Devolution

Europe’s Largest Local Authority – It’s NUTS!

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Chris Game

It’s little consolation to the ‘powers that were’ in Birmingham Council House, but the past several months’ headlines about “Europe’s Largest Local Authority” going bankrupt have done wonders for my personal online social networking. From the BBC and Financial Times to the World Socialist International Trotskyists, that headline has made us Brummies suddenly globally famous as citizens of ELLA.

I’ve been emailed by erstwhile colleagues and ex-students I’ve not seen or heard from for years, now back home in Australia and South Africa, Japan and Kazakhstan, wanting to know whether Birmingham really is Europe’s Largest Local Authority – like it boasts on its Website Awards page – and, if so, why didn’t I make more of it while they were students here.

Yes, they’re curious about the bankruptcy bit, which I also have to try to explain, but it’s the ELLA boast that really fascinates them – because they recall their travels around Britain and Europe, and clearly blame me for their not having been able to boast about temporarily residing in the continent’s LLA.  The clever-dick ones even add, “What about Kent?” Or “Didn’t you say it was East Lindsey in Lincolnshire?”.

And they’re not wrong, of course. Take the real ‘biggies’.  In population, Kent is nowadays just one of the ‘Big 3’ of the 36 non-metropolitan or shire counties – its 1,858,000 fractionally behind Essex and Hampshire, and all roughly half as large again as Birmingham City Council’s 1.15 million. However, those counties’ local governments are, of course, two-tiered – counties and districts, each responsible for different functions and services. And – spoiler alert – it’s single-tier or unitary authorities, responsible for providing all principal local government services in an area, that count here. 

County councils provide services covering the whole county – education, adult social care, waste disposal, etc.  More local services, like refuse collection, environmental health, and leisure facilities, are provided – as I’d certainly have pointed out – by, in Kent’s case, 12 smaller district councils.

Sounds straightforward, doesn’t it?  In fact, it’s anything but, and, if you were a class of students, I’d have had to at least mention the bizarre distinctions between ceremonial and historic counties, Lord-lieutenants (Lords-Lieutenant?) and High Sheriffs. Suffice it here to stress that it’s the two-tier structure and the ‘county’ bit that bar these bodies from challenging Birmingham’s status as ‘Largest’.

We do, of course, have a West Midlands Combined Authority, headed currently by Mayor Andy Street, but that’s entirely different and its 18 local authorities cover a far larger regional area than the old West Midlands County Council that Margaret Thatcher abolished in 1986. It’s an increasingly important, and influential, regional and national voice, but definitely not a local authority.

And East Lindsey? I honestly can’t remember ever mentioning this.  If I did, I’d guess it was to encourage some overseas students to visit Skegness, as somewhere ‘different’ but inherently English and off the proverbial tourist track. It’s a pleasant seaside resort with a rather splendid clock tower – which tells the time, unlike, for apparently a further several weeks, the UoB’s Old Joe – that probably happened then to be the largest town in England’s geographically largest local government district – East Lindsey – and five or six times the area of Birmingham.

We’ve fully established, then, that Birmingham’s ‘Europe’s Largest Local Authority’ claim has nothing to do with either population or geographical size, but everything to do with the UK’s uniquely large-scale, or ‘non-local’, local government structure and the gradual disappearance of devolution to more local units of government.

Put another way, it’s a question of NUTS. Yes, there’s plenty about our local government system that doesn’t make much sense – not least its sheer non-localness – but here we’re actually talking about the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, which both sounds better in the original French and produces an easily memorable acronym.  

It’s statistical shorthand for the EU’s hierarchical way of standardising the different ways in which the hugely varying EU states administratively structure their sub-central governments – regardless, if necessary, of the institutional reality. A statistical harmonisation exercise, therefore, rather than an aid to serious cross-national local government comparison.

