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You don't see each other as often as you intended. Having different day-to-day experiences to share starts as a bonus, a chance to open new horizons but soon it feels like you have less and less in common. Priorities change and increasingly you see the world quite differently. You just don't understand each other anymore. These are the trials of the long-distance relationship. We often read about of challenges of delivering public services. The distance between the service and who is accountable links many of these challenges. Over recent months, difficulties as far reaching as hospital complaints, concerns with school governance and performance and the effectiveness of the work programme have too regularly made headlines. Perhaps we are seeing the breakdown of some long-distance relationships. The clearest and most immediate is the relationship between our schools and the Department for Education. The weaknesses of a system where schools are increasingly accountable not locally, but directly to Whitehall have never been more apparent. However, I fear that the Government is in danger of rebounding from one failing long-distance relationship with schools to another in economic growth. Local councils and LEPs have been working hard over recent months developing compelling, ambitious strategic economic plans based on the insights and understanding only bodies close to the local economy can provide. By definition they are long-term and seek to address deep-seated weaknesses and imbalance. Government is now negotiating with LEPs on these plans and prioritising shovel-ready schemes for funding. In some areas this will be shortsighted and will not allocate resources to the best long-term interests of local communities and their economies. Picking economic winners from the remote corridors of Whitehall is difficult enough, without such short-term restrictions. With more freedom to make financial decisions locally and greater accountability to the communities they serve, LEPs can provide the acceleration our economies need, and also be an important and lasting success of the current coalition Government. But I fear that the guiding hand of Whitehall finds it difficult to let go of even long-distance relationships. Fear of the unknown and the aching loss of (perceived) control make it easy to grab back the levers. The centralising instinct remains strong in SW1. Graeme McDonald is director of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives

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The long-distance relationship with Whitehall

By Graeme McDonald | 29 April 2014

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