Just not centralising would be something

DAVID Cameron has today launched his party’s General Election campaign (how many times will we hear that statement between now and the actual election campaign?) by declaring that “within months of a Conservative victory there would start the most radical decentralisation of power this country has seen for generations.” It rather prompts the question: when was the last decentralisation of power? For people in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland the answer is undoubtedly 1998-9, with the founding (or re-establishment in Northern Ireland’s case) of devolution. But in other areas, and for the outstanding 85% of the UK’s population, it is hard to think of anything that qualifies as an act of decentralisation. By contrast, it is depressingly easy to think of numerous waves of centralisation, or at least consolidation.

Take local government, for instance. In Wales, the 19th century structure was created by amalgamating parish territories (though not by abolishing pre-existing Parish councils, which have remained intact save for a name change) or by re-imagining cantrefi and cymydau into new District authorities. Then, in 1974, the historic 13 counties were merged into 8, and the Districts were tidied (and often merged) underneath this new setup. That lasted until 1996, when Wales’s 45 local government units became 22. Post-devolution, the then Local Government Minister Brian Gibbons even suggested a further reduction in numbers, while others have mooted the idea that the Assembly could assume certain local government functions on an all-Wales basis. During that time (and notwithstanding the Local Government Act 2000 that purported to create for councils a less prescriptive set of duties) the powers of local government have been carefully circumscribed and, through mechanisms such as capping, curtailed. The result has been to ensure that local government strives to meet objectives established from the centre.

In short, the story is one of consolidation from above, with a decent dose of functional centralisation chucked in for good measure. And it is no different for other public services. North Wales Police, for example, was created through a merger of three existing constabularies in 1967, which were themselves the products of mergers of a number of smaller units in the early 1950s. In fact, the only large-scale attempts at decentralisation in Wales that spring readily to mind are Labour’s 2003 reorganisation of the NHS, and the original local/regional/sectoral partnership structure for the distribution of Objective One funding. And we know how those ended up.

None of this means that Cameron must fail in his aim. Governments do have a strong tendency to clutch power to themselves, not least because since voters blame them when things go wrong, they may as well keep or reclaim the power to try and do something about it. On the other hand, the UK’s system of local government is characterised by how weak and consolidated it is, certainly in comparison with much of mainland Europe. In Sweden – population 9 million – some 300 municipalities run both local authority and health services. When economies of scale make sense, these municipalities make their own decisions about federating. The notion that they could be summarily reorganised from above would be unacceptable to most Swedes.

The promise of the “most radical decentralisation” is one where the bar is set remarkably low. In fact, if Prime Minister Cameron merely avoids yet more centralisation, he will probably have something to shout about.