The NUTS classification subdivides every member country into three principal levels, NUTS 1 to 3, to which large countries can add further levels by subdividing NUTS 3 into LAU (Local Administrative Units). Very roughly, then, the currently 92 NUTS 1s are major socio-economic regions or groups of regions of relatively larger states – Germany’s 16 Länder, France’s 14 Régions, Poland’s 7 Makroregiony. And the UK, were we still EU members, would have 12: West Midlands and the eight other English regions, plus Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The 240 NUTS 2s are basic regions or regional groupings for the application of regional policies – Austrian Bundesländer, Belgian, Dutch and France’s former Provinces – and in the UK 40 conveniently grouped counties, London ‘districts’, and in the West Midlands its seven boroughs.

The 1,164 NUTS 3s tend to be sub-divisions of regions, provinces, counties, or groupings of municipalities for specific purposes, rather than individual local authorities. But such is the UK’s exceptional non-local scale that it takes nearly one-sixth of that total (174), with many councils qualifying for their own, including all seven West Midlands boroughs.

Even forgetting the UK’s large slice, that 1,164 doesn’t sound that many for a whole continent, does it?  Hence those Local Administrative Units – over 92,000 of them which constitute the overwhelmingly biggest columns in the main NUTS table. In our case LAU 4s would be the upper tiers of our traditionally two-tier system of county and district councils, and LAU 5s the lower tiers – or, rather, would have been, the two levels having since been merged.

I hate that LAU term. It’s misleading bureaucratese: a seriously disparaging label for what most European countries’ residents would first think of when asked to identify their elected local governments. To pick some examples: France’s LAU 4s were/are its nearly 35,000 Communes, Germany’s its 10,775 Gemeinden, Italy and Spain their 8,000 Comuni and Municipios – with, obviously, what we would consider mostly modest-sized populations to match.

At which point I admit my age and recall Mr Spock’s immortal response to Star Trek’s Captain Kirk: “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it”. And yes, I know it was from a later song, rather than the TV series, but it fits. Because for a Brit those sizeable NUTS/LAU numbers could easily be described as representing “Real Local Government, Jim, but not as we know it.”

Chris Game is an INLOGOV Associate, and Visiting Professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan.  He is joint-author (with Professor David Wilson) of the successive editions of Local Government in the United Kingdom, and a regular columnist for The Birmingham Post.

Photo credit: Mac McCreery https://www.flickr.com/photos/simac/

Zilch for timing, but this Resolution Foundation report is important

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Chris Game and Jason Lowther

If you wanted some serious reader attention for something West Midlands local governmenty, you really, really wouldn’t have chosen this past November. The war in Gaza was seriously hotting up, there were the COP 28 talks in Dubai, Christmas was coming, and Aston Villa were en route to becoming the Premier League’s “foremost home team”, whatever precisely that means.

Serious distractions, but competition for headlines was only part of the challenge facing the Resolution Foundation’s early November release of its In Place of Centralisation report setting out a proposed and far-reaching Devolution Deal for London, Greater Manchester, and the West Midlands. There were other diversions and potential confusions too.

It was barely a month since Birmingham City Council – the principal West Midlands local authority involved in this proposed ‘Devo Deal’ – had issued not one but two Section 114 notices, reportedly declaring itself doubly “bankrupt”, unable to meet the Council’s financial liabilities relating to Equal Pay claims and an in-year financial gap within its budget, and handing over its governance to Communities Secretary Michael Gove’s appointed Commissioners.

And, if that wasn’t potentially complicating enough – for those directly affected as well as onlookers – in that same previous month representatives of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) had ratified the “Deeper Devolution” aka “Trailblazer” deal announced in the Chancellor’s March Budget.

That deal, comparable to that agreed by Greater Manchester back in March, but relatively little of which we’d heard in the meantime, would devolve more powers to ‘Metro-Mayor’ Andy Street (or, given the May Mayoral elections, potentially his successor), the 30 WM local authorities (7 met boroughs, 4 unitaries, 19 districts) and their 6 million population, and simplify funding arrangements, with £1.5 billion to spend on long-term infrastructure projects and services such as transport, skills, housing and regeneration.  A key element is a single block grant negotiated with the Government, like a central government department, as part of next year’s Spending Review.

