Cialis online
Please wait. Redirecting to RSA Projects blog.

Localism is more than a set of principles

October 15, 2009 by Sam McLean
Filed under: Methods, Philosophy, Politics, Public Policy 

In the last couple of years all the major political parties in the UK have been falling over themselves to talk up their radical credentials. Much of this is filtered through the ‘localism debate’ and ideas surrounding the decentralisation of power and influence away from Whitehall into the hands of frontline staff and local people. As my old boss, Ben Page, said at a recent local government event I attended, “we are all localists now”.

Research being undertaken by the Citizen Power team at the RSA on ‘civic behaviour’ shows this to be a good thing if by localism we mean something like a strategy that aims to radically devolve power and resources away from central control. It is a commitment to what the great American philosopher Stanley Cavell has described as the ‘creative propensity of people to shape the substance and form of their lives’.

But localism is only radical if it becomes more than a set of principles. It needs to be an ethics of civic action. In this sense, localism embodies a radical democratic ethos that assumes significant conditional rights and responsibilities on the part of people to actively shape their lived environment. The idea of people being rewarded for community acts through a ‘community credit scheme’ or reductions to council tax are things we should actively explore as a mechanism for opening up civic action.

Localism seems to me a pragmatic problem-solving approach to some of the most acute public policy problems we are dealing with today. Generating civic behaviour in areas of low social capital, tackling entrenched anti-social behaviour in areas of multiple social deprivations and helping long-term drug addicts to overcome their dependency on Class A drugs are good examples of problems that resist simple rule-driven solutions and which require citizens to be actively engaged if interventions are to work. They need a localised approach to capacity building, citizen-led participation and long-term strategic thinking that cannot be resolved through traditional forms of behaviour change and short-termist thinking.

Our research at the RSA also shows that decision-making aimed at the local, neighbourhood level is the most effective way of building trust between citizens and citizens and public services, and strengthening social capital and civic commitment. It is the level at which place and identity are most likely to be forged. We did not need the MP expenses scandal to recognise the importance of rebuilding trust and legitimacy. General Election turn out has declined by roughly a quarter since 1950 and political party membership has been in sharp decline for the past four decades. According to a recent Ipsos MORI poll, politicians have now replaced journalists as the profession least-trusted by the British public. In fact, 82% do not trust them to tell the truth – the highest negative proportion seen for politicians in the 26-year history of that particular survey.

Both are symptoms of a decline in political legitimacy. It is not, however, a symptom of apathy. Political and civic apathy is a powerful myth that serves to legitimate the rotting infrastructure of representative democracy in the UK. Indeed, the numbers of people – particularly the young – involving themselves in pressure groups and non party political campaigns is rapidly increasing. And interestingly, new research from the US shows that levels of volunteering are thriving despite rising unemployment and economic instability.

We do not need to have read Foucault or Nietzsche or have run deliberative forums to know that consensus so often contains the perverse logic of preventing precisely what it is generated to achieve. My concern is that the political consensus regarding localism is fragile and ephemeral. The extent to which the parties are prepared to redistribute power is a test of their political strength (it is in fact weaker to hoard power). It is also a real dividing line on which to assess the commitment of the political parties and the political establishment more broadly to the virtues of localism and the ideal of citizen power it assumes. To my knowledge, none of the political parties are seriously entertaining the concept of local public services generating and determining their own revenue even within a broad framework of minimum national standards. Without this all talk of localism is superficial and deeply questionable.

Neither is localism necessarily an argument for a minimal or small state as we always hear. It is not an argument for more or less government. Small government did not create Sure Start or introduce the National Minimum Wage. It is an argument for more effective government, which means two things. First, re-thinking the very structure of the state and the relationship between central and local government in which the state acts as a support mechanism for municipalities not their overlord. Second, that public policy problems are addressed in their specificity and complexity at the level at which problem-solving is most likely to work.

Bookmark and Share

Tags:

Comments

One Comment on Localism is more than a set of principles

  1. Reg barritt on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 11:02 am

    2. Dear Sir,

    I have just sent the following to the Govt. Action for Empowerment team to sum up our unsatisfactory local experience of the employment of delegated powers here in Cheshire West and Chester concerning a major developmeNt issue that has been kept secret from us and has failed to engage the local community in consultation. The notes speak for themselves. The way the Politics Show dealt with the matter on Sunday was also utterly unsatisfactory. If you can give a view of where we might challenge what has gone on more effectively I would be grateful. I have run out of options while CWAC continue to ignore us and push on with their highly questionable plan to foist Chester University on us and buy up a private development nearby at huge cost we feel is not best value for our money.

    Many thanks

    Reg Barritt

    COMMENT TO GOVT. COMMUNITIES EMPOWERMENT WEB SITE/TEAM:

    Dear Sirs,

    The attached eight points of criticism of Cheshire West and Chester’s handling, or is it more correct to say mishandling, of the disposal of Chester County Hall in a secretly negotiated and processed preferential restricted sale to Chester University and an unexplained financial deal to move to the new HQ Building (as featured on the NW Politics Show Sunday 25th October) should tell you that your direction to LAs to engage with communities in tandem with new delegated powers has been an utter failure here in Chester.

    Check out the local press (Evening Leader, Chester Chronicle and Chester Standard) for a flavour of the controversy and discontent this imposed scheme has generated. Politicians wonder why more and more people are turning to vote for such extreme parties as the BNP? Part of the truth of that lies here. It is not just on racial etc grounds.

