Bureaucracy

Is a nightmare at the best of times, but the nightmare created by this government has been highlighted to me not once, but twice in the past week.

1stly - At Thursday's meeting of the Planning Policy Committee we were told that we needed to update a list of milestones (which we are forced by law to have) due to our success in getting our core strategy approved. However, the government has threatened to penalise councils who change their milestones. How ridiculous, force us to have a list and then force us not to change it despite us putting in place a Core Strategy that we are forced to have! What's more the reason that milestones take so long to get approved is that our Planning Department spend 1/2 their time submitting democratically approved and publicly consulted plans up to central government for them to review and change and then wait for them to send them back.

2ndly - Due to the bungling Government consulting the County Council (which has no remit in this area) over funding to improve Play Areas, the Surrey Districts (including Tandridge) had no ability to bid for the funds and the opportunity to bid closed before the County was able to coordinate a response. Madness. Local Councils need to be set free from such a straightjacket. If this didn't mean that children in Tandridge will miss out on around a £million of funding, it would be funny.

Both examles demonstrate that there is ample scope to cut out a wasteful layer of central management which just hinders the ability of locally elected councils to deliver quality services to local people. And on the first example, the leader of the Lib Dem opposition on TDC agreed with me.

No Garden Grabbers

Hot on the heels of Tandridge's Core Strategy, which will help to prevent inappropriate development in both local communities and on Green Belt land Conservatives in the House of Lords have defeated the Government on their Planning Bill to give more protection to local communities.

The law will now strengthen the powers of local councils to protect urban green space and gardens, and restricts the power of the Government to interfere in councils which want to protect the character of their neighbourhoods. Gardens will again be classed as green space (rather than brownfield land).

It is very pleasing that Conservatives in Parliament used one of the few opportunities to defeat the government to reaffirm their commitment to local decisions by local people.

Local Conservatives will need Localism

As this Labour government staggers on through a summer and the economic news worsens I was mulling this evening how the future will pan out.

If, as currently seems likely, the Conservatives win the election what will they face? With the public finances shot and the prospect of a long period of low or negative growth will the public put up with the necessary long period of restocking the nation's coffers? Hopefully the our experience in the the early 1980s will prove an accurate predictor of the future - a Conservative administration rescuing the country from ten years of economic mismanagement - with the repairs that can be made in the first years of a Cameron administration serving the country well for the decade to come.

However national successes will likely come at a price, and locally the key challenge will be for a Conservative Council to survive any dissatisfaction from voters in the challenging early years of the next administration.

Again I conclude that the link between central and local government should be loosened with real power needs being devolved to local level. Only by doing this will we stand a chance of people voting on local issues to when they come to elect local representatives residents.Treating all elections as an opinion poll on central government needs to end.

Gordon's latest Gimmick - Citizens Juries

The Prime Minister says that the days of making policy in Whitehall are over and that Citizens Juries are the way forward.

Unfortunately I don't think it is possible to take that statement at face value - Who are these citizens, who do they represent, how will they come up with decisions and how will these be implemented? In short I believe that these 'Juries' are no more than grandiosely titled focus groups, which will come up with a few ideas which will then go into the normal civil service policy making process.

It looks like Mr Brown is carrying on with the same old Labour Spin.

What we need are real powers being transferred back from central government and unelected quangos to local people to make decisions that affect their parish, their district and their county, not gimmicks designed to win headlines for a couple of days.

Yes to Scottish Vote on Independence.

As a good Conservative and Unionist I am a strong supporter of the United Kingdom, however as a localist I support local people making decisions on local issues.

Therefore I think it is fully right and proper if the Scots want to have a referendum on independence that they should have one, albeit one I would hope that results in a vote for a continued UK. I am also very open to the Scots being given even more power to decide on domestic issues, with one rather large caveat, that the same powers be given to English voters.

The current position is fundamentally undemocratic, with Scottish MPs being able to vote on English issues, but not vice versa. Devolution to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales opens up the possibility of moving to a much more federated structure, although there is no need to create even more elected posts. Similar powers in England should be given to the Cities and Counties where feasible and to English MPs where not.

House Price Boom?

This morning's press were reporting analysis carried out on behalf of the National Housing Federation (a social housing pressure group) that unless the government's promised 70,000 new social homes are built a year prices could rise by 40% by 2012, (the average home would cost £393,000) in Southern England.

Now, I strongly support the idea we need new social housing, but where it is needed and I do not think that central Government is best placed to tell us where. One key fact that often appears to be overlooked in this debate is that we are not looking at one housing market, but many - one bedroom flats are not likely to be appropriate in rural farmland, nor 5 bed houses in city centres.

Not all homes are the same and not all areas need the same mix of homes. But the effect of the Government's central planning (of the type the Soviet Union used to employ) has been to define targets for local areas. This is a a highly bureaucratic and undemocratic process. Please Mr Brown give power to local people to determine what is needed in their communities.

While on the housing topic, as of last Wednesday HIPS, are now mandatory for four bedroom houses. I doubt there can be many more over engineered, expensive, ineffective and bureaucratic solutions than this.

They
1 will not tackle gazumping
2 will destabilise the housing market
3 are not comprehensive enough to be trusted by buyers
4 are gold plating an EU regulation
5 are avoidable by clever marketing ( claiming you have 3 bedrooms plus a study/spare room)
6 are a way for Government to revalue Council Tax liability by stealth.

Floods

Luckily there have been none around in Oxted South (to my knowledge at any rate - please correct me if anyone knows better), but unfotunately other parts of Tandridge have been more affected.

But it does show the importance of planning for these less frequent but high-impact events. I hope the post crisis analysis demonstrates that these crisis are best avoided by joined up planning (ie house building decisions being properly informed by flood risks) and properly funded defences and local preparedness. Perhaps it is time to return responsibility for local flood defence work to local authorities, leaving DEFRA and the Environment Agency to focus on national strategy.