Key ‘highlights’ include:

  • A ‘landmark’ housing deal worth up to £500 million, offering greater flexibility to drive brownfield regeneration and funding to deliver “affordable housing at pace”;
  • Greater control over local finance, including retention of an estimated annual £45 million of business rates for the next decade [hold on to that version of ‘local financial control’!];
  • Up to six ‘levelling up zones”, backed by £25-year business rate retention, with an estimate total value of at least £500 million, to target investment and encourage regeneration in areas agreed with the Government;
  • Measures to tackle digital exclusion, including greater influence over high-speed broadband investment across the region and a £4 million fund to get more people online.

In anywhere other than one of the most centralised governmental systems in the developed world, describing this package as ‘trailblazing’ would be wildly OTT. Here, though, it was rightly welcomed as constituting serious devolutionary progress, and Mayor Street, not surprisingly, was enthusiastic, seeing it as “marking the beginning of the end of … the ‘begging bowl culture’ where we must regularly submit bids for various pots of money on a piecemeal basis.”

Here’s the thing, though – well, two things, actually. First, the really rather big thing. The leading West Midlands council in this new ‘Trailblazer’ era is currently, following the issuing of those Section 114 notices, (a) in severe financial straits, and (b) being run until quite possibly 2028 not by elected councillors, but by Lead Commissioner Max Caller, his associate commissioners and political advisors – none of whom have ‘Trailblazing’ as a core part of their brief.

The second and, in Birmingham’s current circumstances, almost other-worldly thing, is the Resolution Foundation’s In Place of Centralisation report which is, incidentally, not the first RF report to be covered in these pages. It’s other-worldly too in the sense that it’s just one, albeit important, product of a bigger, wider-ranging academic project: The Economy 2030 Inquiry – a Nuffield Foundation-funded collaboration between the Resolution Foundation, an independent think-tank, and the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance.

UK economic growth is their primary project – not boosting local democracy – one persistent obstacle to the attainment of which they identify as “the decades of underperformance of the big cities of Manchester, Birmingham, and more recently London” – the key cause being, they reckon, the centralisation of the British state. No startling news to INLOGOV blog readers, but a contrasting starting point to, say, that of the authors of Trailblazer deals, and their prescriptions go a good deal further.

They start (p.4), unsurprisingly, from a different array of statistics, demonstrating the extreme centralisation of the British state.

Only 5 per cent of the UK’s tax revenues in 2019 were collected by local    government, compared to 14 per cent in France, 23 per cent in Japan, and 35 per cent in Sweden. Accordingly, local government relies on grant funding, with only 19 per cent of all local spending in the UK funded locally, compared to 37 per cent in the average OECD unitary state.

They concede that “recent advances in devolution have begun to unwind this”, but, following a decade of austerity, significantly further fiscal devolution is required to improve growth without increasing inequality – in the form of a ‘triple deal’ negotiated between the Government and the Mayors of Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, and London as a trio, going “beyond the recent ‘trailblazer’ deals” and into which other mayors would be able to opt in the future.

The core of the triple deal would be fiscal devolution, “which would help to end the centrally-imposed local government funding crisis for the three cities by widening the local tax base, and resourcing improvements in the local economy.” Everyone would be a winner – the mayors, borough and Exchequer all benefiting from a new revenue-neutral fiscal settlement, including (pp.4-5):

  • A local share of income tax receipts, with Greater Manchester and West Midlands keeping a larger share than London;
  • Complete retention of business rates, and control over the ‘multiplier’;
  • A single grant to the mayors distributed on a per person basis;
  • The ability for mayors to reform council tax.

It would then be up to the mayors, in negotiation with the boroughs, to distribute this revenue across local government’s various responsibilities across their city. And in the medium-term?

Well, big IF … but the higher growth in the three cities that would be “likely”, if this fiscal devolution were accompanied by other policy changes, would then translate into higher local tax revenues for the mayors – with, by 2038, Greater Manchester raising between £49 million and £230 million, and the West Midlands between £40 million and £187 million beyond their current level of funding.

