The Current State of English Local Government: Will Structure Solve all Problems?

Unhealthy obsessions

There are two unhealthy obsessions that attach to local government in England which have become, for policy-makers and many officers and members in local government, almost an article of faith: first, that structural reorganisation will cure all that ails local government; and, second, that bigger and bigger local government is automatically and without doubt, better, more efficient, more effective and cheaper. These fixations are based on the assumption that fewer councils and fewer councillors will save money and anything that is bigger must be better. Behind these contentions is the idea that local government is an organisation whose only responsibility is the provision of, or oversight over, public services. Yet, the term ‘government’ implies a politically representative role and a degree of policy and political autonomy from the centre. Arguments about structural re-organisation, predicated on the service role alone serve to further depoliticise local government and marginalise its governing role.

So, the devolution revolution stagnated in many part of England into another round of proposals for structural re- organisation and continued turf-wars between counties and districts. But it did so in a period of pronounced austerity and financial restraint imposed by the centre. A recent report from the National Audit Office (NAO) found that local authorities experienced a real term reduction in central government funding between 2010/11 to 2017/18 of just over 49 per cent. The Local Government Association (LGA) has estimated that there is a £5bn funding gap that would have opened up by 2020, even if councils effectively end almost all discretionary services. Moreover, the LGA predict that central government would have reduced core funding with a 77 per cent cut to the Revenue Support grant.

Northamptonshire’s problems

In addition to the long-held belief among policy-makers and even among many councillors and officers that bigger local government is always better, a sustained period of austerity is acting as an ally to further re-organisation. When faced with ever increasing financial pressure and service demand, re-organisation and the creation of bigger units of local government becomes a dangerously simplistic panacea. Yet, the first council in 20 years to issue a so-called section 114 notice of financial unsustainability was Northamptonshire County Council. Surely if bigger is always better this could not have happened? Nevertheless, the possibility remains that the council will be re-organised by merging districts, keeping alive the notion of bigger local government as a solution to problems.

The recent publication of the Northamptonshire County Council best value inspection report, raises important issues about the most appropriate response to authorities who find themselves in an acute financial crisis. Most of the report is uncontroversial. It provides a very thorough and detailed analysis of the financial and budgetary processes and of the county’s financial management. The report sets out very well that the county is in a financial quagmire and it explains how this outcome has come about. The recommendations made for dealing with the financial problems however, are simply a repeat of the narrative that structural re-organisation is a solution to all ailments experienced by local government and it does it in an intriguing way, stating that:

‘the problems faced by NCC are so deep and ingrained that it is not possible to promote a recovery plan that could bring the council back to stability and safety within a reasonable time scale’ (para 4.16). ‘A way forward with a clean sheet, leaving all history behind is required’ (para 4.17). This is best achieved, the report asserts, by the creation of two unitary authorities (Daventry/South Northants/Northampton; and the remaining four districts in the east of the county).

Thus, the report contests that structural reorganisation is a solution to a problem of financial mismanagement, and by extension financial problems and austerity, and conveniently ignores the substantial transitional costs of re-organisation. Austerity is well and truly the ally of council mergers but what happens if the next authority experiencing a budgetary crisis is an already large authority – would Manchester, for example, be merged with surrounding areas to solve its problems. Indeed, a forgotten whisper of the recent review of Birmingham was that it may be too big. What if a county unitary experienced financial crises? Would we rediscover the benefits of a tiered system, or simply merge counties or parts of counties making the local government map of England even less local.

Unitary local government – a local authority that is responsible for all local government functions within its area – is a solution looking for a problem. Unfortunately for proponents of unitary local government it didn’t quite find the right problem with Northamptonshire – had the section 114 notice been issued by a district council, the clamour to form a county-based unitary would have been deafening. But with Northamptonshire a stop gap was required which at the same time as dealing with a county council in a financially perilous state, kept the unitary and larger local government beacon alight. So, for the problems experienced by a county council, the district councils must go and be merged with the county into a two-unitary solution for Northamptonshire. A bizarre conclusion unless you are desperately trying to avoid the obvious lesson that larger local government isn’t always best and that tiers can, and do, work.

