Reasons why the democracy in local governments has gone up could be because there was no democracy in the first place. Before the reforms, policies induced by the likes of Thatcher who took away nearly all of the power from local government and started to privatise public services previously run by local governments, people believed that the their was no local government. The local governments should not be seen as subsidiaries of the national government and local implementers of national policies but councils should belong to local people but the government. This might have led people to believe that there is not point in voting in local elections because they are of no relevance. This can be seen by the extremely low turnout usually below 40%. But not because local government is getting more power through the reforms, people are starting to realise that the local issues are important. By people voting and expressing their views it is decreasing democratic deficit thus making it more democratic.
Another reason why the local government will be more democratic is the councils and councillors will become more accessible. This will increase accountability because people will become more confident in their local issues.
Since the reforms have enabled the local governments more power, they are allowed to raise their own money through the means of taxation to use on local services and to provide a better service on the basis of locality. Since three-quarters of all the local government budget comes directly from central government, there is a lot of conflict between the two. Since it is the central governments money, the central government is very sceptical about how the money is used. This leads to disillusionment by the public if the local and central governments are bickering on how the money is spent. If the local governments raise their own money then it can be used what it is really needed for because the local directly elected councillors know what is needed.
Since the recent reforms have said that the local councillors should be paid as if it were a full time job the it will me more democratic. Before, local councillors were people who wanted to do it and were not paid for working but the were for travelling expenses. This meant that about 36 hours of free time were needed a week too sufficiently to the job. This meant that the only people who wanted to be councillors were white, middle class men who supported the Conservative Party. This was not very democratic because it is not a good representation of the community. But the reforms have made this a full time job and the councillors and mayor have to be directly elected. This means that all people can become a councillor; black, white, male, and female. This is much more democratic.
Overall the new reforms have made local governments much more democratic because the biggest addition to it is that it involves greater public participation which is what democracy is all about; a government for the people by the people.
