Policy taken off the shelf

The big question about Gordon Brown’s end of term report Building Britain’s future produced this week is – who is it for?

The answer is that it is firstly for the benefit of ministers and mandarins, who have forgotten precisely what they are supposed to be doing, so buffeted have they been by recent events.

Second, it is for the benefit of Labour MPs, wondering if the Government has a clue in which direction it is heading, and third, for the Labour Party, being a manifesto for the next general election.

Fourth, it is aimed at the Conservatives, attempting to paint them into the corner as the nasty party should they then oppose the motherhood and apple pie elements of the report.

Fifth, it might come in useful for historians writing an account of the Brown Government and in need of a sense that ministers were actually trying to initiate rather than put out raging fires. Then sixth – and way behind – comes the public.

The 127-page report on public services is mostly a rehash of old policy statements and initiatives, topped and tailed with references to current events. Even Hazel Blears’ favourite phrase ‘devolution to your doorstep’ has been kept in.

And the Budget reference to 0.7% ‘real terms growth’ in public spending after 2011 remains, despite scepticism about the deteriorating state of finances.
Local government certainly gets a look-in, but with little suggestion there has been any further thinking. Most of it reiterates what is already happening, such as more city-regions, more MAAs, more directly-elected mayors, and the duty to involve. The Total Place initiative, currently the one big idea in central and local government, gets a mere paragraph, as if the civil servants drafting the report had never quite grasped its implications.

Despite hopes that the MPs’ expenses scandal might create an opportunity for local government, there is little evidence, among the platitudes, of any major shift to more localism. A reference to the use of wellbeing ignores the LAML case.

Apart from the housing announcements – funding of which remains a question – there is little new for local government. But then, since this report is mainly an off-the-shelf package, this should come as no surprise.

Michael Burton, Editor, The MJ