Double-Devolution or Double-Dealing? The Local Government White Paper and the Lyons Review

Abstract

New Labour"s third White Paper promised the revitalization of local government after ten years of control freakery. It does not, however, live up to the promise of a "new localism" (Stoker and Wilson, 2004). The tenor of the paper is moralizing and prescriptive, claims to a new approach belied by the Government"s negative response to Lyons. Proposals for reform are ambiguous, offering no guarantees against back-door centralisation. Such cause as there may be for optimism largely depends on the capacity of localities to take the initiative. A fundamental debate about the role of local government, local democracy and the relationship between centre and locality is therefore still needed. Given the preponderance of path dependencies, strategic dilemmas and structural constraints upon the centre, the demand for local democracy will have to be initiated, voiced and organised by local citizens and councillors themselves.

National policy piloting as steering at a distance: The perspective of local implementers

“…Since 2010, local authorities have been at the receiving end of central government's financial austerity programme, which saw their budgets reduced by 37% between 2010 and 2015, with severe impacts on their ability to provide local services including adult social (long term) care (Humphries, Thorlby, Holder, Hall, & Charles, 2016). The relationship between central government and local government was complicated even before the budget cuts, with the center increasing and reducing the power of local authorities at intervals since at least the 19th century (Davies, 2008; Pratchett, 2004; Saunders, 1982). Since the Thatcher Government came to power in 1979, the center has increasingly restricted the power of local government, particularly in metropolitan areas.…”

Blue and Purple Labour Challenges to the Welfare State: How should ‘Statist’ Social Democrats respond?

“…Certainly, diverse localist arrangements were allowed to develop under New Labour such as the greater involvement of `third' sector organisations in service delivery, the establishment of membership based NHS Foundation Trusts and co-operative trust schools (see Jowell, 2011). However, critics argued that such initiatives amounted to little more than what Evans et al (2013) have termed a managerial (strong central involvement) rather than representative (power devolved to local government) or community (power transferred to citizens within local communities) form of localism (see also, Davies, 2008). By the time of the inconclusive General Election of 2010 New Labour was still being portrayed by its main political opponents as an overly statist, profligate `tax and spend' government.…”

The Multi-Level Governance of Wales: Layer Cake or Marble Cake?

“…The zero‐sum relationships of the layer cake are also implicit in the work of those who diagnose the increasing centralisation within the different regions of the United Kingdom. Writing about England, Davies, describes an ‘intensification of managerialism at the expense of local Democracy’ (Davies , 4); Copus sees prescription from the centre leaving little room for local democracy, ‘resulting in councillors often being little more than elected‐managers, rather than local politicians able to articulate and act upon the wishes of the citizenry’ (Copus , 5). While in the newly devolved regions, commentators warn of a tendency towards ‘regional centralism’ in which the newly established regional governments might grab ‘powers from the local governments’ in their jurisdiction (Laffin , 214), in a manner similar to the ‘mini‐Jacobinism’ observed by Loughlin in Flanders and Catalonia (, 399).…”