Last week's report by the 20:20 Public Services Trust outlined radical proposals to devolve powers, which are finding favour with all three political parties, reports Mark Conrad
There has long-existed a consensus that we need to take power away from Britain’s ‘centre’ and hand it back to localities and their residents.
The difficulty has been piling through reams of literature on ‘localism’ to identify what is useful or workable and, more problematically, making it happen.
But, as blueprints for devolution go, The MJ’s readers could do worse than cast an eye over Delivering a localist future, a report published by the 20:20 Public Services Trust last week, which is as good a ‘route map’ to localism as the sector has seen for some time.
What makes the document so powerful is its heavy focus on the context within which the localist debate should now be framed.
While reflecting local government’s impatience for devolution, and public dissatisfaction with national politics, it also incorporates Whitehall’s favoured programme to improve services, while slashing costs – Total Place.
In doing this, the trust places devolution firmly in the context of the biggest issue facing whichever party wins May’s general election – public debt.
As Ben Lucas, the trust’s director, writes in his commentary to the report: ‘Rarely can there have been a more appropriate moment to shift power to local citizens. We face a very large deficit which we know is going to lead to cuts in public service expenditure.’
The starting point for the trust’s report, therefore, is the assumption that even if localities are to assume greater powers over public services, they will face the unenviable task of having to deliver those services cheaper and – given rising public expectations over services – better.
At its heart, Delivering a localist future proposes a three-stage shift towards genuine localism. The first step is bold and practical – the immediate devolution of powers over key services to cities and counties which already have proven ‘capacity, capability and confidence’ to assume such responsibilities – such as Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Essex and Kent.While this would create a two-speed localism, the trust argues there is no perfect moment beyond which all areas are ready for new powers. ‘The best shouldn’t have to wait for the rest,’ the report warns.
The second stage makes significant use of Total Place. The trust claims the basis of any negotiated autonomy will be ‘single place budgets in which a place will agree a single budget with the Treasury, which amounts to a fixed percentage less than is currently being spent on services in this area’.
This will allow councils and key partners to develop integrated local approaches to unemployment, youth offending and preventative healthcare with the devolution of the Department for Work and Pensions, Ministry of Justice and Department of Health funding for these services.
The idea is that these plans will be negotiated directly with the Treasury. Agreement that any efficiency savings from these streamlined services could be reinvested locally could also provide incentives for localities to meet high standards at low costs.
The final strand of this devolution model would be a shift to a far smaller ‘centre’ of government. An ‘enabling’, or commissioning, centre would be needed, and little else, because localities would effectively control service delivery, management and spending.
Moreover, the 20:20 Public Services Trust argues that with localities in control of major service budgets and functions, there would be little need for regional tiers of government, such as RDAs.
What’s left, therefore, would be a radical new system of public service delivery, over which localities – councils, NHS trusts, schools, police forces, etc – have effective control.
It says much for the work the trust has undertaken that it is finding favour with all three major political parties. Labour CLG ministers privately approve of many of the findings, while Stephen Dorrell, a Conservative former health secretary advised the trust.
But, like all ‘route maps’ to localism to date, the trust study has its contentious proposals. At the launch of the document, the gathered great and good of central and local government questioned the organisation’s fixation with directly-elected mayors to deliver the required local accountability for newly-devolved powers.
London’s unique political system aside, directly-elected mayors have been largely discredited, or ineffective, across England. Just ask the residents of Doncaster or Stoke.
Interestingly, senior figures from Manchester City Council, an area which has dismissed the idea of a London-style mayor, advised the trust on its report. Acknowledging these concerns, Mr Lucas offers a series of alternatives.
Mayors are not a panacea, he writes, adding ‘there are a whole range of [accountability] options – mayors, governors, sheriffs, commissioners – and there may be others still. That’s for localities to decide.
‘But the principle should be that negotiated autonomy must be based on highly-visible local accountability’.
Which just leaves us to ponder the toughest obstacle to this system – Whitehall’s embedded opposition to ‘letting go’ of its power and ability to pull the nation’s purse strings.
As ever, the ultimate challenge to localism is Britain’s culture of centralism. As Tony Travers, a director at the London School of Economics, warned at the report launch: ‘Whoever the CLG secretary of state is, they will never win a discussion [over cash pots and control of services] in Cabinet with the health secretary.’
And that’s the crunch. For full-blown localism to thrive, we need a consensus within Whitehall, and elsewhere, that the best way forward is to hand key powers to local government and its partners. Will turkeys ever vote for Christmas?