That was from p.5 of what is a 64-page report, so there’s a very great deal more explanation and explication. But the key, and hopefully obvious, point of this blog is to enable you, if it crops up in conversation, to disabuse anyone of the notion that the Resolution Foundation’s contribution to this debate is just ‘Trailblazer deals’ writ large.

Our view is that the current local government finance system is bust. Business rates penalise high street shops, the council tax is regressive with hopelessly outdated valuations, and councils spend too much energy chasing central government largesse through competitive funding pots.  Democratically elected councils rely on a begging bowl and lack basic revenue raising powers that are commonplace internationally.  We will be saying more on this as the General Election approaches…

Chris Game is an INLOGOV Associate, and Visiting Professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan.  He is joint-author (with Professor David Wilson) of the successive editions of Local Government in the United Kingdom, and a regular columnist for The Birmingham Post.

Jason Lowther is Director of the Institute for Local Government Studies (INLOGOV) and Head of the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Birmingham.

A Japanese view of Jeremy’s budget

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Chris Game

I had an interesting Budget week. I was part-hosting a Japanese academic colleague – Prof Toshihiko Ishihara (Kwansei Gakuin University) and his wife, Midori – making their first overseas trip since Covid. They briefly visited Birmingham, where Toshi was an erstwhile INLOGOV Associate, but were based in London, where I’d agreed to organise a theatre visit.

I’d booked tickets for a well-reviewed modern-day play, Romeo and Julie, loosely based on one of Shakespeare’s. Single-sentence synopsis: Julie – a bright, Cambridge University-bound, aspiring astrophysicist – is emotionally torn between uni and her affection for young single dad, Romeo, effectively sole carer for his baby daughter afflicted with Poonami.  

No, the Poonami doesn’t feature in Shakespeare’s version, but, researcher that I am, I’d discovered it’s a real medical thing, meaning affected babies’ sudden, massive, uncontrollable bowel movements. Better still, that etymologically Poonami derives directly from the Japanese tsunami – a sudden, volcanic, unstoppable wave. My guests were delighted – and the play too was excellent.   

The following Wednesday, however, was Budget Day – followed by the Birmingham Post’s impassioned coverage of our region’s “Power grab”, the “seismic shift in devolution as West Midland leaders take more control from Whitehall”, etc. (pp.1,7) – guaranteeing some amused but tricky questions from someone who both lives with and studies serious mayoral governance.

It was the national news headlines, though, that I was obliged to address first, and the UK’s “unsustainable … biggest since the war … tax burden” – characterised by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as something horrendous and to be avoided, certainly by a Conservative Government, at almost any costs.

We’re not Basil Fawltys, but my Japanese friends and I tend not to mention ‘the war’ that much. Anyway, the timescale wasn’t really the issue. It was that highest-level tax forecast of 37.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – and yes, we do make life harder by colluding in almost invariably labelling it a “tax burden”, rather than, say, the “quality-of-life price” that the tax helps pay for.

What Toshi and other Japanese students of these things invariably query is: why the excitement/horror over a tax-to-GDP ratio currently almost identical to theirs? Yes, ours is indeed a higher ‘burden’ than those of, say, the US or Switzerland. But, as shown in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Chart A, both we – at roughly 34% of GDP – and Japan are currently in the bottom third of “advanced economies”, and even at a forecast 37.7% we’d still be mid-table and some way BELOW both most sizeable West European countries, plus bits of Eastern Europe too.

It’s interesting. Pollsters never ask us if we prefer NOT being an ‘advanced economy’ – you know, one with fully staffed and functioning health and social services, decently funded schools, reliable public transport, etc.?  And I’m not sure how collectively we’d answer. Clearly, these things do cost money, yet we obviously like visiting these higher-taxed places for our holidays.  Not Denmark perhaps – top, with its 47% tax ‘burden’ – but France, Austria, Italy, Scandinavia, Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc.

