By Eric Pickles, self-styled champion of localism (the Tories’ word of the month) has come up with a bizarre proposal for devolving power downwards in his new consultation on council tax, published today.
Under the plans if councils want to increase the tax above a set ceiling – which could be the rate of inflation, according to the Daily Telegraph - they would have to submit the plans to local referenda, costing tens of thousands of pounds. However, as the referendum would be held after the increase came into effect, the council would have to refund residents if the difference if they voted for the smaller increase.
This of course comes after he has showed his hands-off approach to freeing local government from the shackles of Whitehall by naming and shaming councils over how much they spend on their local newspapers and ridiculing ‘non-jobs’ (which often turn out to be quite useful roles).
Only an idiot would be taken in by the notion that there’s a real choice here. My hunch is that, if local councils are forced to conduct a binding local poll to ask if they can raise council tax by so much, the majority of residents would already be conditioned - by knowing the alternative is a legal obligation to set a lower tax rate - to provide a two-fingered response. It's a different proposition from the case of some local authorities who have already put a range of tax and spend options to their residents.
If you have to ask... the saying goes. Any genuine effort to promote devolution to local authorities and encourage innovation and responsiveness has been, in an instant, nobbled by the crude centralising reach of this new diktat.
In practical terms, it will probably mean that - given the length of time it takes to put a council budget together – councils will have to waste money on putting together two budgets – one on the basis of the government’s ceiling, and one on the basis of their referendum offer. That, and the cost of the referendum itself, will be a massive waste. Every year? Councils soon would stop bothering.
On Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Pickles observed that referendums could be held at the same time as elections. Wow, he gets his brief. Like many councillors, I’m elected once every four years.
Even councils elected by thirds have a year off. Perhaps it will be easier in a non-election year to give up the pretence of having any autonomy over our own budgets and just accept what the government has put on the table.
To pretend it’s anything but capping with a crude populist twist is to take local councillors of all parties for fools.
Labour went some – but sadly not quite all of the way – on giving councils the assurance that they could set the council tax which they thought was appropriate for their communities’ needs.
The ConDem government’s true instincts have been shown up in this move. To give them the benefit of the doubt, if they ever believed the rhetoric, they’ve certainly been captured by the Whitehall-knows-best mindset after only a few weeks. However they try to dress this up, this isn’t a truly empowering proposal. Wonder what the Tory – let alone the Lib Dem – councillors think about it?
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The proposals are a disgrace because they rig the system in favour of the Right. Referendums will be forced if a council wants to raise tax to increase spending on public servies (which is what left-wingers believe in), yet there will be no forced referendums if a council wants to cut services (which is what right-wingers believe in).
This is gerrymandering on a criminal scale and is designed to promote right-wing ideology. Labour must fight against this wholeheartedly.
Indeed by using the very fact most of the public cannot really see exactly how their taxes are used (who by the way is meant to communicate this because most Councillors are not privy to this information under the Council structures we currently have ;) ) Tories know they can encourage people to give them the support they need to cut back on taxes and services.
The whole system under these rules will permit Tory Councils to do what they want with the public behind them lol.
The whole structure favours the Right position in any case so this should be a breeze for them.
Northern, how do you propose to fight this?
When Labour councils try to introduce unpopular tax rises they'll get voted down in a referendum, yet when Tory councils try to introduce unpopular services cuts they'll have no such problems.
This is something we should be getting extremely angry about. It's like 1986 all over again, when Thatcher abolished the GLC and the metropolitan councils because the people in those areas voted Labour.
I do not know if you remember Northern but I did warn that the PLP will be paralysed because of it's position on policy. By conceeding to far to the right they can hardly challenge the position without being laughed at.
They paralysed themselves.
I did say this would happen.
Now that there is a very small chance (I do not think it will happen but the PLP are not me) of a coalition collapse they are in an even stickier mess because if Labour prevailed in a General Election they would immeditaly get back to business as usual and screw the poor and getting back to the serious business of making money and looking after their Oxbridge pals in the City and Civil service.
So there is not really much they can do ;)
They have imprisoned themselves and silence is all they will have and rely on a few technicratic details on policy or attack the basic principle of cuts.
Remember you guys are speaking out because you care and your interest in politics is thematic...and you are not driven to promote yourself or your grand career.
Whether you're left or right, nobody should support a manipulation of the democratic system like what Eric Pickles proposes.
Many of the Think-tank backers want tax cutting measures and they pay money to Labour Careerists/Ex/Mp's one way or other. It may well be those influences are applying the brakes on acting against it. This would be a suspicion only as I have no facts. Based on the creation of tax cutting legislation by the last Labour Governmnet though I would not be surprised.
I think if you want to know why MP's are being so quiet on this particular matter I suggest you ask one. Why not ask the Labour MP who just placed an article I am sure she would happily respond ;) or even better write to/email a Labour MP.
I think that any move against "localism" would be unwise at a time when the public are hungry to know more about what their politicians are up to.
I think if I were going to send someone off of LL on a mission to battle this policy it would be Mike Homfrey who deals with localsim without verve and with iron like resolve. Woe betide any Tory mentioning localism to Mike lol! I think I would pay to see it ;)
I think many people want to have more say in things as they trust politicians less and want a little more empowerment to fill the huge gap between "them" and "us" so to speak.
