Why is local government in the UK so poor? Will it continue like this interminably?
There is so much wrong: poor services, lack of services, poor administration.
If the problem is that there is not the money required to run things properly, do the elected council simply carry on with this, year after year?
Is money the only problem? When I tried to renew my gardening waste collection - as requested by Lewisham - the payments system did not work. I phoned, and was told “there’s a problem”. Why was the system not tested before going ‘live’? I was told “no, we can’t take a card payment over the phone” - why not? and why no backup process in place? What about residents who want the service but who don’t want to use the internet to make payment?
Would more money solve this problem? This example is of course relatively trivial in the face of bigger problems: quality of care for the elderly, social services for vulnerable young homeless, ineffective planning enforcement, youth club funding cut, libraries closing etc etc
The below is just my opinion, and councillors like @MajaHilton, @ChrisBarnham and @CllrPaulUpex will be able to provide better information. But for what it’s worth, I think like all publicly-run operations they’ll suffer the constraints of:
stifling bureaucracy (I’ve seen the kind of documents they have to read through and it’s quite shocking)
no real competition and no profit incentive driving efficiency and results
underfunding from central govt because it’s easy for the govt to cut non-headline budgets when the coffers are empty
being staffed by well-meaning local people but working only part-time
having to recruit using diversity and other social engineering initiatives, so not getting the best staff
being nobbled by centrally-controlled procurement, so unable to use the best suppliers
in Lewisham - no oversight, as they’re 99% Labour, with one token Green (who is rarely able to attend meetings)
staffed with extra non-jobs because of ideological statism
Try arranging visitors parking in a cpz on their Web site. It’s broken and has been for a year. I have given trying to get it fixed. Unusual as this is a nice little earner for the council.
If the elected Councillors and Mayor can barely carry out their statutory responsibilities let alone their political programme, and the sole reason given is under-funding from Central Government …
what will it take for local authorities to resign en masse - telling the Government that if they want to run services without the necessary funding, they can do it themselves?
Yes a great deal is broken, which leads to cynicism, which leads to simplistic populist ‘solutions’ being offered by extremist politicians.
Is it tenable for Councils like Lewisham to carry on regardless, claiming their salaries and expenses, hoping that a friendly Westmisnter Government will one day arrive to save them with additional funding?
My local vote will always go to @JohnRussell who is a Lib Dem.
My reasons are because
He was the one that got our pool up and running again, without hiim this would not have happened!
He was the the one that instigated D Rd improvements, not anyone else in any other party pre 2010
I have faith in him & trust him because I know he will fight our SE23 corner for what locals want
As a good friend of mine I know how much he has our community at heart & Iwill always back him all the way
On that note I will back him all the way as I know he only has the community in his interest & as a very good friend of mine I’m all the way with him & back all his visions. For our community 100%.
You may think the problems you go on to list are inevitable with a publicly run operation, but unless you’re actually giving up on democracy all together, it’s not actually worth listing them.
In December 2001 I wrote something on the Sydenham Town Forum, which I’d like to think gives a more constructive answer, and I even got round to moving it to my own site, so you can read it here, without registering there
Regular, independent assessments of the quality of public services
Fiscal discipline
No effective planning controls on the construction of new houses and lettings
The main thing to understand about (1) is that it means taking power away from smaller units, in the case of London, the boroughs, where client groups build up, and because most people don’t identify with the smaller units, you don’t get the proper public scrutiny. This is why I am intensely suspicious of talk of localism, because so much comes from people who are already active locally, and without necessarily realising it, they are justifying their own ways of doing things, without admitting proper criticism of how they are doing
(3) should go without saying, but is also another reason for local government being done at a city wide level. Within a city there will be richer and poorer areas, and it’s unreasonable to think the poorest should not be supported, to some extent, by the richer areas, so local political organisation should not be fragmented within a big city.
