When it comes to localism, absolute clarity of aim is essential

SUSAN HILL

But some local councillors are not fit for purpose and money is wasted at this level every bit as much as in Central Government. In my district the PCT has THREE press officers. We also have a Climate Change Officer who keeps sending me useless leaflets which are binned instantly, as they are by everyone I know. The standard of local governance is deplorably low.

Paul Danon

Devolving power isn't about having dictatorial mayors with million-pound budgets. It's about asking people what they want to happen.

Mike Wood

Conservatives announced that local authorities would have the power to discount business rates, funded from other local income or avoided costs.

Councils will also be able to keep the business rate income raised from additional businesses attracted to the area.

http://www.conservatives.com/~/media/Files/Green%20Papers/Localism-Policy-Paper.ashx?dl=true

Christopher Bowring

Allowing local government to keep business rates would make sense if they were used to pay for services used by local businesses. But that is not how they are calculated. Such a system would favour authorities which were lucky enough to have major businesses within their borders (acquired through no actions of local government). Others, particularly in rural areas, would suffer.

2trueblue

Having more local accountability must surely strengthen our say? Cutting the outragous salaries paid to the chief executives would be something I would like to see. I would also like to see the sacking of those who advised and committed public money to the Icelandic banks to be sacked without full pension. If the ordinary Joe Blogs like me can see the writing on the wall, and not put my money there, then what were they thinking of taking that huge risk? But then I am responsible for my acts, I pay for them, and I accept responsibility for them.

Yam Yam

Hear, hear, Paul Danon.

And where consultation has been held recently, local people were overwhelmingly uninterested in advancing the cause of having elected mayors.

anne allan

If local councillors were given more power it would attract higher calibre candidates.
If local councils were given more power, the turn out would improve in local elections.
If the setting of business rates reverted to local councils, then owners of local businesses should have their extra vote restored.
Oh, and could the concept of localism be explained to the dictators in CCHQ?

Alfred T Mahan

"...even with a little more disposable cash, mayors could improve local infrastructure and oversee appointments to local primary care trusts..."

Are you just advocating increasing taxation? And why would extra tax enable oversight of PCT appointments? Clarification, please!

David Blackburn

Alfred T Mahan,

I'm not advocating a tax rise as such - just improving the link between local voters and their representatives. Tax rises are not necessary: business rates may be reduced to stimulate commerce and raise revenue.

These proposals merely shift national bureaucracy to a local setting. Theoretically that should save money and improve local accountability; but the legislation has to be perfect for it to have any hope of working.

David Blackburn

Susan Hill,

Agreed. The thinking is to improve the standard through empowerment - no representation without taxation, or at least the power to control certain rates.

Gaz

one of the saddest changes we have witnessed over the last few decades, is the disconnection between local government and local commerce. This ironically, is especially bad for the Conservatives, who should be the party of the small business.

The movers and shakers in an area treat local authorities with contempt because they see them as irrelevant.

Getting rid of the universal business rate (UBR) would be a start.
There would be good reasons to support local conservative candidates and oppose anti business candidates, because they could directly influence the amount of business rates your company would pay.

Neil McEvoy

He who pays the piper calls the tune. At the moment, central government pays local government and tells it what to do. Local democracy will never exist until local people pay for the bulk of local government. Any reforms short of this are window dressing.

In2minds

David Blackburn @ 11.24am - "The thinking is to improve the standard through empowerment (of local councillors)"

As this applies to local councillors why not MPs? It's all very well MPs giving powers to councillors but the same MPs give power away to the EU too.

If they took back these powers would it improve the standard of MPs?

Simon Stephenson

I appreciate that this is a characteristic of our national culture, rather than one just applicable to local government, but the engrained mindset of every budget-controller is dominated by:-

* all resources currently deployed are producing pound-for-pound value of outcome.

* it's not possible materially to improve the value of outcome from using existing resource allocations.

* every additional pound of resource allocated will lead to and extra pound of value of outcome.

The whole process is circumscribed by the thought that to do more we must spend more, and the only reason ever to spend less is when funding is cut back further up the chain.

The reality, however, is that there is so much qualitative improvement just waiting to be realised that we could have years and years of advancement without needing to allocate a single pound of extra resource. But this can only happen if we are prepared to open our minds to the possibility.

Until such time as this happens, it's necessary to keep on a tight leash all those with power to raise and spend public funds.

Dennis Churchill

I would have more faith in Cameron’s commitment to Localism if he was not taking power away from local Conservative Associations to choose their candidates.
His generation seem too influenced by the political fashions among their lecturers in the 70s to truly believe in decentralism.

Verity

Susan Hill has said everything that needs to be said about this latest ill thought out Cameron proposal.

My own modest proposal is that, to improve the visual environment, Cameron should wear a bloody jacked. His trying to "get down" with the little people is so patronising. But I suppose he was brought up as a patronising twit, so nothing new there.

Will J

There are many council-mayor systems around the world, especially in America. We should just look at those and decide which to use. Even better, let each local authority decide for itself. No point trying to figure things out from scratch!