Little more than a supporting role

The three parties are all determined to keep councils away from centre stage in health, schools and the police

By David Walker

Three things are certain whoever assumes the mantle at Westminster next week – and they might puzzle the pundits and prophets who have lately been saying “we’re all localists now”.

One is the sheer volume of council-related legislation likely if the manifestos are enacted. To redeem party pledges on planning, housing, licensing, transport, as well as business rates and council tax, pages and pages of new law will be needed, especially by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

Another is that no party looks likely to bring councils in from the cold, in terms of their role in the big spending services of health, schools and the police. Despite the LibDems promising a local income tax and the Tories a power of general competence, they envisage no expansion of councils’ competence in education nor any extension into the NHS. The parties have big ideas about local democracy, but they do not necessarily involve councils. The LibDems favour electing the members of primary care trusts and even elections to the boards of England’s national parks; the Tories would elect police chiefs.

The Liberal Democrat manifesto says bluntly that “local authorities will not run schools”. Tory education plans would further shrink councils’ stake in schools, cut them out of further education completely and – though this is less clear – give them no role in proposed early years support teams.

Third, all the parties breeze past the principle of local government autonomy. Keep council tax down, Labour says, or else – we will cap you. The Tories would force councils to freeze staff pay and limit pensions; they also would have to publish detailed information on pay and spending. The LibDems would insist on fewer CCTV cameras and much less surveillance. Under the Tories local authorities would be expected to obey detailed prescription on bin emptying and recycling.

All manifestos talk about redistributing power and bringing the people back in; the Tories even call theirs an “invitation to join the government of Britain”. But, as far as councils go, the centre remains predominant. If this is localism’s high-water mark, the policy shoreline remains littered with Whitehall edicts.

For all that, councils feature large. They have a part in the brave new worlds set out by the parties, but it is strictly defined and, where necessary, confined. For the Tories, councils would be part of a revolution in the availability of public sector data, pushing out detail documentation on their spending for the public to appraise. Also on the cards are new council-business partnerships, which might replace regional development agencies. Tory ministers would construct elaborate financial incentives to encourage local residents to back development, allowing councils to keep the money if they permitted commercial development that then produced above-average increases in business rate revenues. Councils would impose the tariff on developers; a levy that the Tories want as a replacement for Section 106 planning agreements

Labour sees councils as motors of economic growth, alongside the regional development agencies. At the forefront of tackling climate change, councils would hold energy companies to account. The party also would let local authorities back into council house building – in line with the recent policy shift under housing minister John Healey – but only to the extent of 10,000 new dwellings a year by the end of the next parliament. Otherwise, councils would be required to jump in response to local demands – for example, to change the leadership of a school, or to restrict pub or club licences. But at the same time they “must take full account of the importance of public services to local communities”.

All three manifestos envisage the creation of a sort of micro state beneath councils as parents and community groups acquire and run libraries, post offices, parks and schools. But as with Labour’s “double devolution” plans, it’s not clear whether councils would supervise or audit this flowering of social and civic enterprise.

As well as introducing local income tax the LibDems would switch the basis of business rates from rents to capital or site values, and local authorities would be free to borrow against their assets. Councils would supervise academy schools, renamed “sponsor-managed schools”; they would take over some if not all the functions of regional development agencies. Elections to local authorities would be “fair” – in other words, proportional.

Yet for all the enthusiasm for councils, the LibDems do not envisage councils taking any responsibility for health or policing. Separate direct elections would be held for local health boards (replacing primary care trusts) and police authorities. And councils would do as they were told over parking: a LibDem government would forbid private sector wheel clamping. Councils would also be subject to strong national initiatives, capping pay rises for all public sector workers. But they would be freed from the attentions of inspectors – the party’s manifesto says abolishing them would save £1 billion.

One conclusion leaps from these manifesto pages: this will not be a game-changing election for local-central government relations or the constitutional status of councils. That can also be inferred from the almost deathly silence around local government questions on the hustings, despite the coincidence of the general and local elections across a wide swathe of England. The leaders’ TV debates pretty much ignored them and Nick Clegg’s emphasis on the newness of the LibDems gave little space to the fact his party has long been in power locally. For parties and public the big local services are health and education; Labour and the Tories have made commitments about protecting their “front lines”. In neither of them are elected multipurpose councils to have much of a role.

26 April 2010

David Walker. Managing director, communications and public reporting at the Audit Commission. These are his own views.,