The Government’s new major policies on the governance of England (including local government) are expected to be published in a White Paper – a statement of new or major changes to government policies, is expected in the next week.
What’s interesting is that before the general election, Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner said the impression that he was getting from his shadow ministerial colleagues was that any incoming Labour government would try and work with existing structures rather than go for a major wholesale restructure early on. And with good reason. Look at what the former MP for South Cambridgeshire and the former Health Secretary did to the NHS in the early 2010s. And he had several years in the shadow post to do all of the essential policy planning and still screwed it up to the extent that his successors ended up ditching his plans that cost over £2billion to implement.
“Hunt’s language is restrained. But he is pretty withering about [The Health and Social Care Act]. Some of the fragmentation that it caused was ‘frankly, completely ridiculous’ he says.”
Above – The Health Foundation 26 Oct 2020
It looks like since then, the catastrophe that has become a hollowed-out local government sector is so great that simply throwing money at it won’t be nearly enough to deal with the long term decline of this tier of the state.
If you are discussing the major overhaul of local government in England, then you cannot ignore references to ‘Redcliffe-Maud’
“Who is ‘Redcliffe-Maud’?”
John Redcliffe-Maud was a former civil servant who rose to the dizzy heights of Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Fuel and Power in the 1950s. He was later commissioned to lead various reviews of local government by the Conservatives, followed by a root-and-branch overhaul of the governance of England by Harold Wilson’s Labour Government. That three year Royal Commission on Local Government – often referred to as ‘Redcliffe-Maud’, or ‘The Maud Report’ was the first time that anyone attempted to rebuild local government in England from scratch – such was the mess that they had inherited.
“Democratic life depends on a reasonably close working relation between the citizen and his elected representatives. In local government this is too often lacking. Since the people are the same as those who concern themselves much more actively with national issues, the fault must lie in the difficulty that citizens have in understanding what the local issues are; and this, we believe, is due in large part to the way local government itself is organised.”
Redcliffe Maud summary (1969) p1
If there’s one document that’s worth reading, it’s Redcliffe-Maud’s 29 page summary here – and as it was printed on smaller-than A4 paper, it feels mercifully more brief than it sounds.
“The Royal Commission set up in May 1966 was the first attempt ever to examine the government of our towns and countryside from top to bottom, and to plan a radically new start. There are two reasons why this has exceptional importance at the present time.”
You might think that nearly sixty years on, it’s more than time for something similar. Yet the two reasons he gave resonate today.
“One is that scientific discovery and industrial progress are reshaping the life and work of the people of England faster and more fundamentally than in any previous period of our history.”
Compare technologies (in particular communications technologies) of the 1960s with today.
“The second reason is of a different kind. In a period of great change, when huge unrepresentative organisations seem to control the lives of individuals and restrict personal freedom, people might be tempted to give up as a bad job the effort to master these impersonal forces.”
In 2024, those unrepresentative organisations are not simply quangos (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations), but are also multinational corporations, wealthy land-owning institutions (not naming any particular higher education institutions locally!) through to very large national charities – the RSPB has more members than all UK political parties combined. (The former has over a million, the latter coming up under it – see the Commons Library with 2022 figures here)
“What’s the Government’s vision?”
Ayesha Gilmore wrote this piece for Room151 on 21 Nov 2024. She summarises what was otherwise a very intense and content-heavy event hosted by the County Councils’ Network on 13th November – see the landing page and video streams here.
“How heavy are we talking?”
The session on Devolution where the lead Director General for Devolution at the Ministry of Housing & CLG, Will Garton spoke, lasted over 2 hours. You can listen to Mr Garton’s opening speech here. The video itself has had only 50 views – which is strikingly low given how important the White Paper is going to be.
The social care elephant in the room
How to fund social care in an ageing society is something that generations of GCSE and A-level geography students have been writing essays on since the 1990s. And how we are here trying to figure out how to deal with the challenge that like climate change, was sufficiently far into the future for previous generations of politicians to do not nearly enough about. The issue is partly addressed in Stephen Kinnock’s ministerial speech in an earlier session. Unless central government is going to remove the social care costs from local taxation (amongst other things), we’ll remain stuck in the mess we are currently in. You could say similar for children’s care too.
