by Peter Joyce
The scope of the activities of local government and the extent of its autonomy is widely varied. In many Western European and Scandinavian countries local government is created by constitutional enactment, and in America it is provided for in state constitutions. In countries which include France, Italy, Sweden and Denmark, local government has ‘general competence’: that is, the ability to perform any function unless expressly forbidden to do so by law. In the UK and Ireland, however, local government has no constitutional status. Its existence is derived from legislation and it may only perform those functions that are expressly allocated to it by law passed by parliament. This situation tends vastly to curtail the autonomy which is exercised by local authorities in these two countries, although in the UK discretionary powers provide some degree of operational and innovatory freedom.
Now we will consider the functions that local government may perform in a liberal democratic political system.
PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN POLICY MAKING
The existence of local government enhances the ability of citizens to take part in the administration of their own affairs. They may do this by voting in local government elections or by serving as elected members of local authorities. Local government thus increases the number of people in a state able to take decisions related to the administration of its affairs.
LOCAL ACCOUNTABILITY
A major advantage of local government stems from the fact that it is administered by elected officials. In English-speaking liberal democracies these are usually termed ‘councillors’. They can be held accountable to the local electorate for the way in which services are provided. In this way the functions discharged by government can be made compatible with what local people desire. There are alternative ways to provide services (such as through development corporations, which have been used selectively in the UK since 1979) but the elected dimension of local government is the key to its responsiveness to local issues and problems.
EFFICIENCY IN SERVICE PROVISION
It has been further suggested that local government is the most efficient way to provide public services. Its size enables local problems (which may be untypical of the nation as a whole) to be addressed, which might be overlooked were all government services administered by larger geographic units such as state or local governments. Local government is also flexible in its approach to problems and has the ability to innovate in an attempt to find solutions to them. In the UK reforms to the management structure of local government introduced by the 1997 Labour government were influenced by experiments in local authorities such as Hammersmith and Fulham, which had installed a mayor and small cabinet to speed up decision making.
PURSUIT OF SOCIAL OBJECTIVES
Local government may serve as a vehicle to advance social objectives such as gender or racial equality which may have a low priority on the national political agenda. It may do so through its role as an employer, purchaser or provider of services. Since the passage of the 1976 Race Relations Act, local government in the UK has had a statutory duty to eliminate racial discrimination and has been at the forefront of developing equal opportunities policies. A wider range of public authorities were given this responsibility in the 2000 Race Relations (Amendment) Act.
The receptiveness of local government to social concerns may help to overcome the problem of marginalization, whereby particular minority groups perceive that the operations of the conventional political system do not cater for their needs. These may be encouraged to become involved in conventional political activity at local level as it presents a realistic possibility that some of their concerns might be addressed. In both the UK and America, a significant number of councillors derive from ethnic minority backgrounds. This involvement may reduce the likelihood of such minority groups having to resort to more extreme forms of political activity that have a damaging effect on social harmony.
LINKING CITIZENS WITH NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
In many countries local government is viewed as a training ground for politicians who later occupy high national office. It may also serve as an institutional mechanism linking local people with national government. This is especially apparent in France where leading politicians sometimes hold elected office in municipal government. This situation provides national politicians with powerful localized bases of support.
ACTING AS A PRESSURE GROUP
An important role performed by local government is acting as a pressure group, putting forward local needs or concerns to other tiers of government and seeking remedies, perhaps through the provision of increased funds to the locality or by changes in central government policy. The early 1980s witnessed some Labour-controlled local authorities in the UK providing confrontational opposition to Conservative government policies which they believed were harmful to local people. The ability of local government to act in this manner is enhanced by its elected base, which implies it is acting at the behest of local majority opinion.
BAROMETERS OF PUBLIC OPINION
Although local government elections should be concerned with local issues, their outcome is frequently determined by national considerations. This arises because, in many liberal democracies, local government elections are contested by the same parties that compete for power nationally. This may mean that the outcome of such contests is heavily influenced by voters’ opinions on the performance of the parties (including the record of the government) at national level. Local government elections may thus provide evidence of the political mood of the nation and serve as a means whereby the general public can exert influence over the conduct or composition of the national government. In 2006, the poor performance of the Labour Party in that year’s local government elections prompted the prime minister to dismiss the home secretary and reshuffle his government.
