SSE attended a breakfast event this morning organised by its ever-active landlords the Young Foundation here in wintry Bethnal Green. This blog doesn’t really function till its second cup of coffee but made the effort to hear David Cameron speak about local entrepreneurship and accountability.
Geoff Mulgan of YF introduced by describing Bethnal Green as "one of the most rich and fertile places on earth" and mentioned several Michael Young-inspired initiatives, including "schools for social entrepreneurs". That’s us, folks. He also noted in passing that, whereas most politicians are boosted by an election, David Cameron is one of the select few to be boosted by a non-election….He was followed by Sheikh Aliur Rahman of the Davenant Centre, who gave his reflections on the local area, and their programme working with young people, Future Leaders.
Cameron started off by saying that Michael Young stood for "enterprise for social progress" and that he was "an institution builder", and that institutions help "formalise relationships for social purpose". This point he linked to his recent promotion of co-operative schools (dynamic, democratic structures to complement more commercial alternatives). He then moved on to more familiar territory: how the centralist state should be dismantled and abandoned, because our culture has changed: we are moving, he said, "into the post-bureaucratic age", with technology (eg Google Earth) liberating us and giving us power over our own lives.
This he related to democracy + local action, and how he wanted to "open up democracy" and see "customised solutions to local problems" and an "invigoration of local democracy". He made the interesting point that "local control works nationally" because "diversity strengthens the whole". Or, for you Latin scholars out there, ‘e pluribus unum’. What this boiled down to in practice was deregulation and greater powers for local government (re. schools, hospitals, police etc.). He also raised the prospect of doing away with various quangos (Learning and Skills Council, RDAs, Housing Corporation etc) to devolve their powers locally.
Then came the new initiative: the "democratisation of council tax", which involves doing away with capping and instead allowing a referendum if local councils want to impose large increases. Though some might think this would involve more bureaucracy / admin rather than less, this is intended to improve accountability and devolve power to people at the grassroots. (see here for more).
The theme of devolution was key: he referred to "triple devolution", a concept we’ve bandied around and discussed here previously, which means devolving power beyond councils to other local, community-led institutions and organisations. This is something SSE is in favour of: that "empowering" local people should mean "giving them power", which means devolving money to them and the organisations they lead and run.
What was missing from David Cameron, if anything, was the practical ways in which this would happen. As he himself said, a culture change is needed at local government level to trust third sector organisations and bottom-up innovation. But when questioned on this (by, for example, London Civic Forum, BASSAC and DTA, who were all in attendance), he could only say that we "need trust in the third sector from local government" and that they needed to be "encouraged" and that the "Compact hadn’t really worked". There was little practically to try and create that culture change, which, in many people’s experience in this field, means that triple devolution is more likely to stop at local government level and not find its way further down: a problem that will become of acute importance if even more considerable powers are devolved to councils.
So, whilst welcoming the overarching vision (his call for a "flowering of local organisations beyond local councils" very much fits with SSE’s long tail, for example), it would be interesting to know what practical steps and policies the Conservatives would employ to ensure this triple devolution, this true empowerment, takes place in the future.
