Wedded to what is

Tweet As this story reports, during the discussion in the House of Commons last week on the latest Scotland Bill, a question was raised about the devolution of responsibility for the rules surrounding abortion.  I’m not going to get into the substantive issue of abortion here; I just pick up on the debate for the attitudes it displayed towards the question of devolution and where power should lie.

It was the so-called ‘Pro-life’ group of MPs who proposed the change.  and I’m guessing that they did so more because they thought that they’d get the result that they wanted than because they really care whether the issue is decided in Scotland or not.  And the opposition came from Labour, on more or less the same basis – they don’t want the law to change, and were concerned that the Scottish parliament might just do that.

It seems to me that deciding where the decision should be taken on the basis of where you think you’ll get the answer you want is exactly the wrong reason for seeking to devolve, or not devolve, any issue.  For those of us who are instinctive decentralists, a decentralised decision-making process must, of necessity, include the possibility that devolved legislators will take decisions with which we disagree.  Power only to make those decisions considered ‘right’ at the centre is no power at all – it is mere administration.

The Scottish Secretary commented there was "no reason" why the Scottish Parliament should not be able to decide on "an issue of this significance".  It’s a curious argument for a Tory to have advanced given their recent history on devolution.  If it’s the ‘significance’ of the issue which means that it should be devolved, then many of the powers retained by Westminster are of at least equal significance – and many of those already devolved are much less so.

The Labour Party’s argument against seemed to me to be equally strange.  Their spokesman said, “We believe a woman's right to choose should be determined by robust medical evidence and not by where you live.  There is no reason why a woman in Edinburgh should face a different experience to a woman in Exeter.”  If it’s ‘equality of treatment’ that determines whether something is devolved or not, then the same applies to many of the powers already devolved to Scotland.

It is, of course, the classic argument against any form of devolution of anything.  Why should anyone in Edinburgh face a different experience to anyone in Exeter?  But equally, why should anyone in Exeter face a different experience to anyone in Essen?  The answer of course is that they’re not in the UK – but it’s not much of an answer.  An argument based on the ideal of equality doesn’t stop at a border.

Despite everything that has happened to them in Scotland, it seems that Labour still see every issue as being framed in UK terms – they struggle to contemplate either a narrower, more local context, nor a wider, more international context.  They are wedded to what is, rather than what could be.  That might be quite an apt epitaph for the party, in Scotland at least.

Are they decentralists or not?

Tweet When the EnglandandWales Green Party manifesto was published, I saw it as something of a step forward in that party’s thinking about Wales.  The reference to a referendum on Welsh independence and the right of the people of Wales to choose that status if we wish was something I hadn’t heard as clearly from them before.

It didn’t tell us where they actually stand on the issue, though.  Are they for or against?  It has long surprised me that any party claiming to want more decentralised decision-making and a more localised economy wouldn’t automatically support any proposal for greater local autonomy.  The position taken by the Scottish Greens in the recent referendum was much more robust.  They not only supported the holding of a referendum, they actively worked to encourage people to vote yes.

But shortly after the EnglandandWales manifesto came the Welsh manifesto, which was a much weaker document as far as this issue goes.  No mention of independence or of any referendum, merely the wishy-washy sentence “We believe that the starting position should be that all powers are devolved from Westminster to the Welsh Government except for those that are best retained at a UK level”.

What on earth does that actually mean, other than that “we’re in favour of devolving everything except those things that we’re against devolving”?  Devoid of any explanation of the basis for deciding what things are “best retained at a UK level”, it tells us absolutely nothing about what they actually believe.  It can mean anything to anyone – and it’s a statement which it’s impossible for anyone to disagree with.  Supporters of independence and supporters of the abolition of the Assembly could both say the same thing.

It looks, from the outside, as though the Green Party in Wales is almost afraid of being too Welsh, or of supporting autonomy for Wales.  But I really don’t understand why.  And I think that they’re missing a trick as a result.

Who's taking the decisions?

Tweet The proposal that Welsh should have prominence on all road signs in Wales is one that I find it very easy to support.  It is, after all, only a repeat of a proposal made 40 years ago by the official committee set up to look into the matter.  And the suggestion that there should be no mass replacement of road signs, merely a gradual replacement as and when new signs are needed, is certainly a way of minimising the cost, although it will inevitably mean that the process of replacement is a very slow one.  (As an example, I noticed earlier this week on a rural road in Carmarthenshire that there is still a road sign pointing to a place called “Llanelly”; it’s a sign which no one has ever felt it necessary to replace.  And I doubt that it's unique.)

