For councils, reform isn’t really a choice. It’s the only way forward — Alun Davies AM
Last week I sat in the public gallery and watched Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council debate and vote on its budget. As the local AM, I had campaigned against cuts to school crossing patrols and further cuts to street lighting. Happily, both proposals were defeated. The cost was an increase of 4.9% in the council tax.
The people I represent ask me. Why does one of the poorest parts of the country regularly pay relatively high levels of council tax? And see some of the biggest cuts to key services and huge job losses?
I’m tempted to tell them the truth. Certainly, the truth is that an austerity led by the rich who will never themselves feel the cold impact of their policy choices has driven an attack not simply on local government but the whole public sphere and the ethos of public service. But the truth is harder than this. Because the truth is also that we have a structure of governance in Wales where we do not have the capacity to drive forward meaningful change or nurture and invest in public services for the future. And it is the people that I represent who are at the sharp end.
Austerity has revealed the fundamental weaknesses of the Redwood model. But those weaknesses were always there. Concealed by the Blair/Brown commitments to public spending Welsh local government was able to survive. But even with huge increases in funding, it did not thrive. And that’s an important lesson to learn.
Our response to austerity as a Labour movement must be rooted in our values and in our vision for the future of Wales. And that must mean more than writing and making increasingly extravagant speeches where a whole thesaurus is employed to construct new and inventive attacks on the UK Tory Government. Passing resolutions may make us feel good. But resolutions alone do not save jobs or protect key services. And Labour has to be more than that.
And Welsh Labour is a party of government and not a party of opposition. And that gives us a particular responsibility to do more and deliver real radical reform.
My experience of being local government minister is that people from across the country — and including in local government — recognise the case for reform and agree that reorganisation will provide local authorities with the powers and financial strength and resilience to take forward their ambitions and visions for the future of their communities — and working together with the Welsh Government could do more to counter austerity.
In private I heard this time and time again. And then in public these same politicians either look down and mumble a few words or wring their hands at the sheer scale and impossibility of it all. Meanwhile, more jobs are lost and services cut whilst at the same time across the border in England mergers, amalgamations and restructuring happen almost without a murmur.
Last summer I tested the patience of the former First Minister by describing this relationship between the Welsh Government and local government as immature. He didn’t disagree with the view. He just didn’t think that it was very diplomatic to say so. Pointing out the obvious has never been a popular past-time in Welsh politics.
But we need to get beyond this failed relationship and that means a real and honest debate and not simply the acceptance of the lowest common denominator.
We cannot replace reform with the development of an increasingly complex, bewildering and fundamentally undemocratic web of committees, boards, and panels which are taking service delivery away from the citizens we serve and even away from the scrutiny, sight and accountability of the local councillors we elect. That is not reform. It is the avoidance of reform.
And it is not the Labour way. And not what I believe democratic socialism should be. For me, democracy is absolutely fundamental to our socialism and fundamental to the society in which I want my children to grow old. I want more democracy and not less.
This current drift towards bureaucratism will ultimately diminish local government but what many fail to grasp is that it will also diminish the Welsh Government and the emerging Welsh parliamentary democracy.
And that is why I believe that reform is so important.
Reform is important not simply because of austerity and the near-certainty of further and deeper austerity as the reality of Brexit hits our tax income and our ability to fund public services. Reform is important for cultural and political reasons as well. I believe that the challenge of rooting change in democracy and in accountability will lead to cultural change and will allow the relationship to finally mature into one where there is an acknowledgement of the other’s role and place.
I want to transfer more power to local authorities and I want to make them the pre-eminent public body in their respective areas. I want them to provide real leadership, able to direct not simply the delivery of holistic and coherent services but to direct the economic and societal futures of people and communities. Here’s a challenge — how close can we get to the Swiss model of governance where each canton is sovereign rather than the federal government? I would be more than happy to transfer every power possible from Cardiff Bay to county and city halls across Wales.
As a socialist and as someone who is deeply committed to democratic self-government in and across Wales, I want to strengthen and empower local government to be a real radical reforming agent of change. I was clear in a lecture I gave to Cardiff Business School last year that I did not campaign for democratic government in Wales only to create a new city-state in Cardiff.
But unhappily every proposal for change is seen as an attack on local government. There seems to be almost an emotional inability to seriously consider reform. We are asked to believe that John Redwood was right all along.
And this is the tragedy of local government. Unable to move forward it is trapped between austerity and its inability to reform itself.
I started my first speech to local government leaders in the grand and beautiful setting of Cardiff City Hall. A testament to not only civic pride but to civic power and confidence. I told them that I believed in local government. And I would make that same speech today. I did believe in local government and I do believe in local government.
But the choice facing us is stark and it is becoming more so.
A choice between more powers and the greater financial clout and resilience of a reformed system of ten powerful authorities or small councils unable to cope with the pressures of reduced budgets and tied into a cumbersome and debilitating web of committees which both disempower and create a culture of stasis with only the certainty of future decline. And paid for by the tax-payers and public sector workers of Blaenau Gwent and elsewhere. And sooner or later those tax-payers will lose patience with the system and the people who put it in place.
As a democratic socialist, I know where I stand.
Alun Davies is the Assembly Member for Blaenau Gwent.