It’s presumably at least partly these countries’ ‘quality of life’ (QoL) that attracts us – which, unsurprisingly, correlates broadly with ‘tax burden’. There are several QoL indexes, one being Numbeo’s. It’s not the most methodologically sophisticated, but it does produce nice maps, collectively summarising its measures, which include purchasing power, safety, health care, cost of living, and pollution.

Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland are currently top, scoring nearly 200 QoL points. Then the usual suspects – Finland, Iceland, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Japan (13th) etc. – down to No.21 – UK 166.4, just ahead of Croatia. Disappointing, but could be worse – bottom at 84th is red Nigeria, not with ‘nul points’ exactly, but only 40.

The underlying, systemic problem, obviously not mentioned by Chancellor Hunt, is precisely his Department: His Majesty’s Treasury – first time I’ve typed that! – and its overbearing central funding control, currently exercised politically and communicated by him. And formerly by, among others, one George Osborne – which is where the irony starts. When Chancellor of the Exchequer, Osborne launched, and currently chairs, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP) – self-described as “the leading voice of business and civic leaders across the North”.

And currently a very shouty voice. For, within days of Hunt’s Budget pronouncements, along came Osborne with his NPP ‘wrecking ball’ – a clumsily titled but potentially headline-making report: Fiscal DevoNation – The Blueprint for How to Devolve Tax to the Regions of England. The Treasury, he and his Powerhouse chums now reckon – and as local government has complained for years – far from being the provider of solutions, is itself the problem. Its voice is the overwhelmingly dominant one in what Osborne nowadays sees as a damagingly over-centralised fiscal system. Just like when he was boss.

The NPP’s solutions involve, at least eventually, full-scale fiscal devolution. The “most unfair” council tax – with its outdated property values – stamp duty (paid on purchasing residential property), and business rates should all go, eliminating the Treasury’s all-powerful role altogether. The at least eventual replacement, following a comprehensive revaluation of all homes, would be a locally set land value tax, plus three new council tax ‘super bands’ for the most valuable properties, with revenue to be shared across the country.

Yep – that’s radical, but there’s more – like the localised hotel tax that numerous other countries already have, which NPP reckons could raise an annual £5.5 millions for the Lake District alone.

But I digress – from what my Japanese visitors really wanted to talk about: that Budget highlight of a “seismic shift” in devolution, to the West Midlands and Greater Manchester regions, and their elected Mayors, Andys Street and Burnham, who will get new multi-year devolution funding deals, and be allowed to retain business rates – to be followed by further such agreements across England.

At the time of writing, there hadn’t been a direct response from Northern Powerhouse as to how far down the ‘full-scale fiscal devolution’ road this might take us. As for a Japanese reaction, well, this blog is already overlong; but their response would probably start with the country’s written constitution, and the local government chapter guaranteeing its role and “the principle of local autonomy”. It’s an ultra-crude summary, but basically the national state does currency, diplomacy and defence, and pretty much everything else is left to the 47 prefectures and 1,700 or so municipalities. And heading those municipalities … directly elected mayors!

As the American phrase puts it: ‘Way to go’ – in both senses.  

_____________________

This is an adapted version of an article that appeared in the March 23rd edition of the Birmingham Post.

Chris Game is an INLOGOV Associate, and Visiting Professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan.  He is joint-author (with Professor David Wilson) of the successive editions of Local Government in the United Kingdom, and a regular columnist for The Birmingham Post.

Mission Possible? 

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Jason Lowther

With under 700 days to the next UK general election, political parties are busy developing their manifesto documents.  In February, Labour leader Keir Starmer made a major speech laying out his “five missions for a better Britain”.   How do these five missions relate to local government?  And is the turn to “mission driven” government likely to work?

The five missions vary in their level of specificity and challenge.  Securing “the highest sustained growth in the G7, with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country…” is a little vague but likely to be difficult, especially given we are currently ranked 6 out of 7 in terms of output per worker.  Mission #2, “make Britain a clean energy superpower”, accelerating the move to zero-carbon electricity from 2035 to 2030, is specific but very challenging.  Mission #3, reform of health and social care and reducing health inequalities, will require a re-focus from secondary (hospital) care to social care and addressing the social determinants of health.  Mission #4 is about community safety, and likely to involve more community policing.  Finally, mission #5 is to “break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage” through reform to the childcare and education systems.

