It is encouraging that Andy Burnham seems as enthusiastic about devolution now that he is likely to take over power at the centre as he was when he was just a regional mayor. Such consistency is to be admired.
However, desirable as devolution is in our over-centralised state, it should not be confused with democracy. Devolution of powers from a central despot to a collection of local ones is an improvement, but will not necessarily be sensitive to the needs of the people allegedly represented, and very unlikely to engage them (us) in its administration.
In my life- time local government has moved further and further away from the grass roots. Until the late 1930s Birstall, the (formerly) industrial village where I live, was “governed” by its own Urban District Council. Although the proposal to merge us into the neighbouring Borough of Batley two miles down the road was defeated in a referendum by a massive 3500 votes to 25 (with 190 abstentions) the merger went ahead.
Then in the 1970s Batley’s Borough Council was itself abolished and we were submerged into Kirklees, administered from Huddersfield, seven miles away.
We still had a County Council based in Wakefield, which administered large scale services,( for which in education ,for example, it was internationally famous,*) but Mrs Thatcher abolished it in the1980s because it kept falling into Labour hands. ( The Greater London Council suffered the same fate at the same time for the same reasons.)
The de-democratising process continue.
The last series of Conservative governments imposed Directly Elected Mayors on Combined Authorities. Ours was certainly against the will of the councillors in most of the West Yorkshire authorities, without the actual public even being asked.
The present Labour government is abolishing District Councils and imposing massive Unitary Authorities. For example, the entire Surrey County is now to be administered by just two of these.
The concept of the US-style directly elected mayors, to which Andy Burnham owes his popularity, (or notoriety, if you prefer) is flawed for three reasons.
First it places the emphasis on the personality of one individual rather than on the policies of a group. An engaging, (or flamboyant) personality can be an important asset in politics but is not sufficient on its own, as Boris Johnson’s performance as both London Mayor and Prime Minister illustrates.
Secondly, with the exception of London, where the mayor is accountable to the elected London Assembly, the other mayors are accountable, if at all, only to delegates on Combined Authorities, not directly elected and largely unknown to the people they are meant to represent.
Thirdly the existing directly elected mayors have often been seen as, and could easily remain, agents of the central government, dishing out largesse from Westminster largely on Westminster’s instructions, in the manner of Santa Claus mayors.
For devolution to revolutionise both our democracy and economy we need leaders not only with powers and tax-raising ability, but democratic legitimacy through having been chosen by the people they represent at regional, county, town and parish level.
* Correction. A comment below points out that the Internationally famous education authority was its predecessor, the West Riding County council (WRCC) which was abolished in the 1970s reforms, The succeeding West Yorkshire County Council was not an education authority. Apologies.
West Yorkshire County Council did NOT adminster Education and the great West Riding Council's world beating education service was split up between the five districts and is now mainly in the hands of academies.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Mike: the dear old WRCC, which educated me and presumably you, was gone by the 1970s, another victim of the Heath reforms. My apologies. A friend took me to see sir Alec Clegg's grave a few years ago. I can remember his name, but can't recall many education secretaries' names (apart from Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, though that was way past my schooldays. Oh, and Kenneth Baker, who cut school holidays by a week and invented Bdays) )
DeleteI too was a beneficiary of the WRCC. I despair at seeing what's happened to secondary education in the area since its demise
DeletePeter
DeleteAs I’ve posted elsewhere I’m in Scotland these days (almost 40 years) and up here we have a somewhat different perspective as well as different structures.
Burnham’s “ideas” so far seem very England-centric and some would struggle to get traction here including directly elected mayors. I’m not sure how they would really add any value with the possible exception of Glasgow and Edinburgh
Up here we already have 32 directly elected unitary local authorities with devolved responsibility for education, social care, roads and transport, economic development, housing and planning, environmental protection, waste management, cultural and leisure services. The Scottish Govt sets overall priorities and budgets and then leaves the councils to deliver with an independent performance audit regime in place.
Given the PR election system in place most councils operate on a coalition basis. Each council appoints a provost to act as both a figurehead and champion for their area. As you’d expect much depends on the personality of the individual
There’s much more focus on partnership working up here than is the case in England. Integrated Joint Boards for example bring together health and local government to join up the provision of health and social care in an area.
Beneath each council we also have a layer of elected Community Councils and, in most cases, these have a sizeable budget thanks to the windfarms in their area. My own CC has constructed a walking/cycling path to the neighbouring village; funded a community bus; funded a community café; in the process of having social housing built for locals.
thank you for that detailed description. what you describe is very much what I'd like I' d like see in England. In theory it should increase community involvement and committent and a higher turnout in elections at all levels. Is there any evidence that it does?
DeletePeter, it's difficult to say. Turnout at Scottish parliament elections often gets skewed by what's happening in Westminster and the stance taken by Labour & Tory in Scotland. These 2 parties tend to campaign on a "stop the SNP" platform rather than on an actual policy manifesto. While the SNP have an actual policy manifesto they also campaign on a "vote for independence" platform which some voters realise isn't going to happen any time soon. All these factors can depress turnout.
DeleteAt a local election level turnout is often around 45-50% (which I think is higher than in England) perhaps because people realise how many local service the council is responsible for.
Involvement in the community councils is variable as you'd expect. Some are very pro-active (as is mine) and some are a talking shop only. The Scottish Govt is very proactive at supporting community councils (trough training, guidance etc). I live in the Dumfries & Galloway council area (population around 150,000) which has over 80 active community councils
Again, thanks for that. Agreed there are lots of distorting factors, and people often vote (or don't vote) for something other than the actual purpose of the election- more often than not to give a kick in the teeth to the party in power at Westminster, (or Edinburgh).. However, I've just looked up two random sites on Google. One shows an average turnout in Scottish local elections in 2022 as being 44.8%: another for the same year for local elections in England as 34%. This confirms the trend I expect and you suspected. A suitable topic for a PhD Thesis by some aspirant political anorak.
DeleteDevolution just means more politicians being more busybodies getting in more people's way.
ReplyDeleteWhat we need is not powers devolved to the winners of local popularity contests (which in effect will just mean whoever can get their weirdy politics-obsessed friends to turn out better), but rather for the state to just give up powers entirely and let people, individual people, do what they want without having to check in with any body of prodnoses, be they at regional, county, town or parish level; and rather than giving yet more levels the ability to raise yet more taxes on an already over-taxed working population, we need to reduce taxes so that people can put more of the money that they work heard to earn to the uses that they think best.
A smaller state in general, treading more lightly on people's lives (hm, where have we heard that before), not a more local one that pokes its nose into everyone's business on an even more detailed scale.