“There has to be some recognition of the damage to local democracy that has been caused by severe reductions of funding and the increased demand for social care in particular, which has caused a reduction in council services.”
As the headline of the above article states: ‘if you can sort social care out, then you can sort out local government funding’
The funding of local government in England
“Ultimately, it is clear that the system as a whole is not fit for purpose and is an anomaly at the international level.”
Patrick Melia, Chief Executive of Sunderland City Council, for Room151, 22 Aug 2024
This for me is the acid test for the Government’s devolution plans. I’ve been saying for years that ministers need to empower local government in booming places like Cambridge to be able to tax the huge wealth being generated within our economic sub-region to pay for the new infrastructure needed not only to enable the place to function, but to make it a nice place to live and work. That would enable ministers to redirect central funds to those parts of the UK that cannot afford to raise similar revenues from their own local economies.
Furthermore, places like Cambridge should be able to contribute towards regional infrastructure via local taxation on wealthy sectors that will benefit both Cambridge and the villages and towns being connected up to. This was something I looked at in more detail back in August 2024 here.
Cambridge City Council may find it has to give first impressions on the White Paper shortly after publication
Full Council is this Thursday – see the meeting papers here – and scroll to the end. I think this item should be brought to the front of the meeting given the profile of the item. The officer recommendations are:
“Council is invited to consider the findings of the public engagement and agree the
following recommendations:
- that the Leader discusses the findings with the Leaders of other relevant authorities
and other public services such as health, including the potential scope for more
effective place based and joint working and that officers follow-up on opportunities; - that the Leader and officers engage Ministers and civil servants in relation to the
findings of the public engagement, and, develop insights into the potential costsbenefits and models of provision for adults and children’s social care; and, - that following those discussions and early evidence gathering, the Leader reports to
the relevant committee about appropriate next steps in summer 2025, or earlier
depending on proposals in the English Devolution White Paper.
Above – Cambridge City Council papers for 28 Nov 2024, Item 8, p2
“If further work is undertaken to develop unitary local government options for the
Cambridge area, in addition to assessing these against the core purpose of local
government, and issues raised by the public, the following themes should also be
explored:
- The financial costs and benefits of change as well as potential disruption during a transition period for residents, other local authorities, and partners.
- The benefits for the sustainable growth of the city-region arising from the potential integration of planning and highways, and other responsibilities.
- Alignment with emerging government policy in relation to devolution, housing, infrastructure, environment and Net-Zero, as well as local government reform.
- The nature of community identity, democratic engagement and interdependency that different geographies might enable and facilitate.”
Above – Cambridge City Council papers for 28 Nov 2024, Item 8, p2
It may well be that the proposals in the report will need refreshing once we know what the Government’s policies are on future local structures (Amongst other things).
The Trials of Democracy – Cambridge
In an intriguing workshop at Cambridge Central Library earlier with Menagerie Theatre on their city-council-funded project, there were people from at least four different countries (and three continents) discussing democracy and giving very different insights into how we do things in Cambridge – as well as nationally. I was reminded of just how difficult it is to try and span the range of knowledge, experiences, and abilities trying to bridge the insights of one participant who spent much of their adult life in Cambridge but who had never studied politics or citizenship at school, with an international post-graduate student looking to start a Ph.D on UK politics.
I said to Hilary and Patrick who run the Trials of Democracy project (which will be culminating in an event in summer 2025 in the old magistrates’ court in the Guildhall) that they may need to run additional events in the spring on the back of what the Government is proposing. That may have to be part of a wider, co-ordinated programme involving neighbouring district and county councils if the Government proposes something on the scale of Redcliffe Maud’s report.
Food for thought?
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Below – one of the policies that was due to follow Strong and Prosperous Communities was Total Place – which I wrote about here – only it could be making a comeback.
The Cambridge Town Owl 