On (4), I do actually think a city does better with some planning control, but the example of Bogotà shows that a complete lack of it isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a city. The problem we have in London is that planning restrictions have become a way small local groups can prevent the supply of housing expanding to meet the needs of future generations, so dividing cities into affluent central areas, and peripheries to which poorer people can be shoved off
Yes, unfortunately London is likely to become even more polarized by poverty and wealth . The fact that boroughs are now allowed to keep their business rates will benefit Westminster and other wealthy boroughs - even though people from across London spend money in the shops of Westminster e.g. in Oxford street.
Local government by individual boroughs now seems untenable, I would welcome abandoning the local authority structure and replacing it with a city-wide government authority but I don’t think any of the main parties have a policy supporting that idea.
Regarding 1, we risk a Mayor being elected on partisan grounds, or identity politics. In that case, they’re able to tear up the manifesto within days of taking office - because it wasn’t the manifesto that his/her voters cared about. IMO this is what’s happened with Khan.
Agreed on 2 and 3, but number 4 is pretty scary for a city like London that has so much beauty and history worthy of conservation.
Losing local governance means failing to protect the unique character of places like Primrose Hill, for example, which has very specific planning strategy (favouring independent businesses and protecting the lovely streets and style of its building facades).
I’m sure some of us care little about Primrose Hill, because we’re not personally able to live there (“them vs us” thinking). I will probably never be able to afford to buy a house there but I do care about it as an area, and I am glad that it is wealthy and retains its beauty and character.
If we went for a city-wide wealth-redistributing, population-cramming strategy, what kind of city would we end up with in a couple of decades? Lewisham town centres everywhere? Croydons built all over our precious green belt?
We’d have a city of miserable transient workers, with everyone praying for the day they can leave to a leafier life in the countryside.
There will always be wealth inequality in our city because some parts of London are beautiful and desirable, and therefore cost more to live in. Treat them as a aspirational target - not a cash cow to be plundered for socialist ends. Let’s make all areas of London as beautiful and aspirational as possible.
Let’s avoid making all of London equally mediocre.
“shoved off”
I’m not rich enough to afford to buy a house in the heart of Belsize Park (where I used to rent). But I wouldnt be so arrogant as to demand a subsidised house there, or to claim I’d been “shoved off” to Honor Oak. I take full personal responsibility for choosing an area in which I can afford to live. Why shouldn’t others? I will cherish Honor Oak and aspire to do everything I can to maintain it as a lovely place to live, just as Belsize Park was - by protecting and enhancing all the things that make it special.
The problem we have in London is that some people are willing to sacrifice precious remaining green space, functioning public services, transport infrastructure, school places and hospital beds in order to allow an absurd degree of population expansion in the City.
And why? For economic growth?
The future is the Automation Era. Relying on economic growth via population expansion is a dangerous folly in the year 2017 and beyond. Future problems will not be solved by throwing more bodies at them.
If we believe in statism, we should ensure the state stops its destructive focus on London, and starts making Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Birmingham more successful cities (rather than brain-draining their youth into London). There’s a whole country out there.
If people travel to Westminster to spend money, it’s because Westminster is doing something right. – seems entirely fair Westminster should benefit from this (especially as its council has all the admin work associated with the borough’s large retail sector).
Less desirable boroughs that don’t attract spenders from elsewhere in London should be forced to rethink their planning. Why are they less desirable? All councils should be forced to consider how they can improve their own areas to encourage more economic activity. It’s a very important incentive that feeds into beautification, innovation and the preservation of green space and character.
Boroughs lose the self-improvement incentive if, by being designated “poor boroughs,” then can then rely on socialist redistribution of wealth from better-run areas.
The current London Boroughs were not born at the same time with an equal stake. It isn’t a sporting event between equals on a level playing field.
There are long and complex histories regarding how different areas of London have developed their particular attributes. The fact that Oxford Street in the City of Westminster is now a renowned traditional shopping area did not happen overnight, it has developed over centuries, as has ‘theatreland’, and it is important to remember also that borough boundaries have changed through the years, and some boroughs have disappeared or been amalgamated.
