Time to seize the moment

Councillors meeting next week at the annual LGA conference in Harrogate will have some reason to feel that, notwithstanding the bitter winds of recession and the black hole in public finances, the wind is morally in their favour. The problem is, how do they capitalise on it?

There has been much talk about how the Parliamentary expenses row has so alienated the public from their national representatives that local government needs to fill the democratic deficit. All very well, but in practice, how?

And the recent proactive role of councils in helping to alleviate the effect of the recession on their places has made it clear to national politicians that councils are part of the solution so long as they have real powers to be innovative. Then, along came the recent High Court case over LAML rejecting wellbeing
powers, and councils face tumbling back down the ladder again, reduced to being reactive instruments of Whitehall.

Politically, too, the wind is in local government’s favour. After all the Government – and the national parties – desperately need councils, both for moral support and to help them tackle the recession. On the one hand the new CLG secretary of state, John Denham, a former councillor, is making sympathetic noises about giving councils more responsibility.

On the other, the Conservatives, at national level, are striving to prove that they, too, are devolutionists, anti-regulation and pro-localism. Both politicians – and, of course, the Lib Dems – will next week, at the LGA conference, press the right buttons about giving local government a greater role.

Words are fine, but action is better. There may never be as good a time as now for local government to press home its case for more real, devolved powers, a clear steer on using wellbeing powers without being fouled up in the courts and a power of general competence – for starters.

We could even put it in writing. It’s time to take out of the cupboard the almost forgotten 2007 Concordat between Hazel Blears and Sir Simon Milton, and get Mr Denham and Margaret Eaton to update and sign it. And this time give it some real teeth.

Michael Burton, Editor, The MJ