I’m less enthusiastic, though, about the idea that this should be imposed as a rule which all local authorities will be compelled to follow by the Welsh government, even though I know that it won’t happen any other way.  It’s a classic case of a dichotomy between the decision that I want, and the question of where that decision should be taken.  I’m not a great believer in the idea that individual decisions should be taken wherever we can get the “right” outcome.

It’s a point I’ve posted on many times before – what are local councils for; what power should they have; and what value do elected councillors add?

Currently “local government” functions are a mishmash of different things.  In some fields councils are simply acting as local agencies implementing government directives, in others they set policy for themselves.  And there are some fields, of course, when it’s not always entirely clear where policy is really being set.  It was disappointing that the Williams Commission didn't really address this question of purpose - there seemed to be an implicit assumption that local councils are primarily agents for local delivery rather than policy-setting bodies with their own democratic mandate.

The result is that local and central government regularly blame each other for failure and try to grab credit for success.  The councillors we elect have, in reality, little real power over many of the decisions for which they are nominally responsible.

I don’t for one moment believe that we would all draw the line in the same place – I’m an instinctive decentraliser, and accept as a consequence that local control necessarily leads to local differences, and that I will not like all of those differences.  But it would surely be better to draw such a line between truly locally determined services, and nationally determined services which are merely delivered locally.  The former could be delivered by strong local government recognising the mandate which elected councillors have, and the latter by local offices of national government, deleting all pretence that there’s anything “local” about the policies being pursued.

Claiming that road signage is the prerogative of Wales’ local authorities and then decreeing every aspect of policy concerning their format and siting is merely perpetuating a dishonesty – what is there left for councils to decide?  A more honest policy would be simply to move the responsibility to the highways authorities which are already direct agencies of national government.

How big is big enough?

Tweet In its editorial reaction to the report of the Williams Commission, yesterday’s Western Mail told us sternly that “post code lotteries are intolerable within a country of only three million”.  It’s one of those things that “everybody knows” to be true, but it begs two questions.

The first is this: what is the difference between a ‘post code lottery’ on the one hand and differing service levels based on local democratic choice on the other?  The answer, in essence, is that there is no difference; it all depends on perspective.  Centralists instinctively demand complete standardisation and conformity whereas decentralists accept that differing levels and quality of service are an inevitable concomitant – from those two viewpoints they merely describe the same phenomenon in different words.

The second question is this: if three million is too small to allow differing service levels, how many is enough?  It is implicit in any statement saying that ‘n’ is too small that there is a larger number which is not too small; in this case, what the paper calls ‘post code lotteries’ are apparently acceptable if only the population is large enough.  Why?

Hidden behind this is the way in which supporters of devolution – whom I had long thought to be instinctive decentralists – turn out to be centralists in practice in a Welsh context.  Strangely, I’ve heard some argue that they are in favour both of rigid central standards and powerful local government.  I can only conclude that they’re either confused or dishonest, because, for any given service, we really can’t have both.

Somehow, since the advent of devolution from London to Cardiff, an idea seems to have caught on amongst the politicians and media that there is no need or justification for any differences within Wales, whereas differences between Wales and England are perfectly acceptable.  It’s a valid vision for Wales, but it isn’t the one which many espoused before the Assembly was established.  And it isn’t one which ever drove me.

Another missed opportunity

Tweet A cynical description of a management consultant of the sort so popular with businesses and government organisations is “a person who borrows your watch to tell you the time”.  It encapsulates the view that the ‘independent’ ‘experts’ have been hired, first and foremost, to confirm what those hiring them already ‘know’ – but with the extra credibility that comes from being external.

Crucial to this approach is hiring the ‘right’ consultants – they need to be sufficiently compliant – and giving them the ‘right’ brief.  It’s a definition which somehow sprang to mind when I read this sentence in the foreword to the report of the Williams Commission yesterday:

“In establishing us, the First Minister made clear that the status quo was not an option.  We have found extensive and compelling evidence that that is indeed the case.”

The consultants that I’m used to don’t often make their role quite as crystal clear as that; it’s usually a bit more nuanced!  But there can be little doubt that the Commission has told the Welsh Government what it wanted to hear.  Quelle surprise.

Sadly, their brief was written entirely around “governance and delivery”, thereby absolving them of any duty to consider what local government should actually do, and concentrate instead on how they do it.  I wouldn’t argue that there aren’t problems with the how at present, but to adapt a piece of management speak, “doing the wrong things well is probably worse than doing the right things badly”.  It seems, however, that doing things well is deemed more important by the Welsh Government than doing the right things. 