It seems arbitrary (just one example) that business rates taken in Westminster should pay for social services in North Westminster (yes, there are poor areas of Westminster) but not in poor areas of South Camden which is physically closer to the opulence of the west End but the wrong side of the borough boundary.
Would you also argue that the poorer areas of Westminster should not benefit from the wealth elsewhere in Westminster? Should the commercial rates from Selfridges only be used for the benefit of Mayfair residents? Should Edgware Road should have to compete with Oxford Street as a shopping centre for London?
Good point. Let’s get our own Royal Family for Lewisham, build a string of 5-star hotels in Catford and offer business rates holidays for Harrod’s and Harvey Nicks to put in new department stores on Dartmouth Road. If that doesn’t bring the posh punters in, I don’t know what will. (DR traders needn’t worry about competition: Knightsbridge is thick with hugely successful boutiques that benefit from the Harvey Nicks footfall.)
I guess we need to agree on some optimum size for an administrative area. Too small, and we risk creating tiny pockets of extreme wealth around favourable assets. Too large, and we lose the good governance / reward incentives, and the local touch.
It would be fairest if the boundaries are long-lived, and if all areas started from the same beginnings, but this won’t be the case in practice.
So the question is - how large would we make the boundaries to produce the optimum results?
I think @TimLund is suggesting larger boundaries - maybe even a single boundary around the whole city.
I’d suggest smaller boundaries than we currently have (that is, have Honor Oak and Forest Hill as a single administrative area, for example)
My rationale behind smaller boundaries is that it should be easier to decentralise local government in the Internet era. We ought to be able to share common “blueprints” for governance and employ less support staff doing routine work.
Take planning as an example - information about sites, service infrastructure, existing housing and former planning applications should all be digitised and online. 3D models… Any applicable laws… It should all be available in an immediate, context-sensitive fashion. Decisions should be so cut-and-dried they could be made by AI, not by humans. This may be a few years off - but even in today’s world, we need fewer staff doing grunt-work than we did a decade ago. And certainly fewer support staff than we did when the boundaries were drawn up.
We currently elect 54 councillors, who cover the whole of Lewisham borough - a large area of 275K people (2011 census) covering differing demographics, architecture and priorities. I’ve met two of the councillors - Maja Hilton and Peter Bernards (of the three councillors that serve the Forest Hill ward). We’re very lucky to have councillors like @majahilton taking an active part in discussions here. Most councillors don’t.
Imagine we elected councillors at the ward level (i.e. Forest Hill), and councillors operated with total autonomy at this level - I think this would make local politics very engaging and accountable.
Would this work in practice? Interested to hear counter-arguments.
[we already do elect at the ward level… I should have consulted wikipedia before posting!]
@anon5422159 - I’m not saying there shouldn’t be smaller administrative areas, with some responsibilities, but those responsibilities cannot include matters where city wider coordination is needed - such as transport and development control. The problem with defining smaller areas is that, if they are to reflect actual communities, the areas probably need to change too often. Think about it, the Dalston of today is a rather different community than the one it was twenty years ago. If you define smaller areas, and bring in tiers of council officers and Councillors at those lower levels, the overall system gets more and more scelerotic. Rather better, I’d say, to encourage and empower - appropriately - community groups, which can be much more flexible, but also tend to come and go, so cannot be relied upon for big, long term issues.
I might add, perhaps cynically, that this approach is generally going to be opposed by existing local councillors, and also people in the community with whom they have developed links. From my own experience, I’d say that almost all these people are very genuine, wanting to do the best for where they live, but it is hard for them to see that they are part of a structural problem. It is much easier, however, for newcomers, who want to make a life for themselves in London, but don’t yet have those strong local links, to see the problem. They see local politics dominated by fine discussions of preserving what is there already, and nothing about the need to build the homes they need.
