Labour should keep its edge on neighbourhood empowerment

The last Labour government wanted services made accountable to local communities. As Communities Minister in 2006, David Miliband wrote (his emphasis):

‘In England there is a power gap between what people can do and what the system encourages them to do. At the local level we need a double devolution, not just to the Town Hall but beyond, to neighbourhoods and individual citizens.’

Nine years on, ‘devo-met’ for England is on the agenda for the next Parliament. Labour and Conservatives each plan devolution to clusters of councils. Economic and financial efficiency – budget sharing, earn-back deals, growth and jobs – dominate their cases.

Both parties notice the need for downward empowerment. The Conservatives, in William Hague’s white paper, want more ‘community rights’ and parish councils. Community rights – to bid for assets, contracts and planning powers – enable self-starters to pursue narrowly defined outcomes using complex legal structures, with grant through intermediate agencies. Labour set the framework for new parish councils, but so far only one new one (Queens Park Community Council serving 12,000 residents in Westminster) has started. The government says it’s supporting around thirty local campaigns which may create more.

Labour, in Sir Richard Leese’s ‘case for change’ report, favours familiar ‘area working’ models. These cover from 40,000 to 100,000 people – enough for a staff team serving a committee within a metro council’s governance structure, but much bigger than the 10,000 envisaged for neighbourhood management in the last government’s strategy; and vastly larger than the ultra-local level at which resident groups and tenant co-ops typically work. Populations of 5,000 or less can maintain land and property, and hold services to account. Has Labour lost sight of this space?

When Tessa Jowell launched a ‘Mutual manifesto’ in 2010, Luke Akenhurst countered with three reasons for ‘Mutual suspicion.’ Not all communities want to run services (true); capable leaders are middle class with an axe to grind (patronising); and groups might ‘conflict with the wider democratically arrived at policies of the local authority as a whole.’ Here’s the heart of the matter: is our political currency valid only if issued by whipped party politicians? Or is it negotiable in a more fluid marketplace where citizens reshape territory at the level of daily interactions?

Here’s a suggestion. Labour’s plans for England should be for Double Devolution with a Neighbourhood Guarantee. New combined authorities will honour rights and opportunities for communities to control services and resources, and hold providers to account. Neighbourhoods should be able to govern matters that mainly concern their own locality; to take community ownership of land and buildings; influence local budgets; make local plans; and scrutinise services, with redress if minimum standards aren’t met.

Some of this already exists, some would be new. The Neighbourhood Guarantee will make a single, visible package – and expect authorities to honour rights, something Coalition ministers are reluctant to do.

Jon Cruddas has put it this way: from Labour’s tradition, how about more Michael Young, less Tony Crosland, please?