Government Needs to Fund Growth

The Local Government Association is making headlines today calling on the Government to create a £250m contingency fund to allow local authorities to fund the pressures created by growth. It is good news that this issue is at last making the headlines.

Hazel Blears has said she needs to sit down with every local authority and look at the evidence - does this mean that she will accept delegations, because my understanding is that Government Ministers no longer meet delegations from local government?

Cambridgeshire is the fastest growing County in England, and the failure to accept growth as an issue has a huge impact on services - bearing in mind that 2/3 of our funding is from Central Government and it is about time we got a fair deal.

To be honest that funding issue has an impact on all our public services, not just those provided by local government; Cambridgeshire gets a raw deal.

The Government punishes good behaviour

Today’s report from the Healthcare Commission is quite damning; 25% of trusts are failing to meet standards for infection control. Link this with the report on Maidstone and Tunbridge NHS Trust which highlighted that Central Government targets were a factor in the appalling c-deficile infections and deaths. The NHS has failed to deliver on Government promises on access to dentistry and many trusts continue to overspend. Alastair Darling rewarded the failing NHS with a 4% increase in funding.

Local Authorities are not perfect, but they are the only area of the Public Sector that has delivered on the Government’s efficiency agenda and, overall, have shown huge improvements, despite being massively hampered by the Government’s target-setting agenda which has severely limited the ability to deliver to a local agenda. Alastair Darling gave Local Government a 1% increase in funding.

We need to recognise the impact of this. The limits on what Local Authorities can deliver in many areas of Education and Adult Social Care have knock-on effects on the rest of the Public Sector and guarantee additional burdens in future years.

There can be only one reason for Alastair Darling’s decision, and that is because local Government can raise additional taxes. Local Government are, once gain, being asked to do Government’s dirty work and raise Council Tax above inflation.

Local Government Association Conference

Not really posted much this last week because I was away at the LGA Conference. It was an interesting few days and I would like to have blogged about it - but it was difficult to fit it in.

The week started on a high because of the news that Eric Pickles had been promoted to the Conservative Cabinet as Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government. He is a good friend to us over here in Fenland and has visited on a number of occasions, largely because of his links to our Leader and ex-Conservative Party Agent, Geoffrey Harper. I am pleased for Eric, he is a great down-to-earth up front politician, the sort we need more of. I am pleased for Local Government too; Eric gets what being a Councillor is about, he will certainly make sure the Department he shadows are kept on their toes.

The major speeches of the week were really about the Conservatives and the Labour Party trying to out-localist each other. From my perspective the Conservatives won hands down. Now, I know I would say that anyway and also that cynicism gets in the way because of the way New Labour has behaved since 1997. However, I think my thinking goes a bit deeper than that. The Labour Party's answer to localism is to pass pots of funding down to grass roots and cut back on targets - all that is welcome and good news (if it happens) but it is only half the answer. The Conservative approach is to pass as much decision making as possible down to the grass roots, almost to challenge National Government to justify retaining power at the centre.

It is far and away the better way forward. The way Local Government has embraced the efficiency agenda when Central Government has languished as its old inefficient, over-bureaucratic self is pure evidence of where the quality and efficiency lies in our system.

I recognise it is easy for an opposition to take the high ground in this area, but I hope and believe the Conservatives mean it. I am sure Eric Pickles does and David Cameron has been close to this agenda since Day 1 of his leadership campaign.

By the way, Simon Hughes spoke to the Conference. He managed to claim that the Lyons report said something it didn't. A typical Lib Dem speech really.

Government to Dictate Council Structures

I have been at the LGA assembly today. It was fairly interesting, not least because the Government published its local Government Bill yesterday, so it was an obvious topic of conversation.

Phil Woolas, Minister for Local Government addressed the meeting and did a fairly good job. He tried to make the point that he wanted to put the argument about restructuring of 2 Tier authorities to bed for 6 years. Unfortunately however, there is a clause in the Bill which allows ministers to instruct local authorities to come up with plans for restructuring.

He tried to claim that this power would only be used in extreme circumstances and, actually I suspect that he personally does believe that. The trouble is Ministers come and Ministers go and come the era of Brown the autocrat it is inevitable that this power will be used to force restructuring.

It is a shame this clause has sneaked in because, apart from that, there is some good stuff in the Bill.