The next two pieces of legislation were to have possibly the biggest effect in revolutionising local government. The 1988 Local Government Act and the 1988 Local Government Finance Act were introduced as the Thatcher
Government settled in to its third term in office. The first act introduced the idea of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) and the Finance Act introduced a big shake up in funding in abolishing the rates and introducing the Community Charge or as it became known the Poll Tax. CCT was introduced as a part of the Conservative plans to reform local government finance, which was started under Margaret Thatcher’s tenure and completed under John Major’s government some years later. CCT was meant to bring efficient, economic and effective services. This was to be achieved by creating competition in the provision of local government services, such waste collection, cleaning, school meals and transport. Basically existing local government departments had to bid to provide these and other services to the council and learn to operate as private companies. Although certain quality control evaluations were meant to take place for each tender the cheapest option usually won the contract. This created huge problems as suddenly and overnight staff who for many years had worked for the council found themselves working for private companies or Direct Service Organisations (DSO’s). These were the former council departments, which were responsible for the work now being tendered for. CCT increased short-termism in local government services. This was as contracts were awarded for anything between four and ten months only, which meant the consumer, the electorate,
and the councils had little or no continuity of service and planning was problematic, as it was never certain who would be providing a service or indeed the quality of that service.
The Community Charge was introduced following the 1987 Abolition of Domestic Rates Act (Scotland) and the 1988 Local Government Finance Act. This led to the removal of domestic rate in Scotland in 1989 and England and Wales in 1990. The Poll Tax was a per capita tax, that to say is it was based on the number of people living in a property and not the value of the property and all those living within a particular local authority paid the same amount. This was a situation, which obviously appealed to those who were used to paying high levels of rates but not to those who had previously paid no contribution at all. There were exemptions and discounts available of up to eighty percent to people on low incomes, students, or those in receipt of state benefits. The other major change to local government that this change brought about was the removal of local authority control over the setting of business rates, which then became a uniform business rate (UBR). These were set by central government with local authorities entitled to a level of this income based on population size. The Community Charge was eventually abolished by the1992 Local Government Finance Act and replaced with the Council Tax. The Council Tax was based, as were the rates, were on property values, however there was a per capita element in it. This meant that those people living alone were entitled to a discount of 25% and those on the lowest
incomes and on benefits can get up to 100% discount on payment. The property values were set into eight bands from A to H with those in the highest band paying no more than three times the rate of the lowest band level.
The Conservatives still had a desire to curb the control of Labour run local authorities and this was evident with the next round of reorganisation of local government and the creation of unitary authorities. In both Scotland and Wales shire county councils were replaced by the 1994 Local Government Act which created 22 unitary authorities in Wales and 32 in Scotland. In England however a new local government commission set up by Michael Helseltine and chaired initially by John Banham and later by Sir David Cooksey which report direct to John Gummer, the then minister in charge of local government. Gummer favoured unitary authorities and when Banham didn’t recommend more to be created he was replaced by Cooksey. This caused problems as local government in England and far from being revolutionised it became confused and fragmented. For example in Lancashire Cooksey ignored local opinion and split the county into one shire local authority and two unitary authorities in Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen.
In 1997 Labour returned to government after an 18-year gap of Conservative rule. Labour had made many pre-election promises about reforming local government and began by reforming CCT and replacing it with Best Value. It was introduced through the 1999 Local Government Act. Best Value is
intended to be more responsive to the needs of customers and not the service providers. As with CCT it is also meant to provide effective, high quality services and hopefully longer-term contracts will provide a better continuity of service for both customers and service providers. Performance indicators such as response times, constant reviews and regular inspections of services are published by local authorities are a part of a policy to make the process of awarding and monitoring contracts more open and transparent to the consumer.
Other revolutions in the town hall has been the devolution of power to the parliaments in Wales Scotland and occasionally Northern Ireland with certain powers and in Scotland’s case some tax raising power devolved down to the new parliaments in Cardiff and Edinburgh. These have been in operation since 1999 and are seen as being a major step in the reform of local government. Other new models of local government in action are that of the new directly elected London Mayor, Ken Livingstone and his elected cabinet a model which several local authorities seem set to adopt to provide a more responsive accountable local government. All these are set to be overseen by standards boards and committees which will report on the behaviour of locally elected officials. The next proposed step is that of regional assemblies to further devolve power form the central government, but it is as yet uncertain whether they will have any tax raising powers. Also both unitary and shire county leaders are opposed to them as they see not only another tier of government being introduced but also a possible decline in their own powers.
In conclusion it can be seen that the Conservative governments from 1979 to 1997 had a huge impact in the way local authorities operate. This has been in both the way local government is financed and the way in which local government is responsible to its electorate. The introduction and then removal of the community charge has left a legacy of financial problems across the country and the proper financing of local government has still to be resolved by New Labour in its second term of office. CCT and best value have gone someway to improve efficiency in services, but at the cost in most cases of the quality of services now provided. Some changes have been for the better for example the compulsory revue and publishing of local authority spending plans have made our town halls a little more transparent. However, until a single system of local government is introduced then confusion about responsibility and responsiveness of our town halls will remain. The current government pledged to reform local government, but in England we still have local, borough, shire and unitary government to cope with and if Regional Assembly's come into existence there will be another tier in an already over complicated system. Our town halls haven’t been so much revolutionised as knocked down and rebuilt with all the right pieces, but all put in the wrong place.
