Cities at the heart of devolution

David Skelton is the Director of Renewal, a campaign organisation aiming to broaden the appeal of the Conservative Party. Follow David on Twitter.

Devolving power further needs to be at the core of a future Conservative offering. And cities need to be at the core of this new wave of devolution. ‘Trusting the people’ and empowering cities will be a fundamental element to balanced economic growth and urban revival over the next few decades. A devolution of power to cities must be a fundamental part of the Tory agenda for the next decade.

Most of the high growth during the Blair years benefited only the South East of England and failed to reach the low-paid. Although economic growth was over 11 per cent between 2003 and 2008, real incomes actually stagnated and the North-South divide widened. That can’t be allowed to happen again and empowering our cities is a real way of delivering economic growth that benefits everybody.

Edward Glaeser, in his superb ‘Triumph of the City’ has set out why the city will be at the core of economic growth in a globalised economy. And the more autonomy and power a city has, the more likely it is to pull in talent and investment and to become a thriving centre of regional economic growth. The Government’s ‘City Deals’ represent a great start to making that happen and they provide a real platform to Government should be ready to devolve powers over planning and welfare to work to cities, in a way that will give our great cities the ability to innovate and promote job creation.

Localism saves money

Cllr Mike Jones, the Leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council, says localism isn't just about democracy - it also allows money to be better spent

In the current political climate, it is often said that “we’re all localists now”. In Cheshire West and Chester this is a reality and there is strong support on all sides for a future which places more power and responsibility in the hands of our citizens and communities.

Formed as a new council in 2009 we were determined to be a new type of council with localism at its core. For us, it’s about the five Cs:

Communities: We have forged strong relationships with local communities and are tailoring services in line with local aspirations. Our council is structured in line with four localities, we are building comprehensive neighbourhood plans and we are continuing to develop a thriving voluntary and community sector to play a greater role in public service delivery.

Collaboration: We recognise that we cannot afford to operate in a world of fragmented public services which don’t make any sense to our residents. Our Altogether Better programme – known nationally as a whole place community budget – has identified over £100 million of savings to local services over the next five years with the transformation of service delivery by reducing duplication and getting services right first time. In addition, we are expanding our shared services with a number of neighbouring councils.

Localism in Devon means helping the unemployed find jobs

Cllr John Hart, the Leader of Devon County Council, says libraries can be used to help enterprises and communities flourish

There is a lot talked about localism, but in Devon - the third largest local authority by area in the country - we’re trying to put it into practice.

We are a very diverse county which includes the city of Exeter, numerous market and coastal towns and many small villages encompassing two coastlines and two national parks.

So it makes real sense to do only what needs to be done centrally at County Hall in Exeter with as much as possible being carried out locally.

We are delighted that Ilfracombe, in the north of the county, is one of the two rural towns piloting the national neighbourhood community budget pathfinder programme. This is in its early days so far but we are committed to the transfer of assets, and citizens have already set up a local board to run their community.

Whenever we build new libraries, we now develop them as community hubs. So in Newton Abbot, Cullompton and Totnes we are ensuring there is enough community space to enable people to gather together.

We have got work hubs in these buildings - as well as in other centres around the county - where Devon’s large contingent of home-workers and small enterprises can rent space and secretarial support – by the hour if they wish – to help their businesses to grow.

We also have information and advice to help support people back into work. Indeed, our Free Fridays provide free computer access in all our libraries for jobseekers and people seeking information about welfare changes.

After the appalling winters of the last few years, we have supplied grit, training and equipment for local volunteers to become snow wardens and clear the roads in their communities which – with more miles of road than Belgium – the county council cannot get to.

We have helped local people develop plans to support the elderly and vulnerable in their communities in the event of emergencies like floods or power cuts. This is necessary because, in a largely rural county like ours, it sometimes takes time to get the utilities back on and restore communities to normal.

Localism is all about developing resilience and helping people to help themselves. After four years of budget cuts, and with more to come, it is vital we reinvigorate the spirit of self-help in our communities.

In Devon I have pioneered a way of helping this process practically with our joint Town and Parish Fund.

Each of our 62 county councillors has £10,000 available to support community groups and organisations in their ward through our Locality Fund. We have also allocated £1 for every elector into our Town and Parish Fund, which is shared out to each district council area, and we have encouraged the district councils to top that up with 10p per elector.

It is then for the towns and parishes to bid for this TAP Fund money to develop projects and initiatives locally to help themselves.

Together the TAP Fund and the Locality Fund cost the county £1.2 million. But it is money well spent in bringing communities together to work on schemes of their choice to enhance their localities, often boosting our seed money with extra revenue raised from other sources.

Following examples like these is perhaps another way the Government could drive forward the new localism agenda, by codifying the relationship between national and local government and giving local councils more power to raise taxes and spend the money where they think it will do the most good for their communities.

This piece appears as part of a collection of essays on the future of local government collated by the New Local Government Network.