Question
In what ways can it be argued that local government performs a key role in the operations of liberal democratic political systems?
THE PERFORMANCE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
The benefits which are meant to derive from the operations of local government are not always fully realized. Local government may be unable to respond effectively to contemporary issues. Its organizational base may be inappropriate and its revenue-generating capacity inadequate to offer workable solutions to problems such as urban poverty which are manifested at local level, especially in inner city areas. In such places the demand for services is high but the ability of people to pay for them is low. This tends to drive up the level of local taxes and encourage wealthier people to move away. This situation may result in increased reliance on finance supplied by state or national governments or lead to the delivery of services by purpose-built bodies detached from the organizational structure of local government.
Local government may not always be adequately responsive to local needs and problems. Its ability to act in this way may be diminished by factors such as the working practices adopted by local government officers or the lack of social representativeness of those elected to local office. Party politics may require elected councillors to put the interests of their party above the concerns of those they represent. Services are administered by full-time officers who may put their professional interests above the requirements of those they view as their ‘clients’. In some countries, the political power is centralized within a local authority so that power is wielded by a handful of people. This has the effect of making local government seem remote and unapproachable to ordinary people. The decentralization of locally administered services is one solution to this problem, but it has not been pursued in the UK with the vigour found in other countries such as France and Spain.
Perhaps as a result of these two deficiencies, public interest in local government is low in some countries. In the UK, for example, the turnout in local elections rarely rises above 40 per cent. This suggests that here local government is not particularly effective as a vehicle through which people can take part in government.
Further, in most liberal democracies, local
elections are contested by the national political parties. This means that the outcome of local election contests is greatly influenced by national political issues: factors such as the degree of popular support for the national government may be more influential in determining the outcome of a local election than the performance of the authority.
Central control and local autonomy
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Insight
Local government lacks autonomy and is subject to various forms of control by higher political authorities such as central government.
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In most liberal democracies, local government is subject to a considerable degree of control by national or state governments. This may be exercised in a number of ways.
CONTROL BY THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH
The executive branch may impose a range of controls on the operations of local government. These include specific controls over individual services, limits on local government spending or detailed controls over local government borrowing. In Ireland, central supervision is also exerted over the personnel employed by local authorities.
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Local ‘government’ or ‘administration’?
There is an important difference between the terms ‘government’ and ‘administration’ when applied to local government. The former implies a degree of discretion, usually guaranteed by the fact that local government raises a proportion of its own revenue by taxing its inhabitants.
The latter term suggests that local government has no independence of action and exists to provide services whose content is structured by national or state governments. It is effectively an agent of central government. The extent of local autonomy may be one factor influencing popular involvement in the affairs of local government.
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THE PREFECTORAL SYSTEM
The prefectoral system offers a way in which local government can be controlled by higher political authorities. This involves the imposition of an official appointed by central government to act as its eyes and ears in the localities and provide a link between central and local government, effectively fusing the two levels of administration.
The system whereby a representative of central government (usually termed a ‘prefect’ or ‘governor’) is appointed alongside an elected regional or provincial assembly is relatively common in Europe. This official is the chief administrative officer of the area whose main purpose is to provide a link between local and national government. This is sometimes aided by regional assemblies appointing a board of representatives who meet under the prefect’s chairmanship.
Arrangements of this nature exist in Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Greece, France and Italy. In Italy, the prefect is the state’s representative in the localities (termed ‘provinces’). This official is usually an official of the Ministry of the Interior, but is sometimes a career politician. In theory, the prefect’s main role is to co-ordinate the work of central government ministries at local level, although in practice much attention is directed at the maintenance of public order and security.
