If I was dictator for a day, this is how I would transform local government…

This article first appeared in the LGC briefing.
In his last week as chief executive of New Local, Adam Lent ditches sensible moderation and describes the change we really need: radical integration, radical devolution and radical community power.
Our world demands calibration, moderation and even dissimulation. But the temptation to throw all that caution into the eye of a hurricane is great. I’m going to give in to that temptation. Forget the realities of electoral politics. Forget that Westminster is dominated by the imagination-challenged. If the gods were foolish enough to make me dictator for a day, what would I do?
Forget all the half-hearted, ineffectual, unending efforts at integration.
First, radical integration. I’d bring everything local under the control of councils and democratic regional bodies. Yes, everything: transport, health, education, police, infrastructure, welfare, skills and employment, water, energy – just like the very old days. Forget all the half-hearted, ineffectual, unending efforts at integration. You want to end institutional self-interest, buck-passing and duplication? Just bring all services and all the budgets under the only organisations with a local democratic mandate and let it rip. Or should that be let it meld?
Second, radical devolution. Restructure the state around these new integrated powerhouses. Strip powers, responsibilities and resource from the centre and let councils, who know far more about their areas than any Whitehall official, get on with local strategy and local delivery. In fact, central government should be begging councils to take on more responsibility. Westminster is going to need plenty of bandwidth to deal with a rapidly deteriorating security and international situation. You manage Putin and we’ll manage the potholes (and a few other things).
Whitehall and Westminster never had to earn or deal their way to the powers seized from local areas and which they currently dispense with such a striking lack of positive impact.
And, of course, let’s drop the “earned autonomy” and “devo deal” nonsense. Whitehall and Westminster never had to earn or deal their way to the powers seized from local areas and which they currently dispense with such a striking lack of positive impact. Just radically devolve everywhere and immediately. The incontrovertible alternative is permanent decline delivered by a distant elite in SW1.
Third, community power. What greater integration and devolution mustn’t lead to is lots of little Westminsters and Whitehalls springing up all over the country. That top down, ‘we know best’ mindset that shapes central government (and still far too much locally) is well past its sell-by date. It’s the main reason so much of what happens in this country seems broken. So, open it all up.
Turn local government into ‘community government’. All that new integrated power needs to be owned, shaped and delivered in cooperation not in contest with our communities. They not only deserve a proper voice but actually know far better than anyone what they need and what will work.
Associated with that shift to community power, I’d also issue two lesser decrees. I’d ban the word ‘residents’. People don’t just reside somewhere, they are the lifeblood and the energy of a place and should be treated as such. Instead, let’s use the word that, for some reason, has always provoked bum-shifting in the UK and call people what they are: ‘citizens’. People with rights and responsibilities of course but also expertise, ideas and passion for place.
I’d also abolish the term ‘public services’. A phrase that suggests what the public sector does is a purely transactional arrangement – a health and well-being version of the service sector; Tesco but for homelessness and broken limbs!
A notion that gained currency with the rise of New Public Management theory – an approach that is now entirely defunct. Let’s emphasise instead the community powered future we need, not the transactional past. We should use a much more apt term: ‘collective goods’ or even better ‘collaborative goods’.
And then finally let’s be very clear about the truth of why we need to do this. Yes, efficiency. Yes, democracy. Yes, impact. But really because we can’t do it on our own anymore.
Xi Jinping and our spluttering natural environment have far greater say over our economic fortunes now than Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves ever will.
Fantasise all you want about a future of high growth, buoyant tax revenues and a bountiful Treasury (maybe you’re an MP in election mode). But that’s all it is: a fantasy. We are in the era of permacrisis and the good, stable times are not about to roll. Xi Jinping and our spluttering natural environment have far greater say over our economic fortunes now than Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves ever will.
So, we’ve got to get much, much better at using our very limited resource as effectively as possible to meet the formidable challenges of the permacrisis. Radical integration does that by pooling. Radical devolution does it by localising. And community power does it by augmenting public sector budgets with community energy and assets.
Back in the boring real world, none of this is going to happen anytime soon, of course. Westminster is not only averse to radical change but seems unable to meet challenges head on and be straight with our citizens about appropriate responses. By contrast, one thing Westminster is good at doing is hoarding power and money. The changes above, of course, run totally counter to that particular skill set.
But that shouldn’t mean we ditch this vision and similar radical formulations entirely. Let’s keep them alive however much they get dismissed and ridiculed by the Westminster wiseacres. History is littered with ideas that were unimaginable and undoable until they weren’t. Radical change always gets rejected until the current system hits crisis point and it becomes patently obvious to everyone that something fundamental has to shift. And if there’s one thing we can say about our unpredictable future, it is that there are plenty more crises to come.
