We're on our way back from the North East, having spent the day campaigning in Durham.
As in Northumberland, the highly unpopular imposition of a unitary authority across Durham has been the cause of much infighting amongst Labour councillors, many of whom have lost their seats through the abolition of the district councils, slashing the number of available positions by as much as 60%. Undoubtedly, for some councillors, the resultant loss of income will be a cause of much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Because this is County Durham, the Labour Party is most severely affected, although some Liberal Democrats will undoubtedly have been impacted too. I'm rather less sympathetic towards Labour councillors though, as they rammed the legislation through, against the vocal opposition of many across the county.
That said, I do have quite serious reservations in terms of the impact on local democracy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that the new unitary authorities will be deliberately less open, transparent and inclusive, merely that a much smaller number of locally elected representatives will have greater responsibility and more work and, correspondingly, less time to fulfil their casework and public contact duties.
Most councillors have full-time jobs. If you ask them to attend more meetings, represent more people and cover larger areas, you can hardly expect them to manage the casework and meet the public, be it through canvassing or public meetings. The public will effectively be distanced from their representatives and lose that connection with their local authorities.
One does wonder if, indeed, this is the intention of an increasingly managerial Labour government, whose paranoia about releasing their grip on local authorities grows by the day. They have talked a decent enough game on localism whilst, at the same time, imposing unpopular unitary schemes on counties such as Cheshire, Durham and Northumberland. Their proposals for the governance of local authorities tend towards the 'one size fits all', unless of course, it is something called for by one of the loopier Labour authorities such as Stockton-on-Tees.
'Best' of all are their proposals founded on a curious belief in strong leadership, in Labour-speak, strongman leadership, where responsibility inflexibly lies with one all-powerful figure, usually supported by a small cabal, leaving the remaining majority of councillors to attempt to hold them to account. We've all seen how effective this is in London, where Ken rules supreme with the support of just nine of the twenty-five Assembly members.
And yet there appears to be no underlying priniciple other than that of virtual totalitarianism. The now Department of Communities and Local Government has had so many changes of leadership that we have a kind of bungy decision-making. A new Secretary of State arrives, makes a serious of pronouncements which contradict those made by his/her predecessor, causing councils to attempt the administrative equivalent of tapdancing on quicksand, only to be pulled out and replaced by someone new, who promptly... well, you know what I'm going to say.
Comrade Brown has, over the years, pontificated about the importance of economic stability in the construction of a sound economy. Administrative stability is important too, especially in enabling local authorities to plan the effective provision of key services. Perhaps a period of silence on the part of the current Secretary of State might be helpful?
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