It is a cynical policy and you are right it should be challenged and you are right to ask why it is not occuring.
Fear of popular localism I suspect.
"In practical terms, it will probably mean that - given the length of time it takes to put a council budget together – councils will have to waste money on putting together two budgets – one on the basis of the government’s ceiling, and one on the basis of their referendum offer. That, and the cost of the referendum itself, will be a massive waste. Every year? Councils soon would stop bothering."
They'd stop bothering to take more money from me? Boo hoo. It's only a problem if the council wants to increase council tax. In which case they will have to get the public's approval. I live on my own so I pay 50% more Council tax than a couple living together so I welcome this. It might give me a chance to keep control of my taxes.
I wouldn't bet on that. We effectively have mandatory referenda for local tax increases over here. And in the 2001 (.com) recession my county council in Portland introduced a 1.25% income tax for 3 years. The money raised was to be ring-fenced tp pay for schools. It went to referendum and passed.
If a council can justify raising a tax, to address a specific need, and show that other options have been exhausted, then why wouldn't the public approve?
Local Borough rate (who actually collect the tax).
County Council rate
Local Police rate
So do I face the prospect of up to 3 referenda (or referendum)?
In some areas there may be a 4th with the charge for Parish Councils.
Issues like this should be decided by the local yearly/ 4 yearly council elections.
Besides which just how much your council tax is depends upon how much Central Government give to each local council. Despite these so called 'new politics' you can guess which councils are going to be hardest hit.
If you think you can get away with raising council tax higher than the agreed limit, you must ask the permission of your electorate. If they say yes, then fine. If they say no, you look stupid and have to pay the money back.
Sounds eminently sensible to me. Much better that the yes or no is given by the people being served by the council rather than by central government.
BTW, my local council delivers it's 'newspaper' by courier (I kid you not), at a cost of god knows how much. Obviously, I throw it straight in the bin because it is nothing but a PR rag that we are paying for...
so as a tory you are happy for money to be wasted on that when we have elections every year (why london have them every 4 years is something I do not understand), if we have no reason for elections why bother with them and just devolve everything locally and have endless votes ?
Oh the fact many councils will be labour controlled shortly has nothing to do it with it , of course not.
Freezing child benefits is pretty stupid. It harms the poorest for no good reason. It should have been retained as is, but removed from households earning over £35,000 per annum. It is madness that a family with an income of £50,000+ quality for state handouts.
Also, Trident is a total white elephant. It should be scrapped.
With regard to the cost of asking people for permission to raise their council tax above a set limit, this should been seen as a further deterrent to increasing CT above the guideline rate. The cost should be taken into account when setting the council tax rate.
Local politicians should be controlled by the electorate. We should not be complaining when local mechanisms to control them are proposed.
I still believe that this is a good idea.
They are, they're called LOCAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS.
You are of course quite correct.
The sad reality is that many councils are run by a few of the total number of Councillors. Closed executives and so-called scrutiny panels ensure that Council Officers and a few Councillors have full discretionary control of the council in question.
I can easily understand why Councils have become cut-off from the electorate, in my last jaunt as a councillor this was not the case we had committees where free debate occured.
Politics has changed to emulate the Westminster model and it quite simply does not work as you close the door on the talents, skills and abilities of the majority.
If you were to ask me what my council was doing on many issues all I would have to give you is a short list of "achievements" accredited to an executive member (believe me this is not a good idea as it goes to their heads and they start insisting on being called by their "titles"). Not an objective report on the state of the schools themselves on who is failing and who is succeeding.
No information. No influence and no idea.
Between July and Christmas the full Council has only three Assembly meetings in total. The executive have one monthly and many private ones.
So any means whatsoever to open up decision making is going to have to be introduced because if elected members have no real say or even to know what is happening I hate to think what the public make of things.
It is very easy to see why rumours based on lies where perpetuated so successfully by the BNP and to see why they made it here in Barking and Dagenham. The reality is that the Councillors were not equiped to inform the public otherwise and would have felt unable to make a case on the activities of the Council as the source of information they have is the same as that the public rely on, the local paper.
They bang on about bringing power to the people and bringing democracy to the lowest level but they constantly undermine local councils and the devolved parliaments.
School headmasters, doctors and charities have not been elected and yet the three big policy issues that they have announced recently are to be carried out by unelected bodies or individuals. Academies, the health reorganisation and the "big society" will give power to the unelected.
What the ConDem proposals add up to is fragmentation and lack of strategic overview - perfect for their private sector dream when public services will be a thing of the past
I'm going to do some reading about this in the next couple of days and will post something on my blog next week when I have worked out what the plans will mean.
madness
just how many would vote on this
Budgets are set before elections that is where the public have right to vote out people
The Libdems/Cons know that they are going to lose many many councils in the next 5 years so they want to tie the hands of the locally elected labour councils.
Very new politics!!
Personally I don't want councils doubling my council tax so that they can carry out their potty little schemes such as their war on people that don't recycle properly! Lets try to keep some perspective here, this doesn't prevent any council tax rise just the exhorbitant ones.
And can we please stop claiming that every government policy is gerrymandering on the flimsy evidence such as "Libdems/Cons know that they are going to lose many many councils in the next 5 years so they want to tie the hands of the locally elected labour councils".
It is very encouraging to see more and more Councillors placing articles on this site.
Well done!