Soon after EF Schumacher wrote his famous book, ‘Small is Beautiful’, he commented that if he’d lived in a world of small organisations he’d have written a book called ‘Big is Beautiful’.
His point was that a good society needs a balance of big and small. The same is true of local government. There are no inherent virtues in local institutions, which can be petty, parochial and incompetent. Localism only becomes necessary in a society where too much has been centralised.
That, unfortunately, is the condition of Britain today. A generation of centralisation has left policy and strategy largely determined by national politicians and civil servants at Whitehall, leaving councils with little to do beyond implement central decisions. Not surprisingly, fewer voters can be bothered to vote for disempowered councils, and fewer of the most able want to stand for local office.
But the irony of local government isn’t simply that it doesn’t govern much: it’s that it also isn’t very local. Our lowest tier of local government is still very distant from most people, with an average size of about 115,000 people, compared to more like 10,000 in most western countries.
One consequence is that Britain has one elected representative for every 3,500 citizens, whereas France has one for every 100 people. There, almost everyone knows someone involved in government, and representatives are closely involved with their communities. While Britain has centralised, almost every other major country has gone in the opposite direction. Countries as varied as Italy, Spain, France, India, China and Brazil have been passing power downwards.
The argument used to justify Britain’s peculiar stance was that centralisation would deliver better services and better results. Whitehall, we were told, is more efficient than town halls. Those arguments look less credible in the wake of lost data and the multiple issues around migration, and they’re even less credible when you look at the facts. The most recent surveys of public service performance show the UK bumping along at the bottom with the US, while countries with much more decentralised systems are well ahead on measurable outcomes.
So have we reached the end of the centralising road? I suspect we have. Many of the big trends which are likely to shape the next few decades point in a localist direction. Climate change is encouraging people to think again about sourcing local food, working locally, driving less and walking more. Equally, an ageing population is likely to care more about the local quality of life. Even the internet is, paradoxically, doing much to strengthen local ties as people find new ways to link up with others living near them.
