The FT has noted that:
At least 12 English councils have been in rescue talks with the government, in what could be the “tip of the iceberg”, according to experts, as the Covid-19 pandemic lays waste to local authority finances.
They added:
Rob Whiteman, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, on Monday said 12 authorities are in talks with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government “in or around a section 114 position”.
This is profoundly worrying. First, democracy without a local dimension is not democracy at all. There has to be local accountability for what happens in our communities and these measures will, in effect, remove that.
Second, Section 114 provisions crush the supply of services, reducing them to the most basic level. Since many of these services are critical care and support services this means real people suffer very badly as a consequence. This regime penalises the most vulnerable people through no fault of their own.
Third, whilst I know some authorities have been reckless with property speculation the proper sanction in that case is in their elected members (although the absence of any sanction on reckless ministers makes that hard to justify) and not on local populations.
Fourth, this was entirely predictable and is largely the legacy of Cameron and Osborne who outsourced their austerity measures to local authorities by massively reducing their funding with total indifference to the consequences. The current crisis is their responsibility.
What to do?
First, the revival of local democracy is key. Introducing proportional representation is central to this. It is ludicrous that some councils are always completely controlled by single parties when that in no way reflects the range of opinion in their area.
Second, more money needs to be given to improving the quality of local decision making.
Third, the services local authorities supply must be given better support. Having had so many removed from them, what are left are vital for vulnerable people.
Fourth, the mentality that suggests that councils are mere contracting agencies for outsourcable services must end: this is contemptuous of local democracy, local people and local accountability.
Fifth, this requires a proper funding settlement.
The responsibility for these failings lies at the doors of a rotten government, a rotten philosophy, rotten economics and rotten indifference to people. It is time for something better.
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I,ve seen this coming for some years, i thought it was gov,s just trying to load more on the ratepayers and councils would follow through with hikes in council taxes,that not to say it won,t mro.
Your summary of the state of local government due to the policies of Cameron and Osborne is entirely correct. The only recourse that the general population have is to vote for whatever progressive candidate or party that is not a Conservative in the coming May 6 elections.
Sadly, Bill, they won’t. The English electorate ( I was going to say British, but then thought better of it), I’ve come to think, must actually despise democracy. I’m fairly certain that they’d vote it away if it were to ever come up in a referendum.
In the world dominated by the ideology of “greed-is-good”, any person or organisation arguing for, or acting in ways that are not obviously self-serving is viewed as suspect. This, to me, explains why progressive parties have increasingly struggled and continue to struggle to attract voters, particularly since the 80s when this ideology conquered politics and the media, even in the face of the disaster that rule-by-toffs generally exemplifies.
Even lying and cheating and spaffing public funds away to chums is understandable according to the greed-is-good model of the world, and so a surprising number of people will be prepared to excuse and forgive such behaviour.
At an almost subconscious level, people have been conditioned by media and the dominant ideology to respond suspiciously to expressions of altruism. It’s not something most people will recognise in themselves. Like most basic emotional responses, it’s not a thought through consideration, but rather a sort of Pavlovan reaction. To too many people, altruism triggers a disgust response.
Most of the media, and advertising, that people are saturated with daily, works on an emotional, rather than rational level, to elicit a reaction or an association. On top of this, most people now also consume news as just another form of entertainment media, and it is increasingly packaged in the same way as advertising, so who could blame them. The power of the media to trigger specific emotional responses is in my opinion the reasons why it’s now so normal to see people voting against their own interests – such as the so-called Red Wall voters, after 10 years of brutal cuts to services and jobs, actually voting for more of the same.
Combine this lack of rational literacy with a distrust of altruism and you end us in a place where it doesn’t matter how many good arguments progressive parties or candidates provide or how well they demonstrate how we thrive better by looking after each other, it won’t convince enough people to make any change possible.
I don’t think the voters you talk about despise democracy I think they don’t understand it. Take Keir Starmer, for example, who studied law and became a barrister, he doesn’t understand the democratic origins of money believing like the Tories the UK government operates on a credit card. The role of democracy and its effects on daily life simply isn’t taught in schools as a core subject. This is weird given many British people will tell you the country is the initiator of parliamentary democracy yet allow the establishment to keep the subject in a closet!
