Tell the Truth: Would the real ‘Localism’ please stand up?

June 23, 2011

To Tell the Truth was an American panel show game (which also had a 1950s UK airing). In it three contestants (only one of whom is genuine) claim to be a particular person with an interesting c.v.

After questioning the challengers the celebrity panel has to guess who is telling the truth. Once votes have been cast, the host asks, ‘Will the real. . .please stand up.’

I was reminded of this following the recent House of Commons Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee on ‘Localism’ which (amongst other criticisms) took the Government to task for ‘stretching its uses of the term in too many, sometimes contradictory, directions’ and for failure ‘to construct a coherent picture of the end goal’.

CLG Secretary, Eric Pickles, however, responded that ‘Localism won’t work if councils just take all the power off central government’. In his view ‘power needs to go as far out as possible. Something, which I say with a lot of respect, the recent Select Committee report didn’t seem to comprehend’.

Much of the CLG Committee report is (to quote LGA Chairman, Baroness Eaton) ‘bang on the money’. However, to expect a tight, buttoned-down definition of localism is perhaps to miss the point of the whole project. For the purpose of the Localism Bill seems essentially to chart a journey of cultural change rather than to define a destination. And all CLG ministers seem to be singing from this particular sheet.

For instance, at a Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) event in Stockport on 22 June 2011, CLG Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Andrew Stunnell MP, opened by offering local government both a promise and a challenge. The promise was that the Government was serious about the freedoms of localism and the challenge was for local government to take up what he called a ‘licence to fix things’ and to take the localism project forward without central government guidance or prescription. And Eric Pickles pointed out on 15 June 2011 that whilst for ‘the past decade or so everybody’s been singing in favour of localism. . .in reality Secretary of States (sic) handed out their gold stars to councils doing a really good job at jumping through bureaucratic hoops’.

As we all know life is a messy process and the journey from neat desk plan to completed project is often a cross between Churchill’s ‘blood sweat and tears’ and a big dipper ride with despondent downs often outweighing energising ups. Resilience apart, the key is flexibility and the realisation that localism is an end-user product. In other words localism is not there for producer groups but for all of us on the ground who have a stake in local governance and services.

And the cultural change journey is likely to be a long and winding uphill road, not least in central government departments where the CLG Committee report has rightly highlighted the impression that ‘the definition of localism is a matter only of tone and of convenience for the Government as a whole, with each department permitted to ignore localism or to adopt whichever strain of the policy will facilitate its other goals’. But the journey will be equally testing for those in other established institutions (local authorities, quangos and trade unions) which also have a stake in maintaining present power configurations.

However, there is also much valid criticism in the CLG Committee report. It is right to say that ministers ‘must rein in their interventionist instincts if the Government’s localism agenda is to be credible’. For as the report points out: ‘Central government cannot have it both ways – on the one hand giving local authorities the freedom to make their own choices, and on the other maintain that only one of those choices is the ‘sensible’ one’.

The Local Government Association had indicated 142 instances where powers are reserved to the Secretary of state. And this is ‘contradictory in a piece of legislation which is supposed to be about divesting central government of power’. And whilst the Government has recently agreed to withdraw mayoral chief executive and shadow mayor provisions, there is still apparently an intention to proceed with elected mayor referenda for eleven cities in May 2012. As the Committee resonantly observed: ‘The Litmus test of localism will be the Government’s reaction to local decisions with which it disagrees’.

Nevertheless, whilst localism might aim to chart a theology of local liberation, issues of governance will remain important for the proper management of and accountability for use of public monies. Some creativity is likely to be needed on the part of expert institutions like local government in combining genuine community empowerment and encouragement with sound and accountable governance arrangements.

This might be done wherever possible and practicable by drawing functional distinctions between resource management and activity. This could point to a reconfigured form of partnership working where statutory authorities participate with a much lighter touch, wherever this is consistent with the public interest. Also on governance there are concerns as to where the proposed permissiveness of the local government conduct regime will leave ethical governance and consequent public trust and confidence.

One of the conundrums at the present time is the enhanced expectation raised by the prospect of community empowerment against the constraints of fiscal austerity. For some money will inevitably be needed to create and pump prime projects and get them off the ground on a sound and sustainable footing. No-one therefore should expect anything to happen overnight. Pack your case, for localism is likely to be a long journey.

It was Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass who told Alice ‘in a rather scornful tone’ that, ‘When I use a word. . .it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’ Whilst this might also be said of localism in relation to the spectrum of different interests involved, difference is perhaps its whole point. For localism seems to be a key part of the Government’s policy to reduce the role of the state and to reallocate responsibility from Government to Governed. So it may well be that when the real localism is asked to stand up, all three contestants leap to their feet.

Dr. Nicholas Dobson is a Senior Consultant with Pannone LLP specialising in local and public law is also Communications Officer for the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors.