However I do feel rather unfairly pedantic about this. In principle, localism is a great thing and a breath of fresh air. Government in the UK is highly centralised and local government carries a huge burden of reporting and target-meeting that doesn't seem to achieve much. For instance, I wonder how many people have heard of Local Area Agreements (LAAs)?
These were introduced under Labour, and are three year contracts between local councils and government to meet targets in return for money. Central government provides a list of about two hundred (yes, 200) targets to choose from, and counties pick some. By my count, Cambridgeshire chose fifty-four. The county-wide target for each of these was negotiated, then regularly monitored and reported to local councillors and the Government Office of the East of England. This is an extremely time-consuming, complicated and tedious process involving multifarious meetings, reports, and spreadsheets.
The advantage of Local Area Agreements is that they bring public sector organisations together and encourage joint working, hopefully avoiding duplication. Their disadvantage is that they are a very inefficient way of measuring whether local authorities are successful. Most of the targets are meaningless due to excessive specificity (obesity among primary school children in year 6 - why just that year?) or excessive generality (adaptation to climate change - can this really be reduced to a single number?).
Despite having 'local' in the title, LAAs are a method of central government micromanagement, and when the coalition gets rid of them I doubt that there will much weeping. Councils will keep any useful bits and ditch the onerous reporting. However, this is just one example of our new overlords sweeping away that which they consider unlocal.
Regional development agencies and their associated flotilla of regional plans have also bitten the dust. (In fact, the word 'regional' has become taboo.) Again, I must say that I agree with this decision. I've worked with people at the East of England Regional Development Agency and they certainly mean well and work hard, but Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) were originally set up to try and close the North-South economic divide. By any measure, they have spectacularly failed to do this; the divide has widened considerably. Regional interventions weren't enough to fill a deep historical and economic gulf. The idea when John Prescott came up with RDAs was that they'd come with democratically elected regional assemblies. These did not catch on, leaving the agencies with considerable planning and funding responsibilities but no local accountability. No wonder they faced constant accusations of being unelected quangos. And now they've gone, or rather will be gone next year.
So, the government's approach to localism has thus far been based on abolishing structures - as well as the LAAs & RDAs, say farewell to Leader's Boards, CAAs, the RSS, RES, RIP, IPC, etc etc. This has been combined with much talk of transparency and accountability to the public. I think these deserve a cautious yay, but the other thread of the localism rhetoric is a bit worrying. I've noticed a trend for local authorities to be simultaniously blamed for everything and told to accept more responsibilities. Witness talk of town hall non-jobs, propaganda on the rates, and supermarket sized budgets with a cornershop mentality.
Localism is mere fauxcalism when national government can say 'No, you're being the wrong kind of local' or when it doesn't come with meaningful financial freedom. If the government are genuinely committed to devolving power, they must be willing to let local councils decide to privatise schools, libraries, and community centres then spend their entire resources on flowers for parks & play areas. Assuming that's what the local population want, naturally.
At the moment, the Department of Communites and Local Government seems to be offering localism-with-strings. There should be no building on green belts, no building on gardens, weekly bin collections, and no local government newsletters. That sounds more like micro meddling to me. It's stupid to assume that if given the chance local councils and their populations will all agree completely with Eric Pickles. I also find touting of the cap on council tax being removed a bit hard to swallow, given the Treasury just unilaterally froze council tax for a year in the budget.
What I suspect is partly behind the enthusiasm for localism is blame-shifting. Local authorities are just starting to make huge cuts, which will mean closing community facilities and charging more for services. People will notice and resent this, especially as it coincides with tax rises. The government are giving local councils the freedom to struggle with service provision in the face of cuts and take the blame locally. The cuts are resolutely top-down, but by talking of localism the bad feeling they'll inevitably provoke might be contained at least partially at the bottom.
Perhaps I'm being unduly cynical. I also wonder where this leaves MPs - presumably, with even less impact on their constituency but a queue of enraged voters asking why the library has closed, what about the shortage of teachers, do you realise the roads are full of holes, and so forth.
In a way, it's a pity that local government is being given this great opportunity to show what it can do now, at a time of funding crisis. Unless localism is made to work despite constrained resources, job cuts and policy confusion, public confidence in local government could collapse and take a long time to recover. I think Cambridge has an appetite for localism; it might even go for being an independent city-state given the choice. I'll be keeping an eye out for evidence of the L word on the ground.
As an aside, you may have noticed that local government involves a certain amount of acronyms. Mindblowing amounts of the damn things. If we are moving towards truly transparent government, there should be a searchable masterlist of them online. Maybe I should suggest it? More on housing tomorrow.
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