Local Finance: Coming to Terms with Governance?

Abstract

As noted in Chapter 3 New Labour’s approach to local finance for much of its first and second terms has been cautious and pragmatic. In part this approach reflects the sheer scale of the damage done to the system of local government finance by the Conservatives, as described in Chapter 2, but it also reflects the fact that the debate about what to do over local finance has got stuck, so that the same arguments are raked over again and again. In its first two terms New Labour has attempted to ameliorate rather than directly confront the legacy of the Conservatives. It has given local authorities more money to spend but, whereas the commitment to governance has led to rethinking and reforms on the ground with respect to partnership, service delivery and politics, when it came to the issue of finance, radical options have not been on the agenda for New Labour. However, with the launch of the Balance of Funding Review in April 2003 and a range of measures proposed by the Government as part of the post-2001 White Paper policy development there will be an opportunity to provide some significant moves forward. The argument of this chapter explores how to develop a local finance system that takes into account the arrival of a system of local governance and a changed political world. Its tone is rather different from Chapters 5–8, in that the focus is much more on what might be done by New Labour.KeywordsLocal GovernmentLocal AuthorityCentral GovernmentLocal ChoiceLocal FinanceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.