Local government potentially has important roles in each of the five missions.  Local education, skills and economic development functions will be critical to improving productivity.  On energy, Net Zero requires at least a doubling of electricity generation by 2050, from decarbonised sources.  Decarbonisation strategies need to be place-based, taking account of the geography, building types, energy infrastructure, energy demand, resources and urban growth plans.   We’ve recently argued here for the key roles of councils in this area. 

Turning to health and care services, local government clearly has leading roles – including ensuring place-based planning to address the social and behavioural causes of health inequalities.  Analysis by the Liverpool and Lancaster Universities Collaboration for Public Health Research in 2021 concluded: “investment across the whole of local government is needed to level up health including investment in housing, children’s, leisure, cultural, environmental, and planning services”.  Similarly community safety, child care and education are areas where local government could be enabled to have much greater positive impact.

Perhaps as important as the specific “missions” is the approach to governing which the party is proposing.   Labour’s document characterises this as a move from top-down, target-led, short-term, siloed approaches, to government which is more “agile, empowering and catalytic”, working across the public and private sectors, and civil society.  This, it argues, requires organising government around a shared vision, focusing on real world outcomes, concentrating on ends with flexibility and innovation concerning means, devolving decision making from Westminster, increasing accountability including central and local data transparency, and adopting long-term preventative approaches including greater financial certainty for local areas. 

In some ways the idea of mission-driven government echoes the 1990s thinking of Ted Gaebler and David Osborne’s book “reinventing government”, which argued for a more entrepreneurial approach to the delivery of government.  Their work pointed to entrepreneurial companies setting overall missions and goals, and then leaving managers to figure out how best to deliver these – for example, by providing an overall budget for a service rather than detailed line-by-line budgets which disappear if not spent by year end.  The focus on managers rather than considering the perspective of politicians is one of the problems identified in subsequent evaluations of the reinventing government model, together with difficulties in sustaining the approach.

Mission-driven policies addressing ‘grand challenges’ of society are increasingly common, for example in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and various EU policies.  Mazzucato et al recently argued that addressing such challenges requires strategic thinking about: the desired direction of travel, the structure and capacity of public sector organisations, the way in which policy is assessed, and the incentive structure for the private, public (and I would add community) sectors. Labour’s paper makes a start (albeit at a very high level) on thinking through these areas. The litmus test, though, will be in developing the detail and how far this engages with local areas.   

Over the next few months, we will be contributing to the debate on the upcoming party manifestos with some research-informed thoughts on a variety of local government related policy areas.  If you would like to be involved in developing these, please get in touch. 

Jason Lowther is the Director of INLOGOV. His research focuses on public service reform and the use of “evidence” by public agencies.  Previously he worked with West Midlands Combined Authority, led Birmingham City Council’s corporate strategy function, worked for the Audit Commission as national value for money lead, for HSBC in credit and risk management, and for the Metropolitan Police as an internal management consultant. He tweets as @jasonlowther

Picture credit: BBC

In (Climate) Emergency Break The Mould 

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Paul Joyce, Philip Whiteman and Jason Lowther

Cities must be at the heart of a successful response to the climate crisis. Hundreds of local authorities in the UK are acting responsibly by taking the climate crisis seriously, whether it is by setting net zero targets or proclaiming a climate emergency. But they will be hampered in their endeavours for a number of reasons, including the significant capacity constraints that contradict their aspirations, even though national government in the UK has also set a net zero target.  

Support for local government action could increase if government ministers listen to the recommendations of a report by the Rt Hon Chris Skidmore  Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) Chairman, who issued a report on  how the UK could better meet its net zero commitments.  It’s an impressive piece of work, reflecting over 1800 written submissions as part of the official Call for Evidence.  Central to its recommendations is the need for central government to empower regions, local government and communities to play a greater role.    