Community benefit for nuclear power is localism in action

Cllr Duncan McGinty, the Leader of Sedgemoor District Council, on winning over a local community to a nuclear power station

For years communities and councils have been bystanders as decisions impacting their lives have been taken far away in Whitehall. When our Party entered government in 2010 it was clear that localising power would be a priority.

Over the last  week localism has become a reality for my community, Sedgemoor in Somerset, which covers Bridgwater and the other communities surrounding Hinkley Point C. Our community is set to host the country’s first second generation new nuclear power station and, on Wednesday, the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s announced that it will introduce community benefit in recognition of the impact these proposals will have on those living in the surrounding areas.

My council has been campaigning on community benefit contributions for five years, negotiating with Ministers, MPs and civil servants and consistently raising this issue in Parliament, and we are delighted to see all this hard work pay off. Our local community will now receive £1,000 per Megawatt of power produced by Hinkley Point C for the entire operation of the plant. With an expected lifespan of 40 years, this could amount to £128 million for local residents, realised at first by retaining 50% of the business rates generated by the plant.

Let's have more local incentives and innovation to boost skills and employment

James Morris, the Conservative MP MP for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, says more localism could boost growth

All-Party Parliamentary Groups haven’t had the best of press over the past month. The stories in the papers seem a world away from the work of the APPG on Local Growth, which brings MPs and peers together to look at how we can generate greater prosperity in our communities and bring some much needed balance to the economy.

Since Caroline Dinenage and I became Co-Chairmen of this group last autumn, we have been focusing on the barriers that hold back growth, and on the innovative work that is being done around the country to overcome those barriers. In particular, we have been looking at how the Government could decentralise powers and funding so that communities can be given the freedom and the resources they need to make a real difference to their local economies.

Over the past few months, we have been conducting an investigation into the country’s complicated system for helping people into employment and training. We were delighted to welcome the Skills Minister, Matt Hancock, to help us launch the investigation’s findings.

Put historic counties back on the map

Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles is marking St George’s Day with a formal acknowledgement of the "continuing role of England’s traditional counties in the political and cultural life of the nation."

A significant number of counties were “administratively abolished” by Edward Heath's Government in the Local Government Act 1972. That means in a bureaucratic sense Cumberland, Huntingdonshire, Westmorland and Middlesex ceased to exist. I was pleased Rutland was later revived.

Today's announcement offers encouragement to local residents to continue to champion such local identities, irrespective of current tiers of local administration.

The announcement follows the abolition of the “artificial” Government Office Regions, based on European Union’s “NUTS1” administrative boundaries.

Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said:

Margaret Thatcher was not a centralist

As most political journalists are not very interested in local government they normally rely on Tony Travers of the LSE to give a definitive view. In The Guardian he says that Margaret Thatcher's legacy regarding local government was centralisation.

He concludes:

Thatcher's legacy to local governments was increased centralisation and the willingness of her successors to cap, limit and control local democracy in England. This country is one of the most centralised of western democracies, which is an odd legacy for a politician who so prized individualism and freedom.

I suppose that given Mr Travers is an "expert" and is reinforcing establishment orthodoxy his opinion will continue to be repeated by the BBC as fact. But he is wrong. At least he is wrong beyond narrowly equating localism with more power for local councils - and centralisation with less power for local councils.

The right to buy for council tenants certainly cut the power of local authorities. They couldn't decide whether to sell or not - this may have been what Mr Travers had in mind when he complained of "limiting local democracy." Given that a million homes were sold that also meant a dramatic retreat in municipal empires. But can anyone really say it was centralisation? Owning your own home is the ultimate decentralisation.

Cllr Sir Merrick Cockell is to step down as leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council

Cllr Sir Merrick Cockell has announced that he is to step down as Leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea after 13 years. Sir Merrick is a great champion for localism and has been an enormously innovative and influential council leader.

Only last month I noted the irony that as LGA Chairman his job was to justify the level of progress that councils in general were making in terms of saving money and improving services - while as leader of Kensington and Chelsea he proved himself wrong by showing how so much more could be achieved.

Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles says:

"I have worked with Sir Merrick for many years and he is a true public servant and local champion.

"Under his leadership the Council has achieved some incredible things for the residents of Kensington and Chelsea. The Tri-borough initiative he helped spearhead is a shining example of shared services savings to all in local government."

Under Sir Merrick's leadership Kensington and Chelsea achieved some of the highest resident approval ratings in the Capital, while its residents have enjoyed one of the lowest council taxes in the country. His achievements include the opening of a fantastic new secondary school, the Chelsea Academy. Decluttering of Exhibition Road was a brave decision but has reduced accidents as well improving the environment and given others the confidence to get rid of "safety" barriers.

Tory councillors champion localism in the EU

In 2010 I noted with dismay the Conservative councillors represented on the EU Committee of the Regions continued to sit as part of the European Peoples Party. No longer.

