(2) Local government

What role does local government perform?
1. Coordination of a wide range of public services e.g
  1. School
  2. Social services
  3. Roads and public transport
  4. Environment
  5. Local amenities
The benefits of local democracy inclued
1. Widened opportunities for popular particular, in giving many more citizens a chance of standing for or holding public office
2. Allowed authorities to take account of local needs and interests
3. Ensured a dispersal of power, as local government could act as a check on central government
How had their role changed over time
1. Before 1980 local councils had a fair amount of power, during the 80's spending reduced, lead to clashes
Decline of local democracy
1. Defects of local democracy
  1. Thatcher government set out alternative local-central relations little resistance because of moribund state of local democracy
  2. Local democracy is defective in a number of ways
    1. Electoral turnout is 30-40%
    2. Local elections dominated by national issues, seen as oppion polls
    3. FPTP - many councils one permently dominated by single party
    4. Council tend to be unrepresentative of their local population ( 39% retired)
2. Loss of financial control
  1. Major changes have taken place over funding by central government
    1. The poll tax was introduced as an attempted to increase support for more low spend partys. Causted a back lash as unfair to low income people
      1. Council tax introduced in 1993 as a more fair but progressive may of collecting tax
  2. There are now three main sources of local finance
    1. Central grants provide roughtly half of all local revenue
    2. "uniform business rate" provide roughly a quarter of local revenue
    3. Council tax provides just over one fifth of revenue. Only source of direct funding
3. The rise of "enabling" concils
  1. Local government was important largley because it provided a wide range of public services
  2. Since 1980's local authoritys forced to put services in private hand
  3. This turned the councils from being "providers" into being "enables"
    1. Refuse collection, schools meald and park maintenance have commonly been handed over to private business
    2. Housing assication have taken over most of the UK's public housing stoke
  4. The role of local authorities has been reduced to setting standards and negotiating contracts for services that other deliver
Local government renewed
1. The Greater London Authority
  1. The creation of the Greater London Authority, comprising a directly-elected London mayor and a 25-member Greater London Assembly, therefore marked a significant revival of local democracy
  2. However, the GLA is a much weaker body than the GLC of old
    1. It has strategic, but not operational, responsibilities for transport, fire and emergency services, and economic development and planing, and enjoys little financial independence from central government
2. Source of experimentation and innovation
  1. The idea of elected mayors, established by the GLA , is widely seen as an important way of reviving local democracy
    1. Elected mayors both rise the profile of local government and encourage the adoption of bolder and more popular policy initiatives
    2. An example of this is London's experiment in road pricing through the "congestion charge", intro in 2003, which is increasingly being looked to as a model by other cities in the UK
  2. Other political innovations include the use of the postal voting and of electronic voting
    1. Since 2000, local authorities have also acquired new roles in economic development and regeneration, encouraging them to develop strategies to attract inward investment and to improve the local infrastructure
3. Multilevel governance
  1. Local government has been able to counter stronger central control by developing links with other levels of government, notably devolved bodies and EU institutions
  2. In the devolved bodies, local authorities now come within the responsibility of there assemblies
    1. This led to the intro of the STV voting system for Scottish local
  3. Links between local government and the EU have also become more prominent
    1. The EU has been come an additional source of funding, mainly though the European Regional Development Fund and the Social Fund
    2. Virtually every local council in the UK also has a lobbying presence in Brussels
      1. GLA has "London House" in Brussels
      2. Smaller local authorities often achieve representation within the EU through the Local Government International Bureau

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(2) Local government

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	Created by Marcus Danvers almost 11 years ago