Trust the people: time to devolve from the Assembly
A new mapping exercise is needed for Welsh public services - which puts localism at its centre
THERE is a question to be posed about where local government will fit into a newly empowered Welsh Assembly, making laws within the ambit of the 20 fields of competence granted by the Government of Wales Act 2006.
In the new system of governance, there is a wider debate as to what structures we need to deliver services to a nation of three million people and, in particular, whether 22 local councils and seven health boards are appropriate vehicles to spend the bulk of the Assembly’s £15 billion budget.
My view is that we most probably need bigger and fewer councils but that the main debate should be around the democratisation and accountability of service delivery as much as its efficiency. In contrast, the Welsh Government’s agenda is becoming much clearer as we approach the next set of Assembly elections.
My concern is that in Labour and Plaid Cymru we have two very centralising parties whose objective is to emasculate local government. Already, we have heard calls for social services and education to be taken off local councils, while the intentions of other parties towards reorganisation remain secret. Ministers are seeking or have acquired legislative competence over the governance arrangements of schools and also over many new aspects of local councils but are not saying what they will do with it.
In fact, there seems to be a cross-party consensus that there will be a reorganisation of local government in Wales after the 2011 Welsh General Election, the problem is that nobody wants to talk about it until then and the chances of any coherence emerging from any of the other parties as to how they see the future structure of local government is negligible.
Motives are particularly important in this process. Everybody acknowledges that having 22 Councils means that a number are too small to achieve economies of scale and that there needs to be some reform to address this. However, there is no consensus on what the future map of Wales should look like. This issue needs to be addressed before the 2011 Welsh General Election not just because there is a need for a debate but also because how a party plans to reform our democratic structures goes to the heart of their vision for Wales.
Firstly, what is the role of the Welsh Government and of the National Assembly? Following a successful referendum, their role is to set out policy, to make laws and to deliver that through guidance and funding decisions. It is not their role to directly deliver services, nor in my view should they seek to set up other arms-length bodies or add to the role of existing bodies by passing over to them functions currently delivered by councils.
Secondly, how do we give people greater control over the decision-making process in their own areas? There are in fact many ways that this can be done but the starting point is to enable the democratically elected bodies that serve local communities, in this case the Welsh unitary authorities. These councils should be more accountable, constituted on a scale that can deliver services efficiently and encompass a broader range of responsibilities so as to produce a more strategic and joined up approach to governance.
To achieve this we should reforming local government so as to create eight or 10 unitary councils elected by the single transferable vote system in multi-member wards. There would be fewer councillors, approximately a third less, making between 800-900 across Wales but in return they would be better remunerated so that they could devote a substantial amount of time to delivering and scrutinising services and acting in a more strategic way. Each council would be run by a full time cabinet with no more than 10 councillors in each executive body and have a number of strategic directors.
At the same time, the heath boards should be disbanded and their functions should pass their functions to the democratically elected councils, thus creating a single health and social care function that would eliminate duplication and waste and be accountable to local electors not the centre.
And let’s not stop there. All of post 16 education needs to be transferred back to councils so that they could deliver the 14 to 19 agenda as a seamless whole and incorporate the very important vocational education delivered by further education colleges into their service provision.
Councils should also acquire greater strategic control of transport within their area including the power to deliver cross-modal transport solutions and a wider economic development remit. And these bigger unitary authorities should be the ones delivering regeneration initiatives such as Communities First on behalf of the Welsh Government, not the Government micro-managing it from the centre. There are many other central government functions that might be better delivered by such a strategic locally elected body. That is a matter for further discussion. My purpose here is to start a debate and to get people thinking about a way forward.
I am an instinctive democrat. My belief is in empowering local people and giving them a chance to influence the direction of services in their own area. Democracy may have its flaws and at a local level. We can all come up with a horror story that involves their local Council but ultimately it is for the electorate to cast the final verdict and with proportional voting that becomes much easier.
Instead of national politicians treating local government as scapegoats and indulging in playing blame games, let us find a way to work together as equals and in a way that for once delivers the sort of transparency and accountability that was promised when devolution was first voted on in 1997.
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Thus, are you advocating a smaller Assembly and a smaller WAG?
“My belief is in empowering local people and giving them a chance to influence the direction of services in their own area.”
They can do this already – they vote. The problem is that it is this very electorate that “scapegoats” their councils. Instead of getting actively involved in both local council and local community, attending meeting etc, people sit around and moan about roads not being gritted, about bins not being emptied, about parks having dog poop, THEN complain when the council puts the council-tax up a bit to cover the cost of these. The problem is perception – people don’t see the council as “local government”, they see it as a service.