Size isn’t everything

Unitary authorities of 300-400,000 population may be the favoured option for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government but there is precious little evidence justifying this preference, or any real logic or rationale for such a figure. Indeed, starting with the question how big should local government be is entirely the wrong beginning. Rather we should be asking: what should local government do? How should it do it? How will it be financed and how much fiscal autonomy should it have? How much or how little financial control will there be? What will its political and governing role be? How much policy and political autonomy should it have? How can it best reflect real communities of place and affinity? This fixation with size continues despite 40 years of academic research indicating that increases in council size are no guarantee of improvements in local government performance, cost or efficiency. That 40 years of research does however, show more consistently that increases in council size have negative effects on the quality of local democracy.

Too often the structural base of English local government is an artificial construct rather than a real place. It is no wonder local government has to waste so much time talking about place-making when its geographical place makes little or no sense or is simply made up. When the map of English local government was drawn up in 1972, new councils with fictitious names were created. These can be divided into three main types: councils with points of the compass in their titles such as North Norfolk, East Sussex, South Ribble and West Lindsey, to name a few; councils with the word ‘and’ inserted in between two successor councils such as Kings Lynn and West Norfolk, Oadby and Wigston and Tonbridge and Malling; and councils with completely made up names, such as Three Rivers, Vale of White Horse and Kirklees. Such a cavalier attitude towards council names highlights an underlying slapdash approach to local government as a part of England’s political and governing system. Moreover, it indicates that the structure of local government is not only a plaything of the centre – or local political vested interests – but that its boundaries need not reflect localities or a sense of place and thus the term ‘local’ only means not national.

Arguments about financial/economic considerations and in particular economies of scale when structuring local government must be balanced by arguments about democratic considerations, which include community identity and levels of political representation, electoral turnout, community cohesion and trust in local elected and appointed officials. Yet, democratic criteria have consistently lost out in local government re-structuring to criteria which favour managerialism, cost and administrative convenience. There has been little attempt to reconcile political and governing roles with service delivery; the latter, as a factor shaping council size and boundaries, has always been at a premium.

Then there is the constitutional position of local government which as a creature of statue means that not only are the boundaries and size of local government set by the centre, but so too are its roles, functions, powers, responsibilities and tasks. In addition, the level of discretion and autonomy it has is also set by the centre. There is no constitutionally protected right for local government to exist and given the preference for larger and larger local government, it is conceivable that at some point soon the units (for that is what they are) of local government will be too large to deserve the term ‘local’ in their title. Localism of any kind must be based on the right of councils to demur to certain central policies and to be able to respond to local problems from a knowledge of the distinct needs of particular places. A highly centralised and centrally driven system of government as in England, means that much local problem solving potential is lost.

A problem of politics

Then we come to politics. Currently, some 90 per cent of all council seats in England are held by Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat councillors. Such a penetration of local politics by national political parties serves to further nationalise local government, drawing it away from specific local political concerns or dynamics and introducing national political battles (and loyalty and discipline) into local council chambers.

A local government system needs to reflect the distinct political flavour and requirements of the localities and an electoral system which delivers massive council majorities to national parties or produces local one-party states, also serves to protect the interests of national parties and therefore national politics and government over local politics and government. In council chambers across England there is a noticeable absence of independent political voices or voices from smaller local and regional parties. An electoral system is needed which ensures those voice can be heard.

So we have a number of problems facing local government, not just structural or financial but also others that stem from centralisation, lack of autonomy, public disengagement and insufficient space for the expression of local differences or for a focus on local priorities and preferences. Yet, the dominance of the agenda about local government by structural concerns and the continuing financial constraints are likely to mean that other vital issues go unaddressed. How local authorities are defined, their roles, powers and autonomy from the centre are too important to be decided by financial affairs alone, or by a sustained period of financial constraint.

What happens at the end of a period of austerity when we step back and look at the map of English local government to find it no longer suits any new circumstance – do we restructure again to meet changing fads? Local government deserves more than to be tinkered with as a result of changing economic circumstances. It deserves a fundamental rethink of its relationship with the centre and of its powers, autonomy and ability to govern locally. If we carry on down the road of creating bigger and bigger local government as an end in itself, we will end up with no local government at all.