Race and the Allocation of Public Housing in Great Britain: The Autonomy of the Local State

Abstract

Urban and social policy are formulated and implemented within the structure of the relations between central and local governments. The achievement of central government goals often requires action by local governments. The agendas of local governments are often set by the problems and opportunities created by central government action. The relationship between central and local governments is often seen as a trend toward increasing local autonomy or increasing central control. Finance is often assumed to be the key, whoever controls the purse strings. In Great Britain, as in many other countries, the increasing financial dependence of local government on central government has fueled a debate over the effect of central government finance on the relations between central and local government. One side of the debate is characterized in the conclusion of the Layfield Committee on Local Government Finance: We too believe that in the end he who pays the piper calls the tune.' In support of the Layfield Committee's position, G. W. Jones, has argued that central finance serves to extend central control because, first, central finance gives central government bureaucrats an excuse to become involved in regulating local policy and, second, that dependence on central government funding orients local government politicians towards Whitehall and away from their constituents.2 Opposing the view that central government finance inevitably leads to central control of local government are Ashford3 and Dearlove.4 Ashford finds, in a study of the relation between central government aid to local authorities and local authority budgets, that the level of central government aid is not a good predictor of local activity. He goes on to suggest that the complexity of the relationship between central and local government may be a serious hindrance to central control. For both Ashford and Dearlove, the increasing financial role of central government does not inevitably translate into central control; they do not argue that central government is without influence over local government but that finance does not directly lead to control. This paper will argue that control is not one-dimensional, that there are areas of local autonomy that can develop (or that are maintained) despite central government control of finance. The argument will be made by explicating one set of conditions under which local governments maintain their autonomy and by examining a case in British policy in which the predicted results obtain. Understanding the conditions under which local autonomy develops helps us to predict what the central state can actually accomplish. Such an analysis can also