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3557233
This dates back to at least the early nineties. The Conservative governments realised they could avoid income tax increases by reducing their grants to local councils – who then took the blame for either increases in Council Tax or reduction in provision.
It is difficult to see why anyone would want to be put themselves forward as councillors these days, there is absolutely no flexibility in budgets for local initiatives. (OK, some do it as a stepping stone to national politics, but with no expectation of making a difference locally).
It will stay the same unless local government is no longer dependent on government grants for the vast majority of their funding. There might be a solution via local income taxes – happens in some other places – but I can’t see any movement towards that.
I’d add a sixth. Lack of funding leads local gov to undertake extreme measures to raise funds.
The saga of the new coal mine in Cumbria is a good example. If the L.A were properly funded would it have bothered to allow the mine (and the rates that come from it) to be developed? Maybe it would – politicos are often greedy. But I’d suggest that there would have been far less fiscal pressure on the L.A. had not the toryscum over 10 years fiscally emasculated L.As (toryscum or otherwise). Toryscum are not interested in democracy local or otherwise.
Public sector underfunding is basically asset stripping – end of.
Re the revival of local democracy and the introduction of PR, I’m all in favour of this, however, local Government elections have suffered for as long as I can remember from low turnout, often 20-30%. In itself this gives representative democracy a bad name. I think there are many reasons why people don’t vote, in part the feeling that it doesn’t change anything. Our current FPTP gravy train politicians, especially the Tories don’t really care about this. Our system and FPTP does not encourage alternatives, both in terms of political choice and ideas.
Alongside PR I do believe that we should have compulsory voting at all elections. I know some don’t like the compulsory bit, but I think every ballot paper should have a “None of the Above” option on it. In itself I think that would be a very powerful democratic message to all the politicians as it would give those who want to make a protest the opportunity to do so. It would say to all politicians, if you want my vote you have to earn it.
I would be happy to have compulsory voting
How’s this for ‘rotten’.
I’ve just heard a minister lie unchallenged on Radio 4 concerning high rise cladding.
I kid you not, he just said that the Government was committed to sorting this issue out because ‘Council’s has allowed these buildings to be put up like this’.
That is an outright lie.
It was the Tory Government that altered the Building Regulations that Council Building Control Officers and Planners up and down the country use to make sure buildings are safe. The Tories did this in the spate of deregulations they brought in in 2010.
The BBC does not need Paul Dacre.
It is already propping up this Government as it is by enabling them to lie to the public like this.
It’s absolutely disgraceful.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/the-paper-trail-the-failure-of-building-regulations-55445
I completely believe you as this is bang in your area
Lying is their normal modus operandi
Actually this all started with guess who? Yeah – Thatcher. Well before 2010. Cameron and Co seem to have made it even worse!!
Spot on, Pilgrim. All the problems being experienced by tenants/leaseholders and the massive costs they’re being saddled with arise out of building regulations which aren’t fit for purpose, as well as the lack of an effective regulatory function to prevent cowboy practices. The UK Gov’s latest proposals to deal with the issues arising are farcical and demonstrate a lack of concern for people whose lives are put at risk by the same government’s lax regulations. Why should tenants/leaseholders of a block whose height is less than 18 metres (that’s 59 and a bit feet, so potentially 5 to 6 storeys) not receive any compensation, but those in buildings over 18 metres will? The same defects in building regulations endanger lives regardless of building height.
When viewed from Scotland it is incomprehensible. A tower block fire in Irvine in 1999 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40406057) brought about changes to rules on cladding and prevented the creation of “flues” between the cladding and the building’s exterior walls. Had these regulations been adopted across the whole of the UK, the Grenfell Tower fire could have been contained and the huge number of other at-risk buildings could have had remedial works instead of their tenants living in constant fear. Similarly the concept of leasehold, which has disadvantaged so many post-Grenfell, is alien to Scots and is widely seen as a barbaric perpetuation of feudal overlordship.
Hmmm…nothing to see, move-on..
“UK.gov awards seats on £2bn ‘digital outcomes’ framework to suppliers — one of which doesn’t even have a website”
https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/11/uk_digital_outcomes/