Political commentary

Local anaesthetics

Charles Moore

According to Mr Alan Greengross, leader of the Conservative group on the Greater London Council, Conservative

philosophy has always been opposed to a centralised state and in favour of local autonomy. For all I knew he may be right, but Conservative governments, whose ex- istence is more indubitable than that of Conservative philosophy, never seem to have much idea about what they are doing when they tinker with local government. In the early Sixties, a Conservative government invented the GLC. In the early Seventies, a Conservative government invented the metropolitan counties. In the early Eighties, a Conservative government is trying to get rid of both of them.

The aim behind the present plans is simp- ly to reduce local government's part of public spending, and in the process to get the Conservative Government associated in the public mind with the reduction of the rates. Mrs Thatcher's last Government cast unsuccessfully around for a way of doing this for four years, and, when the election came, stuck in rather hasty but also highly specific promises by which the new Govern- ment feels itself bound. Mrs Thatcher's at- titude has generally been to press ahead with cuts, and only to cross bridges like local autonomy and methods of local taxa- tion when she comes to them. So far, however, she has not managed to cross the bridges.

She might be more likely to do so if she actually confronted the objections. Up till now, it has been a Something-must-be-done situation. The 'antics' of Red Ken (why always 'antics'?) must be stopped, children must not be taught Lesbianism in schools, polytechnic lecturers a la lanterne! The result is that when she has proposed anything, she has been outmanoevred by all the experts in her own party who have ex- perience of local government and can show up her ignorance. This may well happen with the proposal, detailed last week by the new minister, Mr. Patrick Jenkin, to take powers to 'cap' rate increases.

What, she might ask, is this 'local autonomy' that so many otherwise loyal Conservatives are ready to guard with their lives? When more than half the money spent by local government comes directly from the central government, it is difficult for councils to claim that they are standing on their own two feet. Many of their duties, notably in education or police, are strictly prescribed by the central government. Councils cannot set the salary rate for their teachers or control any but the most marginal aspects of their police forces. They are little more than agents of govern-

ment. And in most fields, few of us object to their lack of original power. Political control of the police, for instance, would destroy the police's effectiveness and in- dependence, and, although it would be ex- ercised by elected representatives, no one would like it.

If there is any local autonomy, it is the autonomy of the council from its electors. Since the GLC and the metropolitan coun- ties collect their rates through the rate col- lection of the boroughs and since the func- tions of the two tiers overlap, it is unreasonable to expect voters to work out who is responsible for what. In the case of the Inner London Education Authority, free to set its own rate regardless, there is scarcely any relation at all between voter and authority. Even in the boroughs, the counties and the metropolitan districts, where at least you vote for the authority that sends you the rate bill, there is still the fact that only a third of the electorate votes, and that there is no business vote.

The view of councillors, who naturally tend to think that what they do is worthwile, is that voters have only themselves to blame if they do not bother to go to the polling station. But when you think about it, there is something extremely odd about the low polls in local elections. Local elections are synonymous with boredom, but local issues are not. People care tremendously about their refuse col- lection and street cleaning and their schools, and think about them far more often and carefully than they do about questions of national politics. Of course it is true that the mere act of voting is obnox- ious to many, but that is not sufficient ex- planation. People do not vote in local elec- tions because the system is by its nature in- attentive to their wishes.

Is there actually anyone, apart from councillors and council employees, who regards our system of local government, or even the principle of local autonomy, as a guarantee of liberty or the natural right of a free-born Englishman? There is much to be said for the ceremonial mayor, perhaps en- dowed with a reassuring vestigial right to resist tyranny, but not in practice governing anything. There is a great deal of good in very local government, either by the parish, or virtually by the street, where the whole thing is personal. There is almost nothing to be said for the large authorities with huge budgets, whose councillors have neither the time nor the ability to control what their of- ficers are doing.

A version of the local autonomy argu- ment is the local pride argument. This comes on particularly strongly with the GLC. There must be a 'Voice for London', apparently. All other great cities of the world have their equivalent voices. But when you inquire a little further about this voice, you find that it is Horace Cutler pro- moting the London Marathon, or Ken organising free festivals. Worse, it is the devising of a 'framework for London', relating everything to everything else, tell- ing people to go and work on the edge of London and then ten years later telling them all to come back in again, running off to businesses to encourage them to invest, forgetting that their main discouragement is the rates you have set them.

I suppose that I am not really suggesting that Mrs Thatcher should disband local government. The Conservative record on all these reforms suggests that inaction is a safer policy. But the beauty of the present situation is that past Tory incompetence has made the metropolitan counties and the GLC unusually easy to abolish. Mr Peter Walker was never really able to think of anything much for the metropolitan coun- ties to do. Over the years, the GLC has divested itself of housing responsibility and now is about to lose public transport.

If, however, it sets up nothing but joint boards or quangoes to assume the functions of the authorities, the government will make services no more efficient and, after a bit, will find spending just as high. Take the ILEA. The present authority, which, now spends nearly one billion pounds annually, is above all control, and directs education with a centralised detail which extends to deciding the menus in its colleges. (One member tells me that he had quite a long argument in County Hall about whether the menu need include volaille d la princesse with asparagus tips at £3.26.) If, as is rumoured, the Government hands the authority over to a joint board composed of five borough councillors from each borough, there will be nothing to prevent the present habits persisting.

The Conservative group on the ILEA would like it replaced with a directly elected authority, whose members had no duties except education. They would want it to set its own rate and collect it independently. This would certainly mean that those elected would be more noticed by their elec- tors and more interested in education; it would also, by sending parents the bills, break the idea that higher spending must produce better schools. But there is no overwhelming reason why the boroughs should not run their schools separately. The Macmillan Government deliberately made bigger boroughs than the Herbert Commis- sion recommended, so that they could each be their own education authority when the GLC was created, but then gave in and perpetuated the LCC education committee

as the ILEA. Mrs Thatcher does have a chance to reduce the rates, but only if, rather than giving the spending authorities another name, she actually reduces the pretensions and extent of local government.