The Distributional Effects of Abolishing the Greater London Council

Abstract

THE PURPOSE of this article is to examine some of the distributional implications of the current proposals to abolish the Greater London Council. Distributional issues are essentially questions about who gains and who loses from changes. As we shall see below, there are a number of ways of looking at distribution, but all are concerned with changes in the relative welfare of individuals, and more particularly with systematic changes in the welfare of groups or categories of people. In principle, if not always in practice, distributional issues may be distinguished from other ways in which such a reform may be appraised, for example, from the standpoints of efficiency, political participation, or individual rights. Important though these dimensions may be in the case of the GLe's abolition, they are not pursued here except where they impinge directly on distributional questions. This article does not concern itself, either, with the issue of the abolition per se. It does not seek to explain the emergence of the policy, nor to present direct support for or refutation of the rationale presented by the government. However, some of the distributional questions are not unconnected with key arguments around the policy itself. A personal view of the policy would be to see it as part of a broader, though incremental, trend to centralisation emerging out of conflicting pressures on a central government facing a deteriorating economic situation. While a search for economies in public administration and expenditure must playa part, there is a strong ideological element underlying the policy, concerned with limiting the role of the public sector, and perhaps also with limiting the role of local government as a public expression of alternative ideology. Historically, the parallels with 'Poplarism' in the 1920s are striking.! In both cases an important part of the ideological difference concerns the extent of redistributive activity by local government. The view that local government is not the most appropriate institution to achieve redistribution has a respectable pedigree and need not be confined to governments of the right,2 but it is clearly likely to generate most conflict in situations where left local councils are confronting a government which is predisposed to reduce the redistributive role of the state at all levels. The main purpose, then, is to describe some of the ways in which the proposed abolition may affect the distribution of welfare, using this word in its broad sense. The article is inevitably speculative, because many detailed decisions have yet to be taken by government (and Parliament of course), because much will depend on the behaviour of successor bodies including the boroughs and joint boards, and because we lack detailed information on many issues. It is certainly possible that the arrangements made in future could modify or even neutralise some of the distributional consequences identified here.