Ros writes in Eastern Agenda magazine, June 2007

Local Government

Academics have calculated that we are the most centralised state in Europe, with one exception, Malta.

The local government bill currently going through Parliament has been hailed by Labour Ministers as a breakthrough in devolution.   Well, I’ve scoured it from top to bottom and found two things that might, by a stretch of the imagination,  be regarded in that way.   Firstly, we are promised a bonfire of targets and performance indicators from the hundreds which exist currently, to a few dozen.  Secondly, local councils are to be empowered to create new bye-laws without the approval of the Secretary of State. Only in this country could anyone claim these pathetic measures to be devolutionary.

The Bill also sets out the framework for the creation of unitary councils, the first wave of which we’re expecting to be announced later in the summer. The Lib Team in Parliament won’t take a view on individual cases, but we will expect to see a genuine assessment of public opinion throughout the area affected and not decisions motivated by self-serving councils.

I’m delighted that my two year campaign against the Standards Board for England has borne fruit – the Bill brings in a new code of conduct which ends the nonsense of councillors being prevented from speaking on planning issues in their own wards.

The reductions in targets and inspection regimes is long overdue, and to be welcomed. But let’s not get carried away, Labour’s failure to reform local government finance still leaves central government very much in the driving seat and I’ll take bets that “targets” will be replaced by “indicators” or some such nonsense, as a way of keeping local government firmly on the leash.

To my mind, the most worrying aspect of the Bill, is what it proposes for the governance of councils. All councils will be required to move to a model in which all executive power is vested in one person, either a directly elected mayor or a so-called “strong” leader. There will be no referendums – the council itself will decide which of three models to choose, mayor, leader or directly elected cabinet. 

Government has said that these changes are essential to providing good leadership, despite the fact that all the inspection regimes they have thrown at local government have shown that there is a significant improvement in councils performance.

Government has failed to show how appropriate checks and balances are to be built into the system to prevent abuses of power creeping in. Nor have they understood that in an era where many councils are in no overall control, a mayor can get elected on a tiny majority of the vote and could wield all the power with no real mandate.

I have no problems with Mayors per se. Indeed in Dorothy Thornhill we have an example of the mayoral model operating at its best. But it should be a matter of local choice. In no other country would it be acceptable for central government to determine how local government is run.