Make It Local: Building strong local politics

The Government must ensure the most effective local public services by:

• rapidly progressing ambitious devolution to the whole country, informed by the expertise of local leaders and communities
• making better use of scarce national resources by enshrining a new, local first approach to public services
• supporting and promoting vibrant local democracy.

As the country continues to grapple with big and long-standing challenges such as climate change, shifts in the economy and labour market, and an ageing population, it is only by working effectively together with trusted local leaders that national government can truly deliver the change needed to secure the best opportunities for people and families.

Research undertaken by New Local in 2022 found that 75 per cent of people think that allowing communities to have more of a say in decisions that affect their area would be more effective than decisions taken centrally, and 73 per cent think national politicians should transfer more power to local areas. The LGA’s research over a number of years demonstrates more people trust local politicians than national ones – councillors should be at the forefront of leading the cross-cutting, long-term policies needed.

From densely populated cities to huge largely rural areas, market towns and ports and coastlines, England’s councils and the communities and businesses within them are hugely varied. Services may be delivered by one authority or four (from parish to combined authority). Local government is different to central government: councillors are elected by local electors to make a difference in their local area, and decisions and priorities will be shaped by this.

In the United Kingdom, the ability of local government to fulfil its leadership role is dependent on its relationship with national government:

• We are an outlier in the OECD in our heavy reliance on national funding and powers. This imbalance makes the effectiveness of this local-national relationship critically important to the effectiveness of public services.
• The power mismatch is emphasised by how, alongside falling government funding, councils have become locked into a system that relies heavily on competing against each other for additional government funding. The winners of these competitions – which can be for something as minor as chewing gum removal, pocket parks or accessible toilets – are chosen by civil servants and Ministers, nearly all of whom are based in Whitehall. Inequality is further embedded by those councils with fewest resources less able to dedicate time and money to bidding processes.
• Competitive funds, often with short timescales, are also not a strategic way to fund local services. Even a decade ago, research for Nesta found that “[t]he power of Treasury spending teams, combined with the short-term nature of Budgets and Autumn Statements encourages a tendency towards policy wheezes, where a long-term approach to policy-making would generally be more productive.”
• Local government’s hands are tied when it comes to raising alternative income, with few powers to vary fees and charges and an internationally poor level of freedom on tax-raising or -altering. Government should give serious consideration to a conversation about whether this arrangement is still appropriate.
• National government is also facing systemic challenges in delivering its priorities. The Institute for Government identified short termism, a lack of expert knowledge, poor implementation, working in silos and parochialism in Westminster as leading to costly policy weaknesses that do not deliver for citizens. Particularly in times of crisis, as seen in the COVID-19 pandemic, local government’s ability to understand local issues, convene partners and spring into action is critical to the success of public service delivery in England. In the months following the vote to leave the European Union, it was local leaders working with Ministers who held the key to identifying risks and gaps in emerging policy and acted as an early warning system for specific local issues such as those around ports. This close, strategic working should be the default, not the exception.
• Government must continue to match its actions to its levelling up ambitions and not give in to the temptation of centralism through new bodies such as the Office for Local Government or by overly burdensome monitoring and assessment of devolved responsibilities.
• Research undertaken by Shared Intelligence for the LGA into previous place-based working highlighted national government’s tendency to ‘bolt on, roll out, move on’ pilot projects in recent decades, meaning that important learning and innovation from new ways of national-local working aren’t mainstreamed. Investing in place-based approaches over the longer term on priorities agreed by government at all levels should both improve outcomes and free up Ministers and civil servants to address the most challenging and cross-cutting issues and opportunities for the country knowing that public services and local economies are in safe hands.

The LGA’s Levelling Up Locally Inquiry found that the current UK governance system can be thought of as a pyramid with citizens at the bottom and central government at the top and multiple degrees of separation between the two, resulting in people disincentivised from engaging with the top and the centre lacking the capacity to meaningfully engage with the breadth of experiences of across the country.

