Title

Be wary of words which mean anything to anyone. Advertisers have long-known the power of language to ‘sex-up' a product, and this is just as true for local government jargon, not to mention political polemic. Words such as ‘strategic' or ‘transformation'... and adding ‘eco' as a prefix to any word can make it much more palatable – strategic risk assessment, transformational project management, eco-office furniture, anyone? "The real issue is that localism is not an end in itself – it is a means to an end. That end is services which are seen as high quality, because they are shaped around local needs and aspirations, at the level of both the individual and the community. " But, the word which has greatest currency right now, across all parties, is ‘localism'. One can barely read an article or hear a speech without them being peppered liberally with localism – and sometimes randomly, throughout. But what does it really mean? The reason it is cropping up at this particular time in the election cycle is that the political parties need their foot soldiers across the country, shortly, to be out canvassing for votes. So a message which seems to support the importance of local organisations and structures will go down well, getting them out knocking on doors by reinforcing their key role following an election victory. But this does not necessarily fit easily with other current agendas, for example, around driving efficiency. If quality of service delivery is your determining factor, then very local political structures may help ensure this. But if saving money becomes the overriding criterion, then economies of scale will kick in, and larger may well be better. The real issue is that localism is not an end in itself – it is a means to an end. That end is services which are seen as high quality, because they are shaped around local needs and aspirations, at the level of both the individual and the community. As an economist, I naturally look for the hidden assumptions in such arguments, and these are, of course, that only by being ‘local' can we achieve these tailored, bespoke models of service delivery. Setting aside debates about ‘post code lotteries', in these days of sophisticated IT databases and the Internet, being local is less of a requirement to achieve such service delivery. After all, the service-provider out there who knows me the best is Amazon – using my past purchasing history, it can easily spot the authors and books types that I like to read, and similarly, for DVDs, CDs and so on. And where are is Amazon based? In Seattle, Washington. Maybe the future is global rather than local, but that's hardly a message to get the foot soldiers out.

Title

WHITEHALL

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