Local leadership, local choice
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Chapter 1 - Modernisation and new forms of local governance
- Modernising local government is at the heart of the Government's plans to modernise Britain.
- Local people, local communities, and councils themselves are not well served by the traditional ways councils work.
- People are to be given a real choice about how they will be governed locally.
- New forms of local governance will mean:
- strong leadership for local communities;
- powerful roles for all councillors; and
- high standards throughout local government.
- This paper is to stimulate local debate and discussion on these new forms, and invites comments on a draft Bill making provision for them.
Modernising local government
1.1 The White Paper, "Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People"1, put in place a programme for the reform and modernisation of local government in England. This programme, stretching over the next ten years or more, is at the heart of the Government's plans to modernise the country.
1.2 This is so because councils, in partnership with Government, business, the voluntary sector and others, have a vital role to play in improving the quality of people's lives. Councils everywhere need to provide vision and leadership for their local communities, and to deliver high quality services to their local people.
1.3 Modern councils succeed when they put people first, when they work and take decisions in a culture of openness and accountability to local people. They succeed when there is trust between them and their local community. Within this culture they build and support partnerships to develop a vision for their locality and to contribute to achieving it. They strive for continuous improvement in the delivery of local services.
1.4 The programme to modernise councils is a radical agenda for change. It requires action by Government to put in place the framework for modernisation, and in partnership with local government, actively to motivate and manage the process of change. It equally requires action by every council, their councillors and employees. Councils need new ways of working. They need priorities which put their people and their communities first. In all they do there needs to be that new culture of openness and accountability.
1.5 This programme of change is now underway. The Government is already putting in place the modernisation framework. A Bill to implement best value and to abolish crude and universal council tax capping was introduced in November 1998 into the House of Commons.
1.6 Councils are themselves now taking steps to innovate, and to try out new ways to serve their local people better and to give stronger leadership to their communities. The Government is setting up, in partnership with the Local Government Association and the Improvement and Development Agency, the beacon council scheme. How it can work is set out in the Prospectus2 published in February 1999. It is a scheme which will be a key element in helping to motivate and manage change in local government.
1.7 This paper, including a draft Bill, is the next step in setting up the modernisation framework, and in bringing about fundamental cultural change in local government. It is about the ways in which local communities will be governed - about how their councils will be run. Without getting this right, councils cannot succeed in serving and leading their communities as they should.
1.8 When Parliamentary time allows, the Government will introduce the legislation needed to modernise how local communities are governed. The Government will also seek such other legislation as is necessary to carry through the rest of the White Paper agenda, including the new duty for councils to promote the economic, social and environmental well being of their area.
Traditional ways councils work
1.9 Traditionally councils carry on their business by, formally at least, taking decisions in sizeable committees and sub-committees having the same political balance as the full council. The council, its committees and sub-committees are advised by professional officers.
1.10 This committee system, designed over a century ago, does not work today. It is inefficient, opaque, and weakens local accountability. It is no system for the modern council which needs to give effective leadership to its local community, and to take decisions in a faster moving world to deliver quality local services. People are not well served by it.
1.11 The inefficiency of this traditional system has long been recognised. Over 30 years ago the Maud Committee3 saw this system as involving "the production of increasing volumes of paper which demands staff, is often wasteful of officers' time, is expensive to produce and which often overwhelms members. The Committee system makes heavy demands on members' time." The Audit Commission was still identifying these same problems in 19974, concluding that "committees can be unnecessarily slow and cumbersome", and that "the system is also expensive in terms of the opportunity cost of senior management time".
1.12 The greatest weakness of the committee system, however, is that despite the time and resources councils devote to running it, their major decisions are in reality often taken outside of it.
"Most major policy decisions in practice are not taken by the full council, its committees or subcommittees but elsewhere within the ruling group - where there is a majority group - or in consultation with the leadership of other groups where there is a minority administration or coalition. (...) formal authority may rest with the full council, or with the committee, but the real authority rests with individuals."5
This conclusion of the joint Government and local government Working Party in 1993 is supported by work undertaken by the Audit Commission.4 The evidence is that over the years this practice of decision making outside formal committees has increased with a growing number of informal groups involving councillors leading to "a concentration of decision making powers in small groups outside the formal arenas."6
1.13 The result of these informal systems of decision taking is a lack of clarity about where decisions are taken and by whom. The role of the council's officers to provide professional advice to the decision takers is clouded. People do not know who to praise, who to blame, or who to contact with their problems.
1.14 In short, the traditional committee system, designed to provide an open and public framework for decision taking, has grown into an opaque system with the real action off-stage. People lose confidence in their council's decisions, individual councillors become disillusioned with their ability to influence local decisions, and people are discouraged from standing for election.
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Figure 1 Proportion of councillor's time spent on different activities7 |
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1.15 Opaque and unclear decision taking weakens the links between local people and their democratically elected representatives. A councillor's representational work directly with the community should be central to his or her role as an elected member. There is evidence7 of a "radical mismatch between what councillors aspire to do and what the pressures of council business require them to do."
1.16 Notwithstanding what councillors would like to do, too much time is spent by them in committees. A sample of councillors showed them spending an average of over 60 hours per month on preparing for, travelling to and attending council meetings.8 In short, whilst on the one hand councillors can often be effectively excluded from the real decisions, they have on the other hand little time for their vital representative work in the community. Most of their time is taken up in largely unproductive committee meetings.
