The Coalition Government’s new agenda is to change the Big State to the Small State through introducing a localism approach based upon a Big Society. The diagram on left seeks to illustrate this new agenda and some of the challenges within it.
In England successive Governments have centralised power with the balance between Central and Local Government increasingly being tilted towards the former. Big State has prevailed with the public sector being dominated by state corporatism where the biggest challenge has been competence.
The Coalition Government talks in terms of devolving more power and freedom to the local level. From Central Government to Local Government and from Local Government to communities and individuals. It wants a Small State approach and to empower councils, communities and individuals to act locally.
Localism therefore is about empowering councils, communities and individuals within a place to prioritise how resources should be spent and to determine how services should be commissioned and provided. Big Society is the tangible manifestation of that localism in the form of communities and individuals taking responsibility for themselves to commission and provide services.
A Localism Bill is currently going through Parliament to give power to this policy agenda. While councils welcome this approach they have concerns about the capacity necessary to deliver it given the severity of financial reductions. They also have concerns that the Bill provides for the Secretary of State to proscribe what can and can’t happen under this localism approach where he deems it necessary.
Many councils have supported, financially and operationally, the activities of voluntary organisations and have increasingly devolved responsibility and authority to community groups and empowered individuals. This has worked to mutual benefit but is now proposed to go to a different level.
Deconstructing a public service to enable one part of it to be delivered by a community group has to consider a wide range of issues. These include competence, capacity, access to resources, resilience, accountability of the community group and what happens in the case of organisational/service failure.
The development of the community’s capability to deliver this agenda is a key issue.
There are other important issues for councils and community groups in terms of the allocation of council overheads, debt associated with assets to be transferred, existing contractual and leasing commitments and the cost of staff transferred.
Similarly, the magnitude of the political and organisational culture challenges of pursuing an extended Big Society approach to service provision for councils and community organisations should not be underestimated.
Councils are being pulled in two directions. The first is to standardise services to facilitate economies of scale through aggregation of purchasing power – a pull to corporatism. The second is to deconstruct services – a pull to Big Society.
Both have the ability to save money if looked at in discrete packages but will they deliver value for money for the council and the community that it serves overall? The danger for councils is that they become the meat in the sandwich between Big Central Government State and Big Community Society.
*Malcolm Morley is Chief Executive of Harlow District Council and can be contacted via the Editor, email info@lgfocus.com.au The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of his employer.