They are now part of a new group in the Committee of the Regions which will champion an agenda of decentralising power closer to the local and regional people.

The European Conservatives and Reformists Group contains representatives of seven EU Member States (the Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Lithuania, Slovakia and the UK). 27 Members have joined the group so far, including the Mayor of Prague.

The new ECR Group sees the extension of the ECR Alliance, which continues to grow with 54 MEPs from ten countries, two Prime Ministers in the European Council, and a successful think tank, New Direction.

Launching the group at the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists' headquarters in Brussels, ACER Secretary General Daniel Hannan said that it will encourage decisions to be made closer to those affected by them.

Give councils the tools and we can help the Chancellor fix Britain’s ills: Six steps to true localism and kick-starting the economy and the party’s fortunes

Cllr Philippa Roe, the Leader of Westminster City Council, says the Chancellor doesn't need to open his cheque book to help local government deliver better services

The Government’s localist credentials are much debated. The rhetoric of the early days is perhaps not as strong as it once was but there are many big achievements that can be pointed to in the areas of planning, education and housing. However, some ministers and departments have not found it easy to hand over real power and responsibility to local communities and councillors representing them.

Unfortunately, the conventional view across much of Whitehall is that local authorities act as a brake on economic growth thus making councils an easy target when departmental budgets come to be handed out. The implementation of Greg Clark’s City Deals and the tentative experiments with Community Budgets are notable exceptions and mark a change in this attitude but much more still needs to be done.

Local government has largely responded well to the challenge to rebalancing the economy and playing a role in driving down the deficit. I would though now urge that the Chancellor uses his Budget on 20th March and the Spending Review on 26th June to entrust councils around the country to help address the big tests facing the country. As well as boosting the economy, the Chancellor’s influence could be put to great use in helping achieve effective public service reform more swiftly across Whitehall that again would deliver efficiencies and save taxpayers’ cash.

There are six things that Chancellor should do in his Budget:

• Incentivise innovation in public services: Only by working together can public services tackle high levels of dependency in some of our communities that continue to threaten the nation’s economic competitiveness. However, new innovative approaches bring with them risks that mean under the current incentive structures it is simply not rational for local government to innovate and to invest time and resources in addressing problems where the costs are attributable to another council or public service.
• Share and share alike: Many of the costs that come with more integrated public services involve the complexities of data sharing. In 2008 Westminster City Council invested in a project to better co-ordinate information amongst council departments, police, schools, NHS and others to achieve exceptional results in tackling anti-social behaviour and supporting troubled families to turn their lives around and in saving cash – this was the model for the now national troubled families work but could be replicated in other areas.
• Accept Lord Heseltine’s central recommendation for a single funding pot: devolving more resources will allow LEPs to flourish, deliver on ambitious sub-regional economic strategies while breaking down obstructive Whitehall silos. More modestly, simply allowing local authorities to plan effectively with four to five year budget settlements would encourage long-termism and make ‘invest to save’ projects more realistic.
• Be bold on Community Budgets: The four whole place community budget pilots have put an enormous amount of time and effort into finding radical solutions to entrenched problems. Introducing local funding and new freedoms around offender management, getting people into work, housing reform and by integrating health and adult social care could save up to £5 billion per annum.
• Reinvigorate local authority house building: If the Coalition adopted similar local government accounting rules to other countries and remove caps on councils borrowing against the Housing Revenue Account, tens of thousands of new homes could be built and many jobs created. It is entirely sensible instead to rely on existing safeguards to curb council borrowing. If the government turn down that proposal they could look at creating a marketplace for trading headroom within the overall cap levels to maximise the number of new homes being built and better match investment need with capacity. This could help build around 10,000 new affordable homes without incurring more debt.
• Bolster and expand City Deals: 28 cities and surrounding areas have already or are in the process of negotiating City Deals with government around devolving functions and additional powers. These should go further, not just in number but also in their reach to include a wider range of public services in their core packages focusing not just on jobs and growth but also on reducing dependency and other major social problems.

The Chancellor need not open his cheque book to make this happen. Much relies, instead on trusting and empowering councils and the communities they serve, offering them the right incentives to work across local authority boundaries and with others public services to deliver real change.

The experiences of the first two years working with Tri-borough colleagues in Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham show that substantial savings are achievable and that problems that would otherwise have been impossible to tackle alone can be dealt with efficiently by working in partnership. And there are numerous examples of this type of work going on across the country.

Given the state of the party’s opinion poll ratings and with elections this year for 27 county councils and eight unitaries and next year for most local authorities, there is a possibility that by the time the Chancellor delivers the 2014 Budget his allies in local government may be greatly reduced in number.

The result of the general election in 2015 depends largely on the government’s success in addressing the huge economic and social challenges of our day. It may take a great leap of faith but Mr Osborne could well be surprised how much we in local government can do to give both the economy and the party’s electoral hopes a shot in the arm. Now is the time to trust Conservative local government to deliver.