The problem I have is in maybe trying to overburden already stretched councils with even more stuff to do – they can barely cope as it is! Thus I think a combination of WAG/Council, in partnership (with clear boundries) is the way forward, not turning councils into “mini-WAGS” – methinks Peter wants that because the Libdems are running some councils
Financier: The Welsh Assembly and the Welsh Government already have a clear role which is to legislate and to govern Wales. Neither have ever actually delivered services, they have always funded other bodies to do that. What I am advocating is that those bodies that are funded to deliver services are made democratically accountable at a local level and that they are large enough to be able to act in a strategic way whilst achieving economies of scale so as to deliver value for money.
Al: local councils are not and never will be mini-WAGS because they are not governments with powers to legislate. WAG is also not a body that directly delivers services. We are already doing ‘partnership’ but it is not working effectively because there are too many vested interests. I would argue that at times ‘partnership’ is a displacement activity to avoid making difficult decisions.
Yes, the Lib Dems do run some Councils but have an overall majority on none. Bigger councils, with fewer councillors elected by PR would, believe it or not, not favour my party electorally. But it is the right thing to do.
Peter Black AM
Apart from the timing…I’d prefer before rather than after going to Part 4…right on man!
bigger and fewer councils
two very centralising parties
nobody wants to talk about it
(not) passing over to them functions currently delivered by councils.
Local control over the decision-making process in their own areas
Now, where have I heard that before?
That’s it from me…Period.
With respect, I disagree that local councils should be fewer and larger. The present unitary authorities are large enough to have the “buying power” that they need, and to centralise further would loosen the links between communities, the council and its individual members. In areas like Neath and Swansea, where there is a tradition of community councils, these could take on more powers to fill the democratic deficit, but this option is not open to other areas, like Port Talbot.
I don’t think that this view is inconsistent with STV in multi-member wards. Scotland does not seem to have any difficulty.
Where a larger aggregation of power is necessary for a particular purpose, councils can cooperate (as for instance in youth orchestral music, or transport planning), a process which should be encouraged.
The rest of Peter’s proposals cannot come too soon.
I agree with some of the things you say like democratising and the WAG/NAfW giving local government more power. I also think that there should be fewer councillors who would work full-time. However, I think there should be more, smaller councils as decisions should be made as close to people as possible. Economies of scale could be achieved by centralising payroll, purchasing, ICT systems etc. to the WAG. Maybe the idea of directly elected executives i.e. mayors should also be considered as a means of making councils more accountable.
Peter Black,
Thank you for the excellent article on reforming local government in Wales. I too think it is important to reform local government to be more accountable to the electorate and with greater responsibility in delivering vital services. It gives me peace of mind to know that there is a cross party consensus towards reforming local government after 2011, this level of bipartisanship is reassuring.
I agree with your view of what the role of the Welsh Government and National Assembly should be; oversight, all-Wales policymaking, and “guidance through funding decisions”. However, you wrote that in your view the current administration maintains a centralizing policy aimed at “emasculating local government”. Could it not be true that the administration is formally establishing its oversight and policy making role for the whole of Wales in preparation for the post 2011 reforming of local government? I believe that to introduce local government reform right now would distract from the effort to secure a Yes vote by the administration, rather then anything insidious as you suggest.
In my view, Wales should have four or five counties based on the 1962 Local Government Commission for Wales. Gwynedd County should encompass all of North Wales (Upper Gwynedd for the area west of the Conwy, and Lower Gwynedd for the area east of the Conwy). Powys County should encompass the area within its current borders. Deheubarth County should encompass West Wales, the areas of Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire, and Pembrokeshire. The name Deheubarth rather then Dyfed, as Dyfed historically only referred to the area of Pembrokeshire and I have no idea why Dyfed was used back in ’72 to define West Wales. South Wales should be either one large county known as ‘Glamorgan-Gwent’; or the two could be divided, with this, I am impartial.
A county council and county executive should govern each county. Peter recommends ten councilors; I am fine with that. Each council should have authority and oversight over county courts, law enforcement and jails, public housing, public utilities, libraries, health care services, parks, roads, a county registrar and recorder, child and family services, elder care services, mental health services, welfare services, veterans assistance services, animal control, probation supervision, local historic preservation, local food safety regulation, and local environmental health services. Each county should provide additional officials such as a public defenders, arts commissioners, human rights commissioners, and (very importantly) planning commissioners. The county councils could devolve many services, such as libraries, to local districts. I agree that the health boards should be disbanded and their functions transferred to the county councils, with those elected officials responsible to the electorate.
I hope that all parties can work towards these ends in a bipartisan manner, as since 1962 this has been recognised as the best way to deliver services to the people. Likewise, there is a historic basis for the four or five county approach, based on geography; these are where the four Welsh principalities were based.
Peter,
In your article you suggest
‘Each council would be run by a full time cabinet with no more than 10 councillors in each executive body and have a number of strategic directors’
Isn’t this the Swansea model? – one in which the council has signally failed to deal with some of the more important local issues (schools, child care etc.) and concentrated on more ‘attractive’, headline grabbing schemes such as the Leisure Centre, bendy bus (sorry, Metro) and ‘European Boulevard’.
