Local government reorganisation is the kind of thing that doesn’t excite all but the most extreme policy nerds and immediately bores everyone else stiff.
The slight issue with that is that it’s really important.
It’s not important in a fun way like an election or a new train station, but functional local government makes our lives better in myriad ways that we often only notice when they stop working.
If the new focus on devolution is to succeed, the focus needs to not just be on creating a new cadre of regional celebrity Mayors, and get down and dirty in the reality of how many public services are delivered and that, unfortunately, means we all should pay more attention to how local government is structured.
If done properly, local government reorganisation is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get serious about local politics. That means paying councillors more, introducing SpAds for local government, and (whisper it) building a proper regional political class that can push back against Whitehall’s obsession with hoarding power and money.
Councillors Should Be More Than a Call-Centre for Underfunded Social Services
One of the less glamorous realities of being a councillor is that a huge chunk of the job involves chasing officers to sort out individual casework. Fly-tipping, dog poop, noisy neighbours and even the occasional escaped goat – the bulk of a councillor’s inbox is just casework. And while casework is important, it shouldn’t define the role.
Councillors should primarily focus on shaping policy, scrutinising budgets, and holding local services to account. Instead, many find themselves bogged down in the day-to-day minutiae of neighbourly dispute, not because they want to, but because residents have nowhere else to turn. This reactive, customer-service-style politics does little to address long-term structural problems.
If councillors are to play a meaningful role in local government, they need time and resources to think beyond individual local issues and focus on the bigger picture.
Pay Councillors Properly – or Stop Pretending It’s a Viable Job
For all the rhetoric about ‘levelling up’ and ‘empowering communities,’ local politics in Britain remains stubbornly amateurish.
Councillors – who make decisions on billion-pound budgets – often juggle their responsibilities with full-time jobs, meaning they struggle to give the role the attention it needs. Some councils are effectively run by a handful of retired people and the occasional enthusiastic hobbyist. This is not a recipe for high-functioning local government.
One obvious fix is paying councillors a decent salary. Right now, the allowances for councillors are often paltry, especially outside major cities. On average, the LGA says our councillors only get an allowance of £7k and that is supposed to go to local issues (although it functions as salary). If you want a system where only the independently wealthy or the retired can afford to be councillors, then fine – keep things as they are. But if we actually want a representative sample of people of professional age working full time to run our cities and towns, we need to pay them accordingly and give local administration the respect it deserves.
Better pay would allow more people to take up full-time roles in local politics, improving both decision-making and accountability. Right now, too many council decisions are made by officers with limited scrutiny. That’s not necessarily because officers are power-hungry, but because many councillors simply don’t have the time or expertise to challenge them properly.
SpAds for Local Government – Because Policy Is Hard
Westminster politicians are supported by legions of advisers, researchers, and more than half a million civil servants. Local council leaders or Combined Authority leaders, by contrast, often have a Chief of Staff and a couple of communications advisers. They’re expected to be across everything from housing policy to transport strategy to social care, with barely any support. It’s no wonder local councils sometimes lurch from crisis to crisis.
Just as in national government, these advisers could provide political and strategic advice to council leaders and cabinet members, ensuring that local policies are properly thought through and don’t just disappear into a bureaucratic black hole.
Some will say this is an unnecessary expense. But if Westminster politicians need support to make good decisions, why wouldn’t the people running our cities and counties?
It also makes us outliers internationally. We should follow the examples of France, Germany, and many areas of the US and introduce proper political staffing for our local political leaders.
Ultimately, a well-placed SpAd or even a few could mean the difference between a council that muddles through and one that actually delivers.
Give local Government some powers to raise tax – or, at least fix the main lever they currently have
Perhaps the clearest way of all to empower our local and regional state is to give it the means to raise money on its own behalf. Currently, local authorities can do this through the incredibly broken and regressive council tax and business rates. Mayors have even more limited means of raising money (some have retained business rates), with even a tourist tax seemingly beyond the pale for HMT’s bespectacled naysayers.
A proper system of fiscal devolution would allow Mayors to raise revenue through retaining all local taxation, as well as new infrastructure levies, and other mechanisms that align with their regional priorities. It would give them the ability to plan long-term investments, rather than constantly chasing the next round of government grants.
It would also give them a means of differentiating themselves from their competition and help provide political communities with an incentive to build themselves around these new levers of fiscal power.
Don’t Waste the Opportunity
Ultimately, all of this – better pay, professional advisers, and proper structures – is about creating a stronger regional political class that can deliver for our people. Right now, Britain is one of the most centralised countries in the developed world, with almost all big decisions being made in London. If local government is going to be more than just a badly-functioning and bankrupt delivery arm for Whitehall, it needs serious political leadership and real investment at the regional level.
That means people who see local government as a career, not just a stepping stone or a retirement hobby. It means elected mayors and council leaders who have the power, resources, and expertise to actually do their jobs properly. And it means finally recognising that the best way to ‘level up’ is by giving local politicians the budgets and the organisational tools to shape their own futures.
