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Robert Hill looks at all three main parties' manifestos to see what they have in mind for local government. The general election campaign is warming up, enlivened by the first TV debate. That can only be good for democracy. At the same time, the parties' respective manifestos are coming under increasing scrutiny. All three parties have produced relatively-weighty tomes – and for those who are interested, the LGIU has produced an excellent summary of each of them – see http://lgiu.wordpress.com. But, despite the attempt at policy heft, there is an unresolved contradiction at the heart of the manifestos. All the parties are trying to seize the localist mantle. However, championing localism is very different from promoting local government. Let's start with the Liberal Democrats, as they seem to be the flavour of the moment. The party which prides itself on its local government roots now says it would introduce directly-elected health boards and police authorities. So, in each area, there would be at least three bodies claiming a mandate from the electorate. What would that mean for the role of local government in place-shaping and bringing greater coherence to local plans and priorities? The problem becomes even more acute with the Conservative manifesto. First, we have a freeze of council tax bills – which the highly-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies says is going to cost more than £1bn a year. The pressure for spending restraints on local authorities, which were already looking bleak, will surely be all the tougher, given this context. However, at the same time, the ability of authorities and agencies to rationalise services is being constrained. Parents are to be given powers to ‘save' schools threatened with closure and to set up new schools – even though there may be an abundance of school places in their area. Similarly, the closure of A&E departments and maternity units is to be halted. The tension between power to the people and the role of elected representatives is also evident in the plan to give neighbourhood groups – Tory leader David Cameron's ‘little platoons' – much greater powers over the planning system. A recipe for NIMBY-ism, if ever there was one. Likewise the introduction of referendums to stop council tax rises complicates financial planning. These proposals would, if implemented, make it harder for local authorities and other public agencies to operate strategically, develop new types of services, and make the most efficient use of public funds. Labour's manifesto also contains some of the same problems. For example, one can make a good case for giving parents, patients and other users of public services enforceable national guarantees to standards of service – as Labour proposes for health, education and policing. But this curtails the ability of local authorities and agencies to shape services to meet local needs as they see it. And it's not clear how the use of petitioning powers by local people – requiring their council to take action on an issue – would actually work in practice. To be fair, all the main parties are also offering enhanced powers and freedoms for local government. The ability of councils to act, lead, plan and raise finance would be considerably enhanced. However, as Heather Jameson pointed out in last week's MJ, the relationship between localism and local government is, as she elegantly described it, ‘muddy'. Much of the confusion and potential conflict arises because we have not thought through or achieved a consensus on what local government is for. We are still in the process of reinventing local government. Things are radically different compared with 1997. Then, concepts of governance, community leadership and place-shaping were relatively unknown terms. Councils were still mostly defining themselves in terms of providing and delivering services. Now, even the Liberal Democrats, who have been the last to fall in with the school devolution agenda, accept that local authorities should not run schools. They should play more of a ‘strategic role', with responsibility for oversight of school performance and fair admissions. There is a strong case for returning to the Lyons report as the basis for developing a cross-party consensus on the role of local government. Doing this will not solve all the tensions between direct empowerment of citizens and communities and their councils. But it would provide a clearer context for having the dialogue about the respective roles of participative and representative democracy. Robert Hill is an independent analyst on public policy issues

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WHITEHALL

Manifestos muddy localist waters

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