Davy Jones Consultancy

Council tax is the one tax everyone hates to pay! Why? Because, unlike income tax or VAT, it’s not deducted at source – you get a bill with the amount you need to pay on it.

And unlike our national taxes, you can see very directly in your local area how council tax money is spent. That’s good: local people should feel they have a say over the money they give to national or local government.

But it also means that council tax levels, and especially any proposed increases to them, can be very contentious. Most councils don’t even bother to ask residents what they think about council tax levels – let alone allowing them to decide them. There are very few examples of councils persuading the local electorate to vote for a higher council tax. Milton Keynes in 1999 persuaded the majority of its citizens to vote for a 9.8% council tax rise. And Wooton-under-Edge town council received more than 90% support in a parish referendum on whether to raise the precept by an average of £13pa to find £28,000 for repairs to the local swimming pool. But these examples are far outnumbered by other failed attempts to persuade people to pay more.

Taxes and services

It has always been a deliberate ploy of right-wing parties to emphasise taxes rather than services. The more the two are divorced, it tends to be a no-brainer: do you want to pay more taxes? Er, NO! But if you give people the chance to see how their taxes are used and what they are spent on, and to weigh up whether they are prepared to pay more for better services, the outcome can dramatically change. Then people often agree to pay more.

This is all very relevant now as councils across the land prepare to set their 2012/13 budgets – struggling to deal with the massive cuts in central government grant. Many would like to raise council tax to keep vital services going. But the Coalition has legislated for future council tax rises above 3.5% to trigger a local referendum. And for this year, Eric Pickles is offering a “one-off” subsidy to allow council tax to be frozen.

Pickles’ bribe

Pickles wants to take the credit for freezing council tax across the country, while blaming councils for making cuts (even though it is his cut in grant that is causing them!). And there is a sting in the tail of his bribe – the way council finance works, not raising the council tax this year means having a smaller base budget in future years, which means losing millions in future revenue – more cuts! Pickles even hinted last week that this was his real intention by the offer – to reduce councils’ long-term revenue stream.

Initially councils across the country rushed to embrace Pickles con trick. But it took one brave council – Brighton & Hove led by the Green Party – to call his bluff and say no to the offer, as it would entail much bigger cuts in future years. Instead it proposed to increased council tax by 3.5% (less than inflation).

Slowly other councils have realised the wisdom of such an approach. And despite increasingly desperate appeals and threats from Pickles (no doubt in the name of “localism”), a steady stream of councils – 10 Labour, 5 Conservative and 1 No Overall Control – have now backed Brighton & Hove’s stance. More seem likely to follow.

A small victory

There have not been many victories for common sense in the public sector under the Coalition Government. And preventing Eric Pickles from claiming credit for keeping council tax frozen may seem small beer. But progressive councils and councillors should take note: it is possible to stand up to this Government, to fight for your principles, and win.

What a year!

A year where the political dividing lines were drawn more clearly than ever, here and abroad, where it became crystal clear that:
1) it will be the poorest and the most vulnerable who will be forced to pay for the economic crisis;
2) the bankers who caused the crisis will continue to get away with it unscathed;
3) the political and economic elite have no intention or capability of tacking the linked environmental crisis of over-consumption.

It’s tempting to get out the old “The End Is Nigh” placard. But thankfully millions of people around the world stood up to tyranny and oppression and demanded change. Not just in the Middle East and Africa. But also in the Occupy movements that sprung up around the globe, highlighting the gulf between the 1% of super-consuming scroungers and the rest of us.

Big Society ?
The Big Society finally took off – but not exactly how David Cameron intended. Millions went on strike and demonstrated across the country against the great “pensions rip off”. Occupy camps flourished. More and more people protested over how it could be right for public services to be cut, while those who caused the crisis continued to receive obscene salaries and bonuses.

Local Government
As the most efficient public service and one utterly untainted by any responsibility for causing the economic crisis, local government was of course singled out for the most vicious and unjustified budget cuts. And the Coalition Government made sure that these fell disproportionately on non-Conservative and Lib Dem areas of the country. My own local (Green) council in Brighton and Hove faces losing over one third of its budget in the next few years – an impossible amount to lose without decimating vitally needed services.

