Radical devolution is key to social change

Labour may not be in power in Westminster, but we are growing in strength and numbers in local government; just last week Labour took control of East Staffordshire Borough Council. Increasingly, communities are looking towards Labour in local government because they are making a real difference showing the way forward through this cost of living crisis.

This is why Ed Miliband launched the Labour Local Government Innovation Taskforce last July.  Invoking the spirit of 1945 he said the next Labour Government will learn from our history and our present to improve public services in tough times. Led by Sir Richard Leese, Mayor Jules Pipe, and Cllr Sharon Taylor, the team is advising us on innovations driven by Labour in local government and is working towards drawing up a route map for how radical social change can be achieved.

This is not a narrow assignment. The taskforce has received a wide range of evidence from councils and their partner organisations, including the voluntary sector, trade unions, housing associations, health organisations and the private sector.  The first report, ‘The case for change’ published at Labour’s Local Government Conference, sets out the way forward.

The starting point is that radical social change is not only possible but essential. For economic success we must make the most of the strengths of different sectors across our country, and develop new skills and industries.

We cannot continue to waste the talents of so many people through high levels of long term and youth unemployment.  We should celebrate that in part because of the changes that the Labour movement brought about, not least the National Health Service, our population is changing and many people are living longer. This comes with it though a wide range of challenges to reform and fund the care system and make sure that other services meet the needs of a growing elderly population.

Pushing power down to local communities and local people is key to meeting these challenges because the circumstances and the solutions will vary hugely from area to area. Local innovations are demonstrating how things can be done differently. For example, where the Youth Contract has been devolved in Newcastle and Gateshead, Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield it has had double the success rate of the national programme in getting young people into work or learning. In Lambeth, the Young Lambeth Cooperative set up by the council but operating independently has handed commissioning power for play and youth services directly to local young people and their communities. Warrington, Southampton, City of York, Liverpool, Durham, Oldham, Wirral, Barnsley, Southwark, Lewisham, Newham, Haringay, Camden and the Greater Manchester combined authority all feature in The case for change because their local work is delivering better results for local people. These innovations are not only good for today, but their increased sustainability means they will lead to less demand in the future.

The evidence base for more efficient use of public money by better aligning budgets in areas is growing.  Total Place pilots pursued under the Labour government identified the problems caused by silos and demonstrated the potential when local services are joined up in local areas. Pilot projects focused on health and social care, and families with complex needs, in high-cost areas show how services can be combined and transformed to produce significant savings and improve outcomes. Greater Manchester estimates, following pilot work, that they could achieve £270m net savings over five years, while Essex forecasts a saving of £414m over six years. In total, there was potential for better services and savings overall of between £9.4 billion and £20.6 billion over five years.

As well as investing more in prevention and early intervention, it is crucial that we support councils to deliver economic growth in all areas of the country. To do that, we will extend the model of city deals throughout local government. We want to devolve power over housing and planning, jobs and skills, but councils and communities will need to come together to decide how best to use these powers. Local economies differ so we will not set down a model from Whitehall, but will ask local areas to develop arrangements that suit local needs. This is what Hilary Benn calls “the English deal”.

Despite this government promising to push power down, Eric Pickles obsession with bin collections shows they have not delivered this in practice. There is a clear opportunity for Labour to radically reconfigure the way services are designed and and delivered. By devolving ineffective national programmes to local areas we can give people more power to create services that are more responsive to local conditions, build in people’s involvement in decisions more closely and result in services that better meet a local communities needs.

Andy Sawford MP is a Shadow Local Government Minister. The Taskforce’s First Report: The case for change is available here