You also say:
‘These councils should be more accountable’
Is it not the case that the Swansea ‘council of 10′ have removed large elements of local democracy by taking a large number of important decisions behind closed doors?
Finally, you that:
‘…they would be better remunerated so that they could devote a substantial amount of time to delivering and scrutinising services and acting in a more strategic way’
How does this sit alongside elected representatives who sit on both the local authority and Welsh Assembly and are paid for both? There are only so many hours an a day, after all
Ted, it is in fact the model that all Councils are required to follow under the Local Government Act 2000 and which cannot be undone. I do not like the Cabinet system but it seems that there is no real alternative and if you are going to pass these sorts of additional responsibilities to local Councils it is the only model that makes sense.
Your history is of course wrong. You are right that schools were allowed to deteriorate in Swansea, that the Leisure Centre closed and that the bids for the Metro system all occurred under a cabinet system but it was Labour that was running the Council at the time, not the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems have started to put these right, using the Cabinet system, of course.
All Cabinet decisions in Swansea are made in public. In fact transparency and openness in the City has improved since 2004. It is still not what I would like but that might illustrate how bad it was under Labour.
How many hours do you want us to work. I do over 70 a week and am working 7 days a week most weeks. AMs and Councillors are paid for their responsibilities and the work they put in and I am no different to anybody else.
I am curious what was wrong with the arrangement pre-1996. And why is bigger better?
Interesting survey of the possible future of local councils.
Being also an instinctive democrat like yourself I would see it differently to you on this one.
Centralising social services and education can also be a good thing. Why? Because the National Assembly is an elected body while councils are not.
Jane Hutt’s education policy has brought much better schools with facilities by shutting down rural schools and amalgamating. Bringing more pupils together and concentrating resources.
Jane Davidson has shown that environment should also be in the hands of those democratically elected rather than those who are not. She stepped in to save the windfarm being turned down in Carmarthenshire, which can also be environmentally positive.
Those with the higher academic knowledge who are elected should be setting the rules, not local councils.
“Centralising social services and education can also be a good thing. Why? Because the National Assembly is an elected body while councils are not.”
Poppycock! I would not trust the WAG to run its own daycare unit. For example, when the issue of asbestos came up in Welsh schools, Carwyn Jones’ response was this was for local councils to deal with. Which is true, but do they have th money to deal with this? No they do not.
Michael, you’re confusing two functions. The National Assembly is a legislature, while the Welsh Government is the executive.
In addition, local authorities have the latitude within their own budgets to prioritise. Their latest favourite excuse – “The Welsh Government hasn’t given us enough money” is as old as time itself, but they think it has been given added impetus because of impending, expected cuts to public services. It’s rather convenient, because it means they don’t have to explain away their own individual mismanagement of public funds, such as the Icelandic banks fiasco.
If we want to get through this recession, we all need to stop blaming one another and start thinking in new ways when it comes to delivering services.
Duncan, your view of the annual sparring match that takes place between local councils and the Welsh government is a bit unfair. Whilst it is true that councils blame government for not giving them enough resources, it is also true that government ministers use councils as a whipping boy and blame them for all sorts of things, not least a failure to deliver government policy that they have failed to fund properly.
This is really the subject of another piece but part of the problem is that since Heseltine’s abolition of the poll tax and Walker’s peculiar Welsh solution to how this would be paid for, 80% of a council’s income comes from central government. This leaves them very little room for manoeuvre. The problem is exacerbated by the small size of many councils thus limiting the scope for efficiency savings and the build up of sufficient reserves. Thus when the downturn hits it hits badly.
To be fair, in the current funding round there are very few examples of council leaders complaining of insufficient funding. They recognise that they got the same uplift that the Assembly did. All are making difficult decisions but are justifying that by pointing at the downturn and the role of central government in causing that. I believe that this is reasonable.
As for the Icelandic banks there were a few local councils affected by this but there is little evidence that in the short term at least it has had much impact on their finances. Most have found ways of managing the loss and are working to get the money back. The pressures that councils face are much more fundamental than that and include loss of income due to the recession, the cost of the teacher’s pay award, additonal funding pressures as a result of government legislation, the cost of pensions and many more factors.
If you have evidence of mismanagement you should notify the Wales Audit Office.
Apologies, Peter. My use of the term mismanagement is closer to the private sector definition, rather than suggesting any financial impropriety in office, and I’m sure you are right when you say that there is fault on either side of the funding equation. As such, I stand by my last point.
Peter,
You are wrong to suggest that Plaid’s natural instinct is to centralise-far from it. The Health re-organisation had to take place because the re-organisation you signed up to with Labour when in coalition, was unaffordable and an admistrators charter.
However, some of your thoughts on how we manage the inevitable Local Government re-organisation are interesting and welcome. At long last, we are all talking about the inevitable and how we do this while holding up local demoracy, is a huge challenge.
Thanks to devolution, gone are the days when such decisions are made by a meddling Redwood, basing some of his decisions on spite and not community needs.