The Wardman Wire

This is my first contribution to the “Devolving England” series.

After a vigorous the debate from Garbo’s last article: “The great English parliament debate: Devolving England II” (58 comments and counting), this article tries to tease out some principles of devolution, after a cook’s tour through the different levels of government we may end up with if we simply add an English Parliament to the existing setup.

I sometimes lose track of the sheer quantity and depth of government between my front door and the politicians at the “top”, so I have used a a tour through the levels of government to which I am subject to set the context. Sometimes I feel that I am at the bottom of a monstrous wedding cake of layers of government. I admit that I’m not completely clear what all the elements of all the different levels do, and if those of us who take an interest in politics don’t know – then someone needs to help the general public.

The Tiers of Government

Me

This tier used to have a lot of autonomy, but is increasingly circumscribed.

Parish Council

To be honest I’m not sure which one I’m in, but they only get a small proportion of the taxes raised for local government – and do strictly community level work: parish halls, recreation grounds and similar. They also comment on planning applications. They are (I think) purely facilitative, without the power to tell me what to do.

District Council – Bolsover District

Our Local Council, delivering local services. In our area they work in partnership with the County Council to deliver some services.

County Council – Derbyshire County Council

Where most of the “Regional” powers exist, and where most of the money raised from Council Tax goes. In the case of Derbyshire (and Nottinghamshire next door) the County Councils employ 5,000 to 10,000 staff.

My b̻te noire is the disaggregation and dismantling of Local Councils in favour of sub-regional County setups up to 20 miles away. In my opinion Local Councils are already too big as the smallest unit of effective government Рnever mind abolishing them in favour of a County-level behemoth.

A neighbouring council, Ashfield (in Nottinghamshire), have just had their parking enforcement taken over by the County Council, with the inevitable result being a “parking ticket on anything that doesn’t move” holocaust and advice from friends to “avoid Sutton-in-Ashfield for the next week”. This is an object lesson in what not to do: drive people away from previously congenial towns, and introduce extra travelling and therefore energy/fuel consumption by council staff.

Government Office for the East Midlands

This tier – based in Nottingham – defines itself as:

Welcome to the Government Office for the East Midlands

With eleven government departments under one roof, GOEM is the hub of central government in the East Midlands.

It is our aim to work with regional partners and local people to maximise competitiveness and prosperity in the East Midlands. We want to bring together government policies for a more inclusive society.

Wikipedia differs:

The region, also known as the government office region, is currently the highest tier of local government sub-national entity of England, with only one, London, having a directly elected assembly.

Effectively it is the husk left over after “Elected Regional Assemblies” – an attempt to introduce regional democratic structures in England at time the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments were created in 1998 – failed to take off. Appointed Regional Assemblies (i.e, consultative committees) still exist.

National Parliament

This doesn’t exist yet in England, but would be the equivalent of the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, with wide devolved powers.

UK Parliament at Westminster

A summary from Wikipedia:

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories. It alone has parliamentary sovereignty, conferring it ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and its territories. At its head is the Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II.

European Structures

Again, from Wikipedia:

European Parliament (Europarl or EP) is the only directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU). Together with the Council of the European Union (the Council), it forms the bicameral legislative branch of the Union’s institutions and has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world.[1] The Parliament and Council form the highest legislative body within the Union. However their powers as such are limited to the competencies conferred upon the European Community by member states. Hence the institution has little control over policy areas held by the states and within the other two of the three pillars of the European Union.

Problems and Principles to Solve Them

In summary, it’s a bit of a mess: too many tiers trying to collect power in different ways at different levels, all driven by their own lobby groups and supporters. I’ll try and identify a few problems, and principles that need to be accepted to solve the problems.

Make-work for Politicians

There are just too many of them away from the local coal face. They all need to justify their existence by “doing things” and “making a difference”. Personally, I’m tired of so many people needing to convince voters of their ability to make things change.

Equally, the desire of politicians to tinker cripples the work of those parts of government they are wondering about making the subject of that tinkering. I have seen that in local authorities under threat of abolition in favour of centralising services at County Level: for several years service development stops, staff start watching their backs to protect themselves in the “transition”, all the previous work to build an effective organisation is thrown out of the window, and energy is put into reorganisation rather than serving the public.

So one of my principles is this:

If a reform results in more politicians, don’t do it. Or, at least, don’t do it without abolishing more politicians than you create.

Power and Responsibility are too far from the Bottom

It is truly remarkable that with all this structure, in the UK our lowest effective unit of government (the District Council) is still much larger than those in some other European Countries. And even at that level the trend of recent years has been to move power up the tree rather than down.

We hear a rhetoric of local empowerment and support for devolution to local level from national politicians. Meanwhile, most recently Ministers making these speeches have been busily abolishing dozens of local councils – often over the heads of the local people who indicate support in local ballots.

My second principle (this may be overoptimistic):

Find national politicians who will slash their own rights to micro-manage, and take their hands off the levers of power.

Lack of interest in local politics is a recognised problem. Moving power (and the taxes that pay for that power) down the tree is the only way to rewaken that interest in local politics. To put it another way, the Electorate will take an interest when there is something worth taking an interest in. My favourite suggestion is to reverse the Local Council revenue split – change the 25% or so currently raised locally to 75% and the Council Tax will treble; then they will take an interest.

Jam The Centralisation Ratchet

This is a difficult one. There is a tendency where any decision can be taken to the “next level up” by the losing side, or by those wanting uniformity on their pet issue – whether Regional / National or International. At each stage, if a local decision is countermanded by a higher authority, it can then become binding (or influential) across a wider domain, and subsidiarity and local autonomy are reduced.

Let me take just one example: Max Mosely won a case against the News of the World, and he is now taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights to seek to compel writers and publishers to check with their subjects before publication, and seeking to have a hearing before a judge before publication. Leaving aside the implications for free debate – any such ruling would reduce national and local automony in the area of privacy law.

Subsidiarity means Diversity: Live with it

This is linked with the tendency to increasing centralisation.

Mr A living in area 1 sees that Mrs B living in area 2 is treated differently in some aspect of life. So Mr A demands the same as Mrs B for the sake of “fairness” and to protect “equality”.

The problem is that every time a decision is made at a “higher level” or in a Court of Law that a universal standard must apply subsidiarity is diluted, diversity is undermined, and autonomy is reduced.

We need to accept that at least some Postcode Lotteries are simply the other side of the coin of a belief in local autonomy. So here’s my third principle:

Accept variation, don’t try to impose sameness.

The rub is in which areas of life and governance the same practice must be applied everywhere. That, and the demand by every single issue group or campaign in the country that it must be done for their hobby-horse because their campaign is the fountainhead of justice.

Wrapping Up

I’ve thrown up quite a few questions; I hope that Dave will let me speculate about a few answers later in the series.