We should acknowledge that on some measures the UK is already performing relatively well on environmental issues, particularly in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  The UK was placed joint second in Yale’s global Environmental Performance Index 2022, with Finland and behind Denmark.  It achieved the fastest improvement of the three countries (and third best globally) in the last decade. Between 1990 and 2020, the UK reduced emissions by almost 50%, driven in part by a reduction in the use of coal and toward natural gas and renewables.  Some of this success stems from historic decisions such as the 2008 Climate Change Act, which committed the UK to reaching 80% emissions reductions by 2050, and actions such as the introduction of a carbon price floor in 2013 and investments in solar and wind energy.   

It may become more difficult for the UK to keep performing well as new, more challenging actions are needed.  The EAC report is clear that local government is critical to developing and implementing the necessary actions, and that this requires a fundamental change in its relationship with central government.  We highlight four essential changes. 

First, simplify net zero funding arrangements.  The report is clear that “current central government funding arrangements are standing in the way of effective local action”.  The funding landscape is disjointed, unfair, and expensive for local authorities because of its complexity and reliance on short-deadline competitive bidding.  

Secondly, trust local government.  The report recognises that “to achieve a place-based, place-sensitive, locally-led transition to net zero, Government must place its trust in local leaders and communities to deliver”.   Analysis by UKRI found that a “place-specific” approach to decarbonisation costs 70% less and delivers 90% more benefits than one which is “place-agnostic”.  The report recommends a high-level framework and an agreement to close future partnership working between central and local government. 

Thirdly, allow local communities to determine their priorities and approach within the national framework.  The report recommends a new statutory duty on local authorities to take account of UK net zero targets.  Disappointingly, government is asked to back only “at least one” Trailblazer Net Zero city, local authority and community, with the aim for these places to reach net zero by 2030.   

Finally, align the planning system with net zero ambitions.  The current framework sometimes stands in the way of councils insisting on high standards.  And cumulative cuts to planning department budgets mean many councils lack the staff to deliver effective planning inputs quickly.  As the report says: “Reforming the relationship between central and local government on net zero will empower local authorities to deliver place-based, place sensitive action and unlock the high levels of local net zero ambition that we have across the UK. Unblocking the planning system and aligning it more closely with net zero will enable widespread pro-growth, net zero development” (p.189).  

In our discussions with local councils, we often find strong aspirations to address the environmental agenda.   To turn green aspirations into reality, we need city and town governments that are properly empowered and resourced to achieve this.  One of our concerns is that while the local authorities in the towns and cities are positive about cooperating with central government to promote sustainable development, their capacity is limited by comparison with European counterparts such as Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark.  In consequence, the centralised approach to public governance in the UK has produced little “depth” to sustainable development by public authorities.   Furthermore, we note that whilst may local authorities aspire to improve the environmental agenda, there is often a lack of specific or explicit connectivity to international targets, comparing less favourably to local authorities in other countries.

It is time to empower local government to become a powerful means of transformation of UK society, to give them much more fiscal autonomy, and to give them a strong mandate for sustainable development of cities and towns.  This needs to be effective not just for the biggest cities, but also for smaller cities and towns where the capacity is sometimes more limited.  Chris Skidmore’s report has recognised many of these issues, we now need to break the mould and give local government the mandate, capacity and collaborative approach it needs to succeed. 

Paul Joyce is an Inlogov associate.  Paul has a PhD from London School of Economics and Political Science. His latest book is Strategic Management and Governance: Strategy Execution Around the World (Routledge, 6 June 2022). He is a Visiting Professor in Public Management at Leeds Beckett University.

Philip Whiteman and Jason Lowther are Inlogov staff members.

Local government should welcome Gordon Brown’s private bills proposal

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Phil Swann

Streamlined access to local legislation must be available to help struggling councils to improve rather than rewarding those that have already done so, writes a PhD candidate in central-local government relations at INLOGOV and former director of Shared Intelligence.