We got the Localism Bill – but what a damp squib! It is hard to find anyone in local government who is genuinely enthusiastic about it. And Eric Pickles demonstrated his real commitment to localism time and again by interfering in decisions best left to local councils – such as council tax levels.

Inconsistency
Bizarrely, the Government simultaneously withdrew the duty on local councils to involve local citizens at the same time as reinforcing it in the latest NHS Bill. Meanwhile legal challenges to consultations multiplied, and look set to continue to do so, as people challenge whether the information provided for the consultation or the impact of its outcome have been properly presented and considered.

2012
More of the same but worse, I fear. This is the most utterly reactionary and class-driven government in my lifetime (and let’s face it, that’s a long time – ed). It is determined to let its friends in the City and the markets gorge themselves on vast fortunes and trample over the future of the planet, while public services are stripped of funds and privatised: a return to the Victorian era where the unaccountable rich lorded it over everyone else who scraped a living or fell back on charity. It is not a pretty prospect.
Happy Xmas !

The world is spinning out of control.

A new report (http://bit.ly/tiXfGN) from the International Energy Authority (hardly a bunch of dangerous radicals) says we now have 5 years to significantly reverse the continuing growth in fossil-fuelled power stations. If we don’t, and there is lots of evidence suggesting we won’t, then by 2017 the planet will have reached the point at which we can no longer safely presume we can control climate change – “the door will be closed forever”.

Meanwhile, the Euro economic crisis deepens. Alasdair Darling chillingly argues the situation is “worse than 2008”. Governments topple as the markets dictate what must be done and by whom. Increasingly, the stark choice becomes clearer: democracy or markets.

Sleeping with the enemy
It’s long been a proud point of principle of mine never to agree with John Redwood MP. So imagine my angst when on Radio 4 yesterday he said there was a crisis of democracy in Europe, as governments fell only to be replaced by others (increasingly led by technocrats not politicians) seeking to implement the same austerity measures – “where is the role of citizens and democracy in all this?” Where indeed?

Whatever his cynical motivation for suggesting it, George Papandreou’s proposal of a referendum on the austerity programme in Greece at least raised the point about people having a say in this undemocratic rush to implement “the will of the markets”. Citizens in every country should have a right to vote on the draconian austerity programmes being foisted on them – virtually all the Governments lack a democratic mandate for them.

Who are “the markets”?
In the battle between democracy and the markets, we need to remind ourselves of something very important: there is no such thing as “the markets”. In reality, “the markets” is a term for the formal and informal mechanisms by which the super rich elite decides what is in its best interests. A brilliant recent article in New Scientist (http://bit.ly/nG1Tqw) recently showed that 147 big companies effectively control 40% of the global economy.

And remember these are the same people who brought about the financial collapse in the first place. And the same people who drive the inexorable consumption of the planet’s natural resources and resultant climate change. And I feel obliged to mention that these same people literally consume a vastly disproportionate amount of the world’s resources due to their grotesquely extravagant lifestyles. These people ARE “the markets” that we are told we must obey and which trample over our democracy.

Don’t want to say I told you so but…
In March, I posted a blog - Democracy and the Market – which concluded: “Greater citizen involvement will increasingly challenge the right of the markets to trample all over what people need and want. The dominant issue for the next year or two will be which of these trends wins out - democracy or marketisation.”
Democracy must win this battle – people should decide, not the unaccountable super-rich elite of “the markets”.

Another Care Quality Commission report – another ghastly story about elderly patients being neglected. Local Government managers might well be thinking: “there but for the grace of God, go I”.

Reading the Care Quality Commission report on how one fifth of hospitals might be breaking the law on their poor care for the elderly, it is a salutary reminder of the value of what have become dirty words in recent years – regulation and inspection.
These unannounced inspections found dreadfully poor care in a disturbing number of hospitals. And this from a sector that still has inspections and a national inspectorate, that has not yet suffered massive budget cuts, and that has at least a nominal national and local patient voice.

How worried should we be then about local government?
It is true that there are still inspections for the most vulnerable local government clients – children and vulnerable adults. But the Audit Commission is to be abolished. Regular inspections of all other services will be a thing of the past, to be replaced by “self assessment” and “peer reviews”.