1.17 This may be one reason why some groups in society avoid council service. Only half of all councillors are employed or self employed, 35% are retired, and only a quarter are women9. The 1997 LGMB national census10 of councillors in England and Wales showed that 3% of councillors are from ethnic minorities and 11% are disabled. The effectiveness of local democracy would be enhanced if the body of councillors more fully reflected today's society.
1.18 The very engine of local democracy - the local election - is not working well. Turnout at local elections is far too low, and is falling.
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Figure 2 Average turnout in sub-national elections in the European Union | |
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% Turnout | |
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Luxembourg* |
93 |
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Italy* |
85 |
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Belgium* |
80 |
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Denmark |
80 |
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Germany |
72 |
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France |
68 |
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Spain |
64 |
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Ireland |
62 |
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Portugal |
60 |
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Netherlands |
54 |
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Great Britain |
40 |
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* These countries use compulsory voting in at least some areas. Source: 'Enhancing Local Electoral Turnout - A guide to current practice and future reform', Rallings, Thrasher and Downe 1996. | |
In the May 1998 local elections the level of turnout on average was even lower. Scarcely more than a third of electors voted in London. Elsewhere in England the turnout reached historic lows. There were examples of wards with turnouts of around 10%.
1.19 Whilst the causes of falling turnout are not straightforward, people are not encouraged to vote in their council elections when they do not know who in the council is really making the decisions, or how their local councillor is able to help them. What is clear is that low and falling turnouts weaken a council's claim to speak for the local people, and damage, and ultimately would destroy, their ability to give leadership to their communities.
Real choices for local people
1.20 There should be real local interest in what the leaders of the community are doing and planning for its future. There needs to be trust between those elected to represent and lead communities, and those who elected them and whom they serve. If communities are to have the leadership they need, their people need to identify with the way they are governed.
1.21 There should be a real choice for people about how they are governed locally. The choices available to people must be of forms of local governance which are characterised by:
- efficiency, where decisions can be taken quickly, responsively and accurately to meet the needs and aspirations of the community;
- transparency, where it is clear to people who is responsible for decisions;
- accountability, where people can measure the actions taken against the policies and plans on which those responsible were elected to office; and
- high standards of conduct by all involved to ensure public confidence and trust.
1.22 That is why in the White Paper, the Government made clear that it wanted to see councils move away from their present ways of working which are failing the people they serve. That is why the Government proposed that where people want a directly elected mayor to lead their community, there will be one. It is why the Government is committed to putting in place a new ethical framework for local government.
1.23 The draft Bill included with this paper is designed to bring about these changes. If the Bill is enacted, the result would be new forms of local governance, chosen on the basis of what local people want, giving:
- strong leadership for local communities;
- powerful roles for all councillors; and
- high standards throughout local government.
This paper
1.24 The Government believes that it is essential for there to be local debate and discussion about these new forms of local governance in advance of introducing this legislation. Councils need now to begin consulting their local people and communities - businesses, other public bodies, and the voluntary sector - about the way in which they wish to be governed. The shape and style of local governance should be their choice, not just what their council thinks best.
1.25 This paper, describing new forms of local governance for English councils, aims to help and encourage such local discussion and consultation. It also now invites comments on a draft of the legislation to be introduced for England and Wales.
1.26 This is the first stage of councils giving their communities a real choice about the way in which they are governed. Councils will need to decide how best to engage their communities and obtain their views.
1.27 The Government does not believe that the new forms of local governance described in this paper would be appropriate to parish councils, which typically have much more constrained functions and a much smaller membership. References in the following chapters to "councils" should therefore not be taken to include parish councils unless this is clear from the context.
1.28 Any comments on the draft Bill contained in this paper should be sent to New Local Governance, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Floor 5/A3, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DU, by Friday 21 May 1999.
1.29 Ministers may wish to publish responses in due course or deposit them in the libraries of the Houses of Parliament. It is expected a Parliamentary Select Committee will wish to consider and to report on the draft Bill. Should respondents wish their comments to be treated in confidence, they should make this clear in any papers they submit. All responses may nevertheless be included in statistical summaries of comments received and views expressed.
1 Modern Local Government: In Touch with
the People, Cm 4014, TSO 1998. ISBN 0 10 140142 6;
all references in the text
to "White Paper" are to this document.
2 The Beacon Council Scheme: How will it work?, DETR, 1999.
3 The Maud Committee on the Management of Local Government, HMSO, 1967.
4 Representing the People: The Role of Councillors, Audit Commission, 1997.
5 Report of the Working Party on the Internal Management of Local Authorities in England: Community Leadership and Representation: Unlocking the Potential, HMSO, 1993.
6 Local Government Management Board: Portrait of Change, LGMB, 1996.
7 K Young and N Rao, The Local Government Councillor in 1993, Joseph Rowntree Foundation/LGC Publications, 1994.
8 Managing Change: Councillors and the New Local Government, Nirmala Rao, Joseph Rowntree Foundation 1992.
9 The Impact of Releasing People for Council Duties, Social and Community Planning Research, 1998.
10 Survey of Local Authority Councillors in England and Wales, The Local Government Management Board, 1998.
