7th TED
Strong Local Governments: Community, Strategy, Integration
English Local Government: Too Big to be local; too little
power to be government
6-7 February 2014, Cluj Napoca, Romania
Professor Colin Copus,
Professor of Local Politics
Local Governance Research Unit, Department of Public Policy
De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH
Tel: 0116.257.7819 @ProfCopusLG
Email: ccopus@dmu.ac.uk web: www.dmu.ac.uk/lgru
Local Governance Research Unit
"Tip" O'Neil: Former Speaker of the House of Representatives
All politics is local
Local Governance Research Unit
Winston Churchill on being offered the Local Government Board in
the1906 Government
There is no place in the
government more
laborious, more anxious,
more thankless, more
cloaked with petty and
even squalid detail, more
full of hopeless and
insoluble difficulties
Local Governance Research Unit
A Quick history of English Local Government: 1
• 1835 Municipal Corporations Act (introduces
democratically elected councils)
• The Metropolis Local Management Act 1855 (created the
Metropolitan Board of Works, for London, indirectly
elected)
• 1889 Local Government Act (creates elected county
councils, including a London County council, replacing the
MBW)
• London Government Act 1899 (creates 28 London
Boroughs)
• London Government Act 1963 (creates GLC and 32
London borough councils).
Local Governance Research Unit
A Quick history of English Local Government:2
• Local Government Act 1972
– Reduces county councils from 58 to 47
– Reduces district councils from 1,249 to 333
• Local Government Act 1985 abolishes the GLC and the six
Metropolitan Counties
• Local Government Act 1992
– Introduces the creation of unitary councils
• Greater London Authority Act 1999 (creates the mayor of
London and the Greater London Assembly)
• Local Government Act 2000
– Introduces executive directly elected mayors and council
leaders and cabinets
Local Governance Research Unit
The Structure of Local Government in England
England
Mayor of London &
The Greater London
Assembly
32 London Borough
Councils. City of
London
36 Metropolitan
Borough Councils
27 County Councils
55 Unitary Councils
(can also have parish
Councils)
202 District Councils
Aprox 9,000
Parish Councils
Local Governance Research Unit
London Boroughs
Local Governance Research Unit
London Boroughs: Political Control
Local Governance Research Unit
The
Counties
Of
England
Local Governance Research Unit
Local Government: A Party Paradise
• Pre-1835 local government is controlled by a Tory-Anglican
elite
• Post-1835 local government is largely a Liberal nonconformist elite
• But candidates hid any national party affiliation behind a
range of non-party labels such as:
– Moderates, reformers, economisers, improvers,
progressives, citizens; any thing but tell the voters
they were Conservative or Liberal Party supporters
Local Governance Research Unit
Councillors in England May 2013:
Type of
Council
Con
Lab
LD
UKIP Gn
Others
County
1116
538
352
147
22
79
Unitary
1219
1167
422
13
36
254
London
Borough
713
875
244
1
2
26
MBC
397
1714
247
1
21
64
District
5116
1739
1251
13
62
644
Totals
8,561 6,033 2,516
175
143
1,067
Local Governance Research Unit
Councillors in England:
Three main parties
– 17,110 councillors
– 92 % of England’s total councillor
population
Local Governance Research Unit
Councillors in England:
• Small Parties and Independents
– 1,510 councillors
– 8 % of England’s total councillor population
– 1,067 Independents
– 32 from 6 small parties (excl Greens and UKIP)
– 93 RA and political associations
Local Governance Research Unit
399 parties and political associations registered with the
Electoral Commission
Local Governance Research Unit
Small Parties with Councillors
Mebynon
Kernow
The Liberal
Party
SDP
Respect
UKIP
BNP
Greens
English
Democrats
Local Governance Research Unit
Small Party Numbers
UKIP: 175
Liberal Party:15
Respect: 7
Mebyon Kernow: 4
BNP: 2
English Democrats: 2
Social Democrat Party: 2
Local Governance Research Unit
Characteristics of English Local Government: 1
• Creature of statute
• No independent or constitutionally protected right to exist
• Boundaries, shape, size, structure, powers, roles,
responsibilities and functions are set by central
government
• Ultra-vires
• Funded locally and by central government
• Very big – the largest units of local government in Europe;
size of English councils represents the victory of
technocracy over democracy
Local Governance Research Unit
