Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Local government in a unitary system

What does the local government look like in unitary system like the UK's?

As Austerity Helps Bankrupt an English County, Even Conservatives Mutiny

Britain is already in upheaval over Brexit, its looming withdrawal from the European Union, with many experts warning of economic hardship ahead. But Northamptonshire is foreshadowing another potential fiscal crisis: Local governments drained of resources, cutting services to the bone.

Northamptonshire

Councils are Britain’s fundamental unit of local government, dealing with an array of basic needs: trash collection, public transport, libraries, town planning, and care for children and other vulnerable people, among other things. They levy a tax on homes and charge fees for some services. They also collect a nationally set tax on commercial real estate, and keep an increasing share of it. But for years they received most of their funding from the central government.

The crisis in Northamptonshire is complicated and partly self-inflicted. But it has roots in the austerity policies and cost cutting that the Conservative-led national government imposed a decade ago in response to the global financial crisis…

Now some Conservatives, especially at the local level, are openly defying what has been a pillar of the party’s ideology.

Funding from London for local governments has fallen 60 percent since 2010, with reductions expected to total $21 billion by 2020…

The crisis is a political embarrassment for Conservatives, who are already divided into warring camps over Brexit. The former leader of the Northamptonshire council, Heather Smith, has resigned from her position, and from the Conservative Party. Investigators sent from London blamed her and other councilors for mishandling local finances, even as she blamed London for impossible mandates and a refusal to consider higher taxes.

Sounding increasingly like their Labour opponents, some Conservative councilors in Northamptonshire are now talking about stopping the outsourcing of public services and demanding tax increases…

This year, the government announced some new money for councils, including about $200 million for adult social services. Even so, some experts say that councils are still staring at a $4 billion funding hole.

In response, according to an annual government survey of council leaders, an overwhelming majority of county councils across England plan to raise council tax, their levy on homes, 5.99 percent this year — the maximum the central government will allow…

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Labels: local government, political culture, politics, UK

Friday, February 10, 2017

Local government in a unitary system

When a regime is described as unitary, the important feature is that there is only one sovereign center of power. But does that mean that the national government exercises all government power?

Well, we probably would find it unreasonable for the British Parliament to run garbage collection throughout the country.

Council (public) housing

The key is that Parliament delegates to local authorities certain powers. According to Wikipedia, there are 418 major local councils and a larger number of town councils. In cities, the councils serve thousands of people. In rural areas they perform services for communities of less than 2,500 people. One of the best known services is public housing (council housing). The town councils also do things like operating play grounds, providing public toilets, maintaining bridal paths, and cleaning war memorials.

As Parliament deals with public spending and deficits, the local councils face criticism for profligate spending.

Britain’s local councils face financial crisis

Britain is in the middle of a painful fiscal squeeze. Since 2010 the budget deficit has been reduced from 10% to 4% of GDP; by 2020 it is forecast to be almost eliminated. To achieve this, the government has slashed spending. Hardest hit has been the Department for Communities and Local Government, which provides councils with most of their funding. And so local authorities have been forced to embark on an epic economy drive. Their spending on public services will be 22% lower this year than in 2010… What do Britain’s cities look like after such a crash diet?

Councils’ biggest area of spending is adult social care, which makes up about a third of their budget… Liverpool’s spending on adult social-care has fallen from £222m in 2010 to £130m, even as an ageing population has increased demand…

Local authorities have come up with various ruses to save money. Several… are economising by collecting rubbish only every other week, for instance. Liverpool has shed 3,000 staff and handed some of its libraries over to community organisations to run…

There is little scope for councils to raise taxes. Although they disburse about a quarter of all government spending, they are responsible for raising less than 10% of taxes, making England one of Europe’s most centralised countries. But this is changing. In some places, things have become dire enough for local politicians to propose special referendums to increase council tax, a levy on property…

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