National media stories in the past few days about two ostensibly over-zealous councils throw into sharp relief several tensions inherent in local government.
They manage to pinpoint four main issues, namely, how the national media cover councils, why the public like their services but not their local authority, how councils should tackle persistent anti-social behaviour by a minority of residents, and how David Cameron intends to manage relations with his own Conservative councils, even if they prove to be embarrassing him.
The two councils, both Conservative and both unitary, are Plymouth and Peterborough. In the case of the former, the media claimed that Plymouth was sending questionnaires to residents asking for their medical details in connection with their recycling patterns. The story received wide coverage. One Conservative blogger said Eric Pickles should ‘come down on the group leader like a ton of bricks', and not ‘tolerate Bin Gestapo behaviour.'
In fact, the story was wrong. As the council explained, it was merely asking details from a tiny minority of householders who consistently flout recycling rules in order to establish whether they have particular medical or family needs and need assistance.
Peterborough, meanwhile, received hostile coverage because its litter wardens are paid on results – £35 for every penalty notice. Actually, the council is pretty tough on litter louts generally. Its website even posts photographs of miscreants who have been filmed dropping litter. And a trawl through blog sites shows residents generally favourable to council efforts to clean up the city centre. If anything, they want the scheme extended to the suburbs.
So, while the general public are left with an impression of over-zealous, ‘jobsworth' councils – thereby confirming existing prejudices about local authorities – both were actually merely getting tough on a minority of anti-social residents, which is precisely what people want to see.
If clearing litter from town centres means
naming, shaming and fining, then most people are heartily in favour of it. It will be interesting to see whether Mr Pickles sticks by his councils or, spooked by the headlines, gives them a ticking-off instead.
