Labour Local Government – time to come out of the shadows

The last four years have been testing times for Labour councillors. Along with the Police and Fire service we have become the whipping boys of the Coalition Government. Local government budgets have become part of a perverse virility contest in Cabinet about which local government service can be reduced or outsourced to a range of ill-considered private ventures. The recent announcement that over £4 million has been wasted on ‘free school’ initiatives that never happened is a classic case in point.

It has been an immensely difficult time for all Labour councillors but throughout we have stood firm and focused on doing what we can for our hard pressed communities. A descent into windy rhetoric such as refusing to set a legal budget would simply have resulted in government commissioners sent in to slash and burn all local services. I know only too well as leader of Oldham – a place that has seen its share of hard times over the last twenty years – that was the last thing my town needed.   As national leader of the Labour Group at the Local Government Association I have been impressed by what Labour councillors throughout the country have achieved in hard times. Councils like Islington and Salford have been at the forefront of the living wage campaign – extending it to contractors as well as directly paid employees. Councils like Glasgow and Liverpool have invested in making their credit unions a real alternative to the greedy pay day loan companies. My own council led a local campaign that saw the local bus company reduce fares by 30%

It is clear that the public have valued our stand. As a party we have a record number of councillors and control the largest number of councils. The Liberal Democrats, those apologists for Tory austerity, have been reduced to irrelevance.

But we know that we can’t carry on like this. Too many councils are close to the edge of rising demand for their services and reducing budgets. No-one can be proud that the number of councils offering a bare 15 minute care service has increased from 100 to 144 in the last year. Local government at its best provides the services that make for viable and cohesive communities and makes a place worth living in for all its citizens. Yet if we carry on the path set out for us in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement we risk becoming modern day Poor Law Guardians – doling out inadequate services to those residents who have no or limited choice.

Churchill once said that democracy was the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Well I think a growing number of people are beginning to realise the same about the thirty year experiment we have just conducted with local government. Successive national governments have tried every form of outsourcing, national edict and ring-fencing initiative to control local authorities. The end result has been increased profits for the private companies involved, little if any public accountability and great cities and towns reduced to little more than branch economies for the City of London or even further afield.

The welcome debate on devolution for our major cities has begun to re-set the national debate and this needs to continue with the new government after the General Election. Local government has to be at the centre of any debate on community care and the provision of a real local health service that focuses as much on prevention and care as much as medical treatment.

Clearly with power comes responsibility and all of us in local politics should welcome effective public scrutiny. We can learn from the success of the Public Accounts Select Committee and have powerful local equivalents that can call to account all providers of public services in every locality.

As for the forthcoming general election my party faces clear and present dangers. I left school at 16 and know that much that I want to achieve for my family and my town rely on labour values of solidarity and progressive politics. Yet too many people who should be natural Labour supporters have given up on the party or prefer the easy answers provided by UKIP, Green Party and the SNP.

The Beveridge Report in the 1940’s identified the five great evils facing society; Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness. Labour, nationally and locally, formed a powerful coalition to address these concerns, encouraged millions to rise from poverty to more secure careers and lifestyles, and gave working class families the reason to vote Labour. Sadly much of that social capital and mobility has disappeared. For the future we have to re-create that coalition and begin to address the new challenges that face our communities.

Jim McMahon is Leader of Oldham, Labour Leader of the Local Government Association and member of Labour’s National Executive Committee. He will be a key note speaker at the Labour Local Government Conference in Nottingham this weekend.