Characteristics of English Local Government:2
• Council boundaries do not reflect natural (or any) communities of
place; rather they are administratively convenient lines on a map
• Points of the compass councils:
– East Staffordshire
– North East Derbyshire
– South Norfolk
– North Shropshire
– East Hampshire
– West Berkshire
– West Lindsey
– Mid Suffolk
Local Governance Research Unit
Characteristics of English Local Government:3
• ‘AND’ councils
– Redcar and Cleveland
– Kings Lynn and West Norfolk
– Basingstoke and Deane
– Brighton and Hove
– Bath and North East Somerset
– Shrewsbury and Atcham
– Oadby and Wigston
– Blackburn with Darwen
Local Governance Research Unit
Characteristics of English Local Government:4
• And these places just don’t exist
– Three Rivers
– Sandwell
– Newham
– Kirklees
– Tendring
Local Governance Research Unit
Characteristics of English Local Government:5
• Synonymous with service provision, rather than political
representation and government
• Not seen as a competitor to central government, more an
agent of central government
• Dominated by the three main parties
• Run on party lines
• The party group system: councillors meeting in private to
decide what they will do in public and discipline members
who do not comply or express dissent
Local Governance Research Unit
The Local Government Act 2000
• Executive arrangements in all councils with populations
above 85,000
– Directly elected mayors (a referendum required)
– Indirectly elected council leaders (no referendum
needed)
– Council cabinets (maximum of 10 members)
– Directly elected council cabinet
Local Governance Research Unit
Three Scenarios for Local (sub-national) Government
• Doomsday Scenario
• The Sunlit Uplands
• Copus’ ‘Flight of Fantasy’
Local Governance Research Unit
More of the Same?
• Reduction in the status and functions of elected
local government
• Financial restraint and control from the centre
• Partnerships and ‘governance’ continues to replace
government
• Networks of unelected and unaccountable public
(and private) bodies continue to erode local
government to become the most powerful players in
sub-national government.
Local Governance Research Unit
The Peripheral Local State
Un
Accountable
Contested
Public
space
Local networks
Unaccountable
contested
public space
Supra-local networks
Elected
Local Govt
Accountability
But no power
Local Governance Research Unit
Sunlit Uplands
• General competence
• Localism and decentralisation… leads to local govt
• …attracting roles and responsibilities from regional
bodies and quangos
• Cross boarder co-operation to replace regionalism
– Councils to decide partner councils and extent
• The power of influence (LEPs)
• Extension of economic development and trading powers
• Elected mayors and mayoral councils with more political
powers
Local Governance Research Unit
Copus’ ‘Flight of Fantasy’
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Smaller councils
Less party control (new voting system)
Legislative / ordinance, powers (not mere by-laws)
Constitutional protection
Control over own boundaries
A wider tax base and taxation powers
Power to decide how and what to provide
Underpinned by wide use of citizen called referendum
Local Governance Research Unit
Re-Positioning Elected Local Government
• A new purpose, to:
– Bring accountability to governance networks
– Question, shape, challenge and direct network
members individual and collectively
– Provide a democratically legitimised direction to
supra and local networks
– Shape inter-network activity and co-ordinate network
activity..
– Above all provide sorely lacking democratic
legitimacy
Local Governance Research Unit
Pericles c. 495 – 429 BC
Here each individual is interested
not only in his own affairs but in
the affairs of the state as well:
even those who are mostly
occupied with their own business
are extremely well-informed on
general politics -- this is a
peculiarity of ours: we do not say
that a man who takes no
interest in politics is a man
who minds his own business;
we say that he has no business
here at all.
Local Governance Research Unit
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America ( 1994, p:63)
The strength of free peoples
resides in the local community.
Local institutions are to liberty
what primary schools are to
science; they put it within the
peoples’ reach…without local
institutions a nation may give
itself a free government, but it
has not got the spirit of liberty
Local Governance Research Unit