What about the Green Belt?

Most of Tandridge is Green Belt land, so yesterday's annoucement by Hazel Blears that house building will take priority over environmental concerns clearly raises the prospect of a significant change in the character of our local area, one which will be seen as negative by a majority of residents.

While Brown's spokesman has since denied that the Green Belt is at significant risk, what he cannot deny is that current government 'guidance' to planners states that they have to identify new sites for housing for the next 15 years, regardless as to whether they would actually be needed. There is no expection made for districts like ours where this will in practice mean building on the Green Belt.

Whatever the actual outcome it seems clear that Brown's Government remains as committed to imposing its own will on local areas as Blair's was. Local people are still not going to be able to take the decisions that matter most to them. Tandridge needs new housing, but local experience has shown that we are able to provide this without having to resort to green belt building.

Where's the radicalism Mr Brown?

The new PM's statement on the constitution, while containing some good proposals to limit the use of Prerogative Powers and increase scrutiny over key public appointments has done little to answer the biggest questions facing our constitution. His appointment of regional ministers makes clear that he is not committed to local democracy, but quite the reverse, entrenching the power of central government over local issues.

So I have two questions

1. Why did he not attempt to complete the devolution settlement? Limiting discussion of English issues to English MPs is the only fair and practical solution to Scottish and Welsh devolution.

2. Why did he not return the powers held by the regions to local communities? That together with giving local people real powers over planning, local quangos like NHS PCTs and the police would do more to reengage people with politics than gimmicks like citizens juries.

What does localism mean in practice?

Well as far as local government goes I think Lord Heseltine's Cities Taskforce Report makes a good stab at defining the principles that underlay it:

• The ultimate decision making body should be the most local possible unit of Government

• Authority and control should rest with democratically elected representatives, not with unelected Quangos. Elected Leaders may choose to use Quangos to deliver, but the elected body should determine the allocation of its funds.

• There should be a clear and simple structure, so that everyone knows who is in charge and who is responsible

• If Local Government is charged with leading the renaissance of our Cities, they must be able to attract consistently people of the highest calibre into leadership roles

• Local Government should be genuinely empowered

Now clearly Heseltine's remit was the regeneration of our cities, however most of these principles can be applied to the Shire Counties and Districts as well. In my view by adapting the Taskforce's conclusion the following four prescriptions would be a good way forward outside the cities:

1. Decision making should be democratic and local. Powers that are currently held by Quangos and the Regional Assemblies should be devolved to Unitary or County Councils. Powers over local decision making like local roads and schools should be devolved to District (or Unitary) Councils. Decisions on truly local issues - like residential planning decision should go to the lowest level (Ward Councillors - perhaps sitting with Parish Councillors).

2. The primary role of the council is that of a decision making and commissioning body for service provision. However Councils should be free to go beyond this. If local preference is for councils (of any tier) to deliver services themseves that benefit their community they should be able to. Councils should be able to work together where they feel it is beneficial, and should have freedom to do so across county or regional boundaries.

3. Councils need strong, dynamic and full-time paid leadership. I feel that full-time elected chief executives would be best placed to lead councils (either directly elected mayors or a cabinet system) with other (part-time) councillors acting as scrutineers. To ask individuals to do this part-time on a modest allowance restricts the pool of talent available. However this again should be decided locally. One size does not fit all - and it maybe that the committee structure would continue to work well for some councils.

4. The precise structure of the councils should also be decided by local people. Councils should be the right size to deliver for the population they serve. This may mean the preservation of district and county split; it could be a local preference for a unitary authority, or it could be some other 2 tier arrangement, whereby through joint working various district councils join together to take forward the more strategic issues. Police and Fire Services should continue to be subject to local democratic oversight , and local NHS Primary Care trusts should also be subject to a similar regime.

I should conclude by making very clear that this is my personal view and certainly not that of the Tandridge Conservative Group.

Dictat not Democracy

I attended my first Planning and Environment Committee meeting last night.

If any proof were needed that this Labour Government is committed to the centralization of power and decision making at the expense of local democracy then I saw it clearly demonstrated last night. Government 'guidance' notes are leading to remote planning inspectors, based in Bristol, overturning decisions made by elected Councillors based on local plans that have been adopted following public consultation and previously approved by Ministers.

The most concerning aspect is not that the planning inspectorate is ensuring that local authorities take decisions in accordance with the rules - which in my view is the role for an inspector should take - but over issues of housing design and character. Surely local councillors, who live and understand their localities are better able to decide what is in keeping with their communities and what isn't, than the individual prejudices of an unelected individual.

Power to the People

I am still trying to catch up with things from the last couple of weeks and I finally got around to reading Direct Democracy's first 'Localist Paper' 'Open Politics' on how we might restore our democracy, which includes a number of measures to restore power to the people and repair our constitution.

Having had a think - here's my eight (some of which I have borrowed from them):

1. Devolve the power the Scots Parliament has in Scotland to Councils in England with the principle that power goes to the lowest sensible level
2. Reform council governance - allow local people to determine the structure of council that best suits their needs.
3. Bring all quangos under democratic control (whether that be Parliament, or better still for bodies such as NHS primary care trusts to county and district councils)
4. Allow local people to choose (via the ballot box) what services their council provides and how they do it (including how they charge for it)
5. Referenda should be held on all constitutional changes (Europe, Devolution etc)
6. End the Crown Prerogative for senior appointments and hold confirmation hearings in parliament
7. Reformed House of Lords should be a Chamber of the Regions, with councillors representing the counties, cities, boroughs and districts
8. Introduce a new Bill of Rights

Any views?