In 1926 Winston Churchill, then chancellor of the exchequer, successfully opposed a private bill promoted by Bristol Corporation to establish a municipal bank in order to stop “all kinds of incompetent town councils”, particularly “socialistic” ones, from running banks. He did so despite the fact that the bill was supported by his Conservative colleague and former mayor of Birmingham Neville Chamberlain, who argued that Birmingham’s municipal bank had encouraged thrift and home ownership.

It is interesting to reflect on this dispute (not the last between these two political Titans!) in the context of the move by Gordon Brown’s Commission on the Future of the UK to promote the use of private bills by local councils. Raising the prospect of “the great cities of England” exerting similar powers to the Scottish and Welsh governments, the commission recommends a new, streamlined process enabling councils to initiate local legislation in parliament. This, the commission argues, would give councils an ability to secure the powers they need and to have a direct relationship with Parliament.

Evading centralising tendencies

It is undoubtedly the case, as the commission argues, that private legislation provided a vehicle for innovation in Victorian local government in the face of the social, economic and physical impacts of the industrial revolution. 

The genesis of public health lies in local legislation as does the creation of public utilities to provide gas, electricity and public transport. It was the ability of local corporations to promote private legislation that fuelled Joseph Chamberlain’s ambition to turn Birmingham Corporation into “a real local parliament”. Private acts were also used by enterprising councils to evade the centralising tendencies of successive governments in the second half of the 19th century.

It is also the case, however, that by the inter-war period private legislation had become a feature of the tensions in central-local government relations rather than necessarily being a solution to them. The resources and ambition required to draft and promote private legislation reinforced a growing divide between “advanced” or “progressive” councils on the one hand and “backward” or “penny-pinching” councils on the other hand. This reinforced differences between the major cities and smaller towns and rural areas. The widespread use of private legislation also contributed to the ad hoc and complex structures and powers of Victorian local government.

Significantly these trends were reflected in the justification for increasing central government intervention in local politics. In the 19th century there was a shift in ministerial focus from corruption to efficiency and action to bring “backward” councils up to the standard of the “progressive”. The first half of the 20th century saw a financially driven move to rein in the most innovative councils and drive improvement in the poorly performing ones. The dispute between Churchill and Chamberlain over the Bristol bank bill is an example of this.

Clause acts and adoptive acts

Despite these warning notes from history, the ambition of the Brown commission to enable local leaders to have access to a streamlined process to initiate local legislation should be welcomed. Many of the problems that emerged when private legislation was a common feature of local government could be overcome if it was explicitly seen as a way of testing new legislative powers prior to wider adoption – genuine pioneering.

Two other legislative devices deployed in the Victorian period could help to secure this approach if they were refreshed alongside a revival of local legislation. The first device is a clauses act, the prime example being the Town Improvement Clauses Act 1847. It brought together the provisions most commonly inserted in and effectively deployed through local legislation. Clauses acts, each of which would relate to a particular service area or initiative, would both streamline the legislative process and avoid unhelpful adhockery.

The second device, which takes this a step further, is the adoptive act. This is a piece of legislation which has been through the parliamentary process but which comes into effect only when it is adopted by individual local authorities. Acts of this type could make powers that have been successfully adopted by one authority available to be adopted by others without requiring local drafting or taking up parliamentary time.

Earned autonomy?

One other issue which requires attention is whether there should be a link between an ability to initiate local legislation and a council’s perceived performance. A sustained thread running through central-local government relations since the 1830s is the view that that councils should not benefit from new powers or responsibilities until they have met certain conditions or achieved a certain standard.

Joseph Chamberlain, who made extensive use of private legislation in Birmingham, took a different view. In 1877 he argued that “whatever the defects” of a council “I defy you to make a better one for the place except by gradually increasing its functions and responsibilities and so raising its tone.” No earned autonomy for Chamberlain!

If the increased use of local legislation is to help achieve the ambition set out by Brown and his commissioners, it is essential that streamlined access to local legislation is available to help struggling councils to improve rather than as a reward for having done so.

This article first appeared in the Local Government Chronicle on 13th December 2022.

Phil Swann is researching a PhD on central-local government relations at INLOGOV