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The prefectoral system in France
In France, the prefect (who was termed ‘commissioner of the republic’ between 1982 and 1987) is a civil servant appointed by the Ministry of the Interior and placed in each department and, after 1972, in each region. The prefect formerly exerted considerable day-to-day powers over the departments and their constituent local government units (termed ‘communes’). The extent of such power over local authority actions was subject to variation, but was reduced by reforms enacted by the socialist government in the 1980s. These served to reduce the previously highly centralized nature of French local government. However, prefects continue to wield supervisory powers over local government.
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JUDICIAL CONTROL
In countries in which the powers of local government are rigidly controlled by legislation, judicial control may constitute an important control. In the UK, for example, the courts are able to intervene and prevent local authorities from performing functions which they are not legally empowered to perform and may also force a council to discharge its mandatory duties if it was ignoring these.
Question
What mechanisms might be used to ensure that central government is able to exercise control over the operations of local government?
Local government reform in Britain
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Insight
The reform of local government in England and Wales has occupied a prominent position in the political agendas of post-1979 governments, resulting in important changes to its structure, role and powers.
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Conservative governments between 1979 and 1997 displayed a critical attitude towards local government. They accused it of waste and inefficiency aggravated by poor management and of putting political interests before service to the community. This resulted in increased central control being exerted over local government and a loss of functions with which it has traditionally been associated.
REFORM TO THE STRUCTURE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
The structure of local government has undergone a number of changes in recent years. The two-tier system of county and district councils that had been implemented under the provisions of the 1972 Local Government Act was abandoned in the major urban areas in 1986 when the Greater London Council and the metropolitan county councils were abolished.
The 1992 Local Government Act initiated a move towards creating single-tier, or unitary, authorities throughout England and Wales in the belief that it was more efficient and cost effective for services to be administered by one set of hands.
Local government has also been affected by the development of city regions. These seek to provide for strategic planning in areas that include economic development and physical planning that takes place across the boundaries of local authorities. The aim is to secure a co-ordinated approach to key policy areas linking cities to their outlying areas. The Sheffield City Region, for example, traverses four local authorities in South Yorkshire and five local authorities and two county councils in the East Midlands. The governance arrangements of city regions typically involves an executive board.
FUNCTIONS
Services were also being taken out of the hands of local government and transferred to a range of alternative authorities including joint boards, quangos and central government. The involvement of central government greatly increased in policy areas such as education, which was traditionally viewed as a local responsibility. Government policy has also served to weaken the role performed by local government in functions which include the provision of public housing. Government policy initiated in the 1980 Housing Act resulted in the sale of vast numbers of council houses and much of the work previously carried out by local authorities in the area of what became known as ‘social housing’ became assumed by housing associations.
However, local government has gained in other areas of responsibility. Post-1997 Labour governments promoted the role of local government in new areas of work that include crime prevention and community safety.
CONTROLS OVER LOCAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING
Additional controls were introduced to curtail the level of expenditure by local government. This was justified by the argument that the national government was required to exercise overall control over the level of public spending. Key legislation to achieve this objective included the 1980 Local Government, Planning and Land Act, the 1982 Local Government Finance Act and the 1984 Rates Act.
Estimates of what each local authority needed to spend were drawn up by central government initially in the form of grant-related expenditure. This determined the level of local government grant paid to local authorities by central government, but it was possible to exceed the government’s overall estimate by raising additional funds locally through the rates. Accordingly, ‘capping’ was introduced in 1984, which allowed the government to enforce a ceiling on the overall expenditure of those authorities which were
viewed as particularly spendthrift. In 1990, standard spending assessments were introduced to influence the level of locally raised revenue. Like the previous grant-related expenditure, these limits were also underlaid by the sanction of capping.
The key reform introduced by the Conservative Party which sought to curb local government spending was the introduction of a new source of finance through which local government would fund its operations. The rates (which were a tax levied on property) were replaced by a tax on individuals. This was the community charge, more infamously known as ‘poll tax’. It was designed to enhance the accountability of local government to its residents by forcing all citizens to contribute towards the costs of local government. In this way it was envisaged that high-spending councils would be more readily sanctioned by local electors since exemptions and rebates associated with the rating system resulted in a significant number of local residents having to make no financial contribution to the costs of local services. This new tax became law in 1988 and was first introduced in England and Wales in 1990.