    You may note the Government Office for the North West and Secretary of State for Communities have refused to involve themselves in this issue; and in my case the GONW mislaid, so they say, my two requests to them to call the plan in before it was passed, only dealing with my third submission made a few days after the planning permission for change of use was given…and then telling me they could not field that request because it had arrived after the planning permission was given. I was then directed to the SoS Communities to ask for the permission to be revoked largely on the grounds shown in these eight points. He refused to respond directly to me sending the matter back to the GONW to fob me off with his refusal to revoke the permission pending this local community getting proper public consultation in advance of any planning decision.

    Marks out of ten for your method of actually dealing with this public accountability the Community Empowerment directive demands of a best value council such as CWAC? Obviously no marks, while some issues remain for the Ombudsman to deal with; or more likely evade dealing with, in due course.

    By the by, the Politics Show failed to make a fist of coverage of the issue; although they at least albeit very slightly outlined it to the public of the North West in their show on Sunday.

    To sum up locally many of us are very disappointed, frustrated, angry and lacking confidence in CWAC, GONW, SoS and government commitment to accountability and transparency.

    Yours sincerely

    Reg Barritt
    99 Hartington Street
    Chester CH4 7BP

    General Secretary
    Handbridge Residents Council
    We Live Here

    *No fancy titles, just a resident, and working for no pay and no expenses at my own cost for my community…and being disregarded with the rest of my community.

    CONCERNS THAT HIGHLIGHT THE FAILURE TO IMPLEMENT THE ACTION FOR EMPOWERMENT LEGISLATION BY CHESHIRE WEST AND CHESTER COUNCIL IN THE CHESTER COUNTY HALL DISPOSAL CASE IN TERMS OF CONSULATION WITH LOCAL COMMUNITY:

    The leaders of this Authority have fended off all attempts by its public, the opposition in Council, and some of the controlling Conservative group’s own councillors to engage with us in public consultation over this major plan or indeed any plan to dispose of County Hall. Any better ideas that were out there are still out there because this Council has refused to engage with its electorate and ratepayers to find out what we think or deal with our concerns. A best value LA has been obliged since April 09 to inform, consult and involve the public in an issue like this as required by the Government’s Action Plan for Empowerment; but this Best Value Local Authority has failed to fulfil that responsibility.

    Delegated powers have been used as a bludgeon to repress any questioning of a prejudiced plan that seems to have no substance and which is highly questionable. There is no proof that the deal that is being done is best or any sort of value. Ratepayers are highly sceptical of the value of the deal to move to the new HQ building, and many believe it is more a move to bail out the developer, who is sitting on an expensive empty building, than to in any way improve the state of the council and its service. This is a double whammy for many of us ratepayers, already suffering the effects of the credit crunch.

    Council Asset Management Strategy has been improperly discarded. Public consultation is asked for in it over disposal of any public estate but this LA has cynically employed the incredible tactic of stating County Hall is ‘Private Offices’ to claim that public consultation is not needed. The council debating chamber and other public services have operated here for many years. The Council Chamber is still used regularly for social events; and tourists have been taking breakfast in the building recently.

    The Local Government Act 1972 and other UK and EU guidance requires best practice in valuations of this sort of disposal to start with unrestricted open market commercial testing. Given that has not been done we need to be sure appointed independent Royal Institute of Chartered valuers give both an unrestricted and restricted preferential sale valuation to ensure the rules on disposals are met. Actual valuation figures aside, we do not know that has been done. Yet RICS own best practice guidance asks valuers to make themselves known to the public and consult with them over public disposals and transfers. The valuers in this project have not made themselves known to the public AND this council has refused to tell the public who the valuers are or what the instruction for valuation is that they have given to them.

    CWAC has failed to declare a prejudicial interest in the disposal, and in turn the Government Office for the North West (who incidentally lost two submissions we made asking for the matter to be called in before the change of use proposal was passed in planning) has failed to call it in, and to follow the Secretary of State has made the mistake of now not revoking this plan; which is a major departure from the local plan. That is the same Secretary of state for Communities who has issued the Action Plan for Public Empowerment who sees no reason to question the way this disposal is being handled.

    Chester University is seeking expansion here, there and everywhere in Chester. Yet this Council has been negligent in not recognising that those plans need a cumulative environmental impact assessment. Had this been commissioned local residents would certainly have had the chance to engage with Council over this plan as well as over all the other related development issues university expansion in Chester has raised. Assurances to local Handbridge residents that the University moving in to County Hall will have no major adverse implications for them do not hold water. We are insulted to be talked at and down to with that suggestion.

    County Hall itself has very limited parking. County workers already use Handbridge as a free car park and will continue to do so. Additional parking and residential MO needs that come with the University’s arrival will indeed have a serious impact on a residential area already carrying a large bank, College of FE and three schools in a small and compact location.

    Local people should have been treated in this case in a caring way to accountable and transparent consultation. We have been treated with indifference and our interests disregarded by a dictatorial council. You need only to have witnessed the meeting of the 23rd Sept. at which the controlling Conservative group behaved appallingly towards both the political opposition and the public attending when they destroyed attempts to have an open debate on this matter to appreciate that. I am appalled that the public, including many of my elderly neighbours, were forced by cynical filibustering tactics to wait over four hours for the matter to be tabled; and even then the debate was sabotaged and made meaningless. Most left disillusioned and very angry indeed.

    If the executive of this council have succeeded in getting their way over this matter they have also murdered local democracy in the process.

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!