Fighting their corners

Local authorities are increasingly using lobbying and media relations techniques alongside traditional legal tools such as judicial review. Matthew Davies looks at some recent campaigns.

There has been recent scrutiny of the use of lobbying consultants by some public sector agencies, particularly with the objective of positioning the agencies with a possible future Conservative government. Consistent with a general policy thrust against ‘Labour’s unaccountable quangos’, the Conservatives are indicating that they may take a hard line on such expenditure should they form the next government.

Clearly, this raises questions about how the arms of government should relate to one another and also some far reaching questions about the relationship between politics and bureaucracy, about democracy and about the nature of government itself. But it also provides an opportunity to examine just how innovative and effective the local government community has proved to be at using a range of techniques to make their cases, both collectively and individually, outside the conventional policy and decision-making processes.

In the Local Government Association, the local authority community has a robust cross-party champion that has proved to be genuinely effective in navigating some treacherous waters in the evolving relationship between the central and local levels since 1997. However what is most striking about recent years is the willingness that individual authorities have shown to take on central government on specific issues and, in particular, the range of often high-profile techniques they have used to do so.

Two of the most prominent examples have been the campaigns waged for and against the formation of new unitary authorities, and the battles against expansion at Heathrow and Stansted airports.

In the case of the former, the urban/rural ‘divide’, party politics, instincts of institutional self-preservation, as well as quite genuine differences of opinion as to what structural models will best serve the local communities, have all contributed to over five years of sometimes vicious trench warfare.

With the general election ahead and judicial review proceedings already commenced by Norfolk and Devon County Councils, the Department for Communities and Local Government's decision in February on new city unitaries for Norwich and Exeter is unlikely to be the end of the matter, and the issue in Suffolk has not been settled in any event. The case of the unitary advocates has not been helped by the problems being experienced with the implementation of the new authority for Northumberland. With the Conservatives nationally indicating that they would take steps to reverse any changes that have not gone through, there is unlikely to be any further significant restructuring for some time.

The authorities involved, particularly the opponents, have used many of the tools that one would expect conventional pressure groups to utilise in conducting a lobbying campaign: using the media to mobilise public opinion to their cause; lobbying their respective Members of Parliament to advocate on their behalf inside and outside Parliament; commissioning detailed research to support their cases; and both the threat and actual use of judicial review. And this has all been done strategically against the tick-tock of the general election timescale. Indeed, there is likely to be some further old-fashioned Parliamentary lobbying in the coming weeks, with attempts in both Houses to dispose of the statutory instruments laid to implement the changes in Norfolk and Devon.

The ongoing campaigns against airport expansion at Heathrow and Stansted have brought together a disparate range of organisations, with local authorities playing a prominent role. What is most notable about these campaigns is the willingness of councils to adopt the techniques of, to work with, and to directly support the activities of more traditional campaigning pressure groups.

‘Stop Stansted Expansion’ has benefited from support from local councils that includes direct financial contributions. In addition to the support provided to this hugely effective campaign group, at least one authority in the area has also in the past directly employed a commercial lobbying organisation to run a programme against the expansion of the airport.

In the west of London the formation of the ‘2M Group’ has enabled Conservative and Liberal Democrat run councils to articulate a coordinated view against a possible third runway at Heathrow. The local authority umbrella organisation operates as part of a wider coalition which includes more conventional grass-roots and national campaigning bodies, including HACAN ClearSkies, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Clearly the views of the local authorities and the pressure groups do not coincide on all points but the loose association allows each set of organisations to do what it is appropriate for them to do in a coordinated manner.

Again, the campaigns against expansion have included such elements as: the strategic use of new and old media to build and demonstrate support; preparation of detailed research and policy work; lobbying inside and outside of Parliament; and the repeated use of judicial review and other legal methods. Of course, the campaigns have been unfolding in the context of a forthcoming general election where airport expansion may prove to be a significant factor.

This piece draws no conclusions about what sort of activity is appropriate for local authorities to engage in with regard to influencing national policy agendas. Nor does it tackle any of the even thornier questions about what mandate may be required to do so. It merely observes that in certain respects on certain issues, the activities of local authorities have come to increasingly resemble those that one might expect from a private or third sector organisation (or even, dare it be said, a quango…) faced with comparable challenges.

What is most notable is that in seeking to deliver what they see to be their objectives they have often done so with a pretty savvy combination of methods drawn from political campaigning and lobbying, media relations, as well as the strategic use of legal tools.

It is as patronising and simplistic to suggest that these are ‘opposition’ councils seeking to bloody the nose of a Labour government as it is to say that this is a government seeking to either impose unpopular projects in areas where they would never win locally anyway, or to gerrymander local political structures to better suit them. Whilst politics obviously comes into it, these debates are about much more than that.

The Labour government is already looking at what can be done to expand the well-being power for local authorities and with the Conservatives looking to evolve it into a more general ‘power of competence’, there could be even greater scope for empowered local authorities to fight their corners in the coming years. With tough decisions on national infrastructure required over the coming years, with acute financial pressures being felt in all corners of the public sector, and with the possibility of change in Westminster, it will be fascinating to see how this dynamic evolves over the next few years.

Matthew Davies is a public affairs consultant at Bircham Dyson Bell.