something our political system easily rewards.

Tom Brookes on Fri, 26th Aug 2011 3:34 pm


Afternoon Matthew,

Interesting post, I’ve just posted an article which I think parallels this – I wrote about debate by divergence, which I think is the issue here – the problem is people’s tendency to think in extremes, or in labels; one or t’other. We do it with everything: local or central, Labour or Tory, black or white., love it or loathe it… I could go on, but won’t. The thing is applied to politics, to democratic conversation, it just doesn’t work.

The point of dialectic in democracy is to come up with a solution in shades of grey, with the best elements of all ideas – not a flat choice between left, right and liberal. Central government isn’t the CEO’s office cascading down a master strategy, and I curse neoliberalism for corporatising government thinking.

Central government may be better thought of anatomically; as the ‘brain’ to the ‘heart’ in local government, components both in an organic and responsive social system with 60 million unique human imputs connected to and impacting almost 7 billion more globally.

When you look at it like that, somehow partisan squabbling seems trite and childish compared to addressing the needs of the social and natural environments we all carry responsibility for.

Edward Harkins on Sun, 28th Aug 2011 4:03 pm


Matthew I fear that a core, deeply embedded issue across the U.K. is who decides (or assumes the competence to predict) what exactly constitutes, ‘localising in an intelligent way’?

In making that observation I took my cue from your remark about, “Geoff Mulgan once said to me something like; ‘if there’s one best way to do things the centre should mandate it, but if there are several it should be devolved. Unfortunately, Whitehall massively exaggerates the number of problems with one best solutions’”

Quite; even the man from Whitehall, it turns out so often, does not ‘know best’.

A significant complication and barrier to progress is the lack of ways and means across the U.K. to facilitate open, frank and informed examination and analysis around almost any policy issue that involves ‘the centre’, or subordinate layers, ever giving up or transferring power, resources or assets. Even the very term ‘devolution’ carries connotations of something being bestowed or ‘allowed to’ a subordinate authority or entity – rather than an acknowledgement or admission that there is another model or arrangement entailing an unqualified and irreversible transfer of power or resources that is more appropriate and more legitimate.

That latter factor is, incidentally, one of the reasons that I believe that the dreadfully labelled ‘public sector mutuals’ or ‘public sector social enterprises’ face huge philosophical and practical difficulties.

I say that I ‘fear’ the issue of the lack of the ways and means of examination and debate. That is because of long experience in, for example, in the urban regeneration field in Scotland. There has been pervasive and virtually invariable failure in this field in the community engagement and partnership domains. This has been well and long evidenced, and yet there continues to be institutional unlearning on the matter. For example, the recent, and not especially impressive Christie Commission on public services in Scotland seemed to recognise the need for change in respect of public services and community engagement and empowerment. The Commission’s report, however, went on in its proposals to depend on the very same public service institutions that have failed in these matters.

Radical change requires the willingness and ability to recognise: where one is; where one needs to go; how to get there; and then (most importantly) do what is needed. The existing empowered entities that have already failed to recognise the need for change and to adapt will, quite simple, not change their mindsets and cultures without some sort of enforced externalising and genuine sharing of the decision-making process with the other affected-but-powerless parties from the start.

David Slater on Sun, 4th Sep 2011 5:07 pm


Matthew,

I learned a lot from attending an RSA Surrey meeting on Thursday, in which David Searle gave an informative presentation on the Localism Bill. In common with many of the other Fellows present, I had been unaware of the provisions of the Bill, and I wonder whether the general public are similarly uninformed.

I am neither for nor against the Bill, in that I now favour broadly as many of its provisions as I dislike. My concern is that such a wide-ranging piece of legislation that changes the nature of the governance of the country is about to gain royal assent in the next few months, without any significant public debate.

Many of those whose lives will be affected by the provisions in the Bill that relate to social housing may not yet have a vote in local or general elections. Although I am generally in favour of such provisions, I am concerned that future generations will find that they have been greatly disadvantaged by a Bill that was enacted without full consultation or public debate by a government that they were too young to vote for or against. To me, this appears to be a recipe for future riots, about to be enacted when the government and the vast majority of citizens are seeking the avoidance of unrest.

At Thursday’s meeting, we were asked to consider what the RSA should be doing as a result of the Localism Bill, and we came to the conclusion that it was too late to influence the Bill or to have any meaningful local public debate on its provisions. Would it be appropriate for the RSA to lobby the coalition government for a stay of execution, so that the public can be consulted fully?

Edward Harkins on Mon, 5th Sep 2011 9:30 am


David I instinctively sympathise with your comments buy I fear that you are correct in assuming that it is probably too late to influence the progress or contents of the Localism Bill. As a friendly neighbour in Scotland I have watched nonplussed at the progress of this Bill. It’s ironic that the subject matter is ‘localism’ given the lack of significant or meaningful engagement with the public on the Bill. Ironic because that lack of significant or meaningful engagement with the public is what marks almost all the activities of central – and local – government across the UK.

That observation holds true whether on planning, health services, ‘community’ regeneration etc., etc.

There has been a sort of constrained debate in-that a number of bodies have commented, usually from specific professional practitioners’ perspective. These bodies include RTPI and RICS etc. It must be a matter of particular concern to progressives on the theme in England that these constituencies have not been properly engaged with in the lead-up to the Bill. If such constituencies have not been engaged with, the implementation and execution of the consequent legislation will opposed in at least part, and will be badly executed in general. It will probably, therefore, be greatly flawed and largely ineffective.

Some sterling individual efforts have, of course, been made by individuals such as Julian Dobson and Mike Chitty.

This is especially unfortunate given that a whole raft of legislation and other measures from the Conservative Coalition Government run wholly contrary to this Bill. These are having the effect of weakening or even excluding Local Government from large tract of activities affecting the communities they serve(see, for example, just today the fanfare launch of the miss-named free schools).. Regional level bodies have also, meantime, been cut or terminated.

Given these factors, this measure from the Conservative Coalition Government may well follow the path of a large proportion of it’s early initiatives, and flounder at the initial implementation stage (see for example: the off-on free milk; school closures programme; forestry privatisation; defence review etc. fiascos). I would wonder if it would be in the interests of the RSA, or serve any good practical purpose, if the RSA were to become somehow involved. This is likely to be a highly politicised, contentious, disputed and eventually failed domain

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