Local government, with its focus on place and deep connections with communities and businesses is well placed to support national government in better policy-making. As the democratically elected representatives of all members of their communities, councillors are the lifeblood of local government. The decisions they make contribute to people’s wellbeing and prosperity. It is in all our interests to support a strong and vibrant local democracy with councillors whose experiences and backgrounds mirror those they represent.

We are working together as a sector to clarify the improvement and assurance framework for local government to make it easier for people to hold their council to account.

However, increasing levels of abuse and intimidation in political and public discourse are negatively impacting politicians and democracy at local and national levels. A survey of serving councillors in 2022 found that seven in 10 respondents said they had experienced abuse or intimidation in the previous 12 months. A further call for evidence of abuse and intimidation conducted by the LGA between October 2021 and April 2022 found that of the councillors and candidates who reported experiencing abuse personally, almost all said they had experienced it on multiple occasions. For those deciding against, or undecided on standing again, a majority said abuse and intimidation had influenced their position. Misogyny, racism and homophobia were all mentioned by respondents, although misogyny and reference to women’s personal characteristics or making threats designed to specifically impact women were particularly common.

Unless steps are taken to safeguard those in civic life, we risk weakening the very heart of local government.

Communities will be stronger where people come together to make local decisions and councillors, mayors and candidates are supported and protected. Councils will be better able to deliver long-term, meaningful reforms if they are properly empowered and are able to operate within an equal and strategic relationship with national government.

To do this, government can seize the opportunity for change and:

• Give people back a meaningful local vote on a wide range of decisions through a new deal with local government building on the momentum of the devolved powers and place-based budgets of the devolution deal trailblazers. We must allow council areas to follow the trailblazers, based on the governance structures that suit the locality. That means further empowering councils as well as combined authorities and devolving powers and responsibilities to the most local level appropriate.
• Improve policy making by giving local and community leaders a formal role in ensuring people’s experiences are a key part of policy design.
• Reduce the fragmentation of government funding and associated costs by delivering the funding simplification plan promised in the Levelling Up White Paper and agreeing with local government a set of principles to reduce future standalone funds.

Government can embed this change for the long term and free up Whitehall resources by:

• Ensuring that policy development and laws are improved by the experience of those at the front line of delivery by giving local government a formal advisory role in the law and policy-making process. This could be achieved by implementing proposals to replicate the functions of the Committee of Regions within the UK, without recreating its institutional bureaucracy.
• Committing to a world-standard in local democracy, enshrining for the first time the principles of the Charter of Local Self-Governance in UK law and devolving powers where places are under-powered compared to the towns and cities of our post-Brexit competitors in Europe, Japan and the USA.
• Embedding progress for those facing the greatest inequalities by working with diverse and underrepresented groups to shape the levelling up metrics and missions and evaluate tangible progress over the longer term.
• Strengthening the ability of Whitehall to act as a strategic partner to places by creating transparent and targeted cross-departmental plans to accelerate joined up delivery across government.
• Agreeing that the sector improvement programme should be determined by the sector and funded through the top-slice mechanism in future using the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) as the specified body.

At its best, local government leaders are representative of the communities they serve, and those taking on this duty should be protected from abuse. To do this:

• Local and national government should build on existing campaigns to work with communities and partners to develop a talent pipeline of future leaders that better reflect the diversity of need facing people and place.
• The Government should work with local government to put in place and resource better protections for elected politicians at all levels and prioritise legislation to put it beyond doubt that councillors can withhold their home address from the public register of pecuniary interests.

“Trust, we know, is built when citizens become invested in their own society. And that investment comes from citizens feeling a sense of social and economic inclusion, feeling that they have something on the line, something to gain and something to lose, believing that they’re valued, that they’re seen, that they’re heard, and that they’re felt—simply put, as I keep saying, that, ultimately, they have a future.”

President of Barbados, kofiannanfoundation.org

“We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”

Jo Cox MP, maiden speech in the House of Commons

“Local councils are the forum where communities decide their collective future … If the broad national challenge is to restore vitality and trust to our democracy, local government is central to it.”

Sir Simon Milton, Central, nervous system: Can localism help Gordon relax?

Make It Local publication

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