More and more councils are cutting back on senior management posts to save money. Indeed some are cutting out the role of Chief Executive altogether, leaving it unclear where the buck stops. And every council in the land is facing major cutbacks to its services – with non-statutory but vital frontline services under threat.

Many councils still have inadequate mechanisms for involving citizens in service and budget choices. There is no local citizen voice - the ballot box is a somewhat blunt instrument for dealing with day-to-day service issues. The duty to involve citizens is being scrapped (while bizarrely it is being simultaneously strengthened in the NHS).

Accident waiting to happen?
Isn’t it just a matter of time before this toxic combination of service cuts, reductions in managers and clear lines of accountability, a lack of any serious citizen voice and involvement all lead to more terrible local government scandals and tragedies? And the cry will go up for inspection and regulation!

Surely one of the lessons from the CQC report is that the patient voice was not strong enough and not listened to. It is even weaker in local government and due to be weakened further. It really is time that the LGA took a long hard look at its self-regulation model and realised that it is inadequate. Councils assessing themselves is never going to be good enough or acceptable to local people. Empowered citizens must be at the heart of any assessment of local services – otherwise we will end up back with rolling inspection programmes again!

So, as promised/threatened, CLG has produced its one page Best Value Guidance to replace all the previous stuff. You can find it here: http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/pdf/1976926.pdf

The Government has revoked the whole 2008 statutory guidance "Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities", which included general Best Value guidance on commissioning. And the introduction to this new Best Value Guidance reiterates the Government's intention to repeal the statutory duties to prepare a Sustainable Community Strategy and the Duty to Inform, Consult & Involve.

For those of us committed to more and better citizen participation, that is a blow, in my opinion.

But interestingly, the new one-pager DOES include some commitments around consultation.

First, the Guidance makes the following point:
"To achieve the right balance–and before deciding how to fulfil their Best Value Duty– authorities are under a Duty to Consult representatives of a wide range of local persons; this is not optional. Authorities must consult representatives of council tax payers, those who use or are likely to use services provided by the authority, and those appearing to the authority to have an interest in any area within which the authority carries out functions. Authorities should include local voluntary and community organisations and small businesses in such consultation. This should apply at all stages of the commissioning cycle, including when considering the decommissioning of services."

It references the 1999 Local Government Act Section 3 Part 2, which states:

"1) A best value authority must make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

(2) For the purpose of deciding how to fulfil the duty arising under subsection (1) an authority must consult:

(a) representatives of persons liable to pay any tax, precept or levy to or in respect of the authority,

(b) representatives of persons liable to pay non-domestic rates in respect of any area within which the authority carries out functions,

(c) representatives of persons who use or are likely to use services provided by the authority, and

(d) representatives of persons appearing to the authority to have an interest in any area within which the authority carries out functions.

(3 )For the purposes of subsection (2) “representatives” in relation to a group of persons means persons who appear to the authority to be representative of that group."

Interestingly, the new Best Value Guidance then goes on to argue strongly for local consultation especially on budgetary matters in hard times:

"An authority intending to reduce or end funding (where ‘funding’ means both grant funding and any fixed term contract) or other support to a voluntary and community organisation or small business should give at least three months' notice of the actual reduction to both the organisation involved and the public/service users.
• An authority should actively engage the organisation and service users as early as possible before making a decision on: the future of the service; any knock- on effect on assets used to provide this service; and the wider impact on the local community.
• Authorities should make provision for the organisation, service users, and wider community to put forward options on how to reshape the service or project. Local authorities should assist this by making available all appropriate information, in line with the government's transparency agenda."

Personally, I thought the 2008 statutory guidance "Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities" was a good document - full of sensible joined-up thinking. And I thought the Duty to Inform, Consults & Involve was a good thing too on balance. But if those who wanted its repeal thought it would justify any intention to drop doing serious consultation with people over matters that affect them, then this new one page Guidance will be a disappointment. Its stress on the key role of consultation and its reference back to the 1999 Local Government Act provisions on consultation, which have not been scheduled for repeal, are most welcome, and will help consultation professionals make the case for the ongoing need for information, consultation and involvement.