Local Government in Wales is a complete mish-mash of three types of activities, with vague and imprecise boundaries between them:

·         Services where the councils really are free to decide on policy and delivery as they wish.  They can choose to spend more and deliver a better service, or to spend less and cut the council tax.  Different parties and candidates really can promise different approaches which they can then implement when elected.  This category includes things like parks, leisure centres, and libraries.  It’s worth noting that this one area where they have complete freedom is the one area where they currently seem, perversely, to be trying to divest themselves of all responsibility.

·         Secondly, we have some services where the councils have absolutely no scope to set any policy and are totally constrained by the law as to what they can do.  The limit of their scope for being different is perhaps using different and incompatible IT systems to achieve the same ends – things like electoral registration, for instance; or births, deaths and marriages.  I find it hard to see what, if any, value is added in these areas by having locally elected councillors responsible for them.  They are administrative tasks which could just as easily – and probably more efficiently – be managed nationally.

·         Then we have the services in the middle where the local councils like to believe that they have some freedom to set policy and do things differently, but in reality are hide-bound by central directives and standards.  These are things like Social Services and Education – and it’s worth noting that these are precisely the service areas in which local authorities are perceived to be failing.  The two facts might not be unconnected…

I’m not sure whether the services referred to in the third category should actually be delivered by Local Councils at all; I’m open to be convinced either way.  My starting point is that if local councillors with their own democratic mandate are to run services, they should have the freedom to set policy – and the freedom to deliver a poor service as well if they so choose, and if the local electorate choose a bunch of incompetents to run the council.  It’s called democracy.  But if a service is deemed to be too important to be left to local decision-making, then we should stop pretending that local authorities add any value and run the service nationally. 

It all depends on your viewpoint on the extent of any local democratic mandate; I tend to the view that we should maximise local control, and I accept that one inevitable result of that is that service levels and quality will vary; but if the majority believe that consistent service levels are more important, then they should advocate proper central control, as the only way of meeting that objective.

The latest report doesn’t address that sort of question at all – and the Commission is recommending a series of local government mergers on the basis of an assumption that we should simply continue as we are.  The merger process will be costly in the short term, even if we believe that there will be savings in the longer term.  Eyes will inevitably be taken off balls in the process; such problems as we currently have will continue until the process is complete.  It’s a serious missed opportunity.

Creeping centralism

Tweet One of the disappointments of devolution for me has been the way in which politicians who appear to be decentralists at a UK level end up being centralists at a Wales level.  Perhaps it’s just that politicians usually believe that power should be wielded by themselves, and should therefore reside at whatever level they happen to be operating – and I really wish that I could dismiss that thought as just a bit of unnecessary cynicism.

The latest evidence of creeping centralism down in the Bay is the proposal floated by Leighton Andrews to centralise the provision of education services under the control of the Assembly Government.  I don’t disagree with everything he says; like him, if I were designing a way of delivering services such as education, I wouldn’t have come up with the idea of 22 authorities within Wales.  And, like him, I’m unhappy at the performance of the education system in Wales.

What I’m not so convinced about, however, is that the answer to those problems lies in the organisational structure.  I have seen no evidence to support the proposition that a centrally managed service will of necessity produce results which are any better than we are seeing now.  I certainly don’t accept the utter self-confidence with which so many AMs seem to assume that services run by them will deliver better results than those same services run by someone else.

One of my major problems with the centralising proposal is the implicit assumption that education authorities are accountable to the minister for their performance, rather than to the electorate in the areas they serve.  AMs are, quite rightly, quick enough to bridle at any suggestion that they are accountable to the UK Government for their performance; why are they so ready to defend their own electoral mandate whilst denying that of local councillors?

But the biggest problem that I have with what is being suggested is that it looks like reorganising local government in Wales by the back door, without proper discussion or consideration.  According to the glossy leaflet which Carmarthenshire issued with my council tax bill, marginally over half of all expenditure paid for by council tax goes on education and children’s services.  Education alone probably accounts for 30 – 40% of what the county council does.  Taking that away from local government is a huge – and unprecedented – reduction in the scope and powers of local authorities, and doing it in isolation without consideration of the wider impact looks to be very rash.

I’m not wedded to the idea that there should be 22 local authorities in Wales; nor am I wedded to the idea that their responsibilities and powers are immutable and set in stone.  But I am wedded to the idea that there is a value to local democracy, to devolution of power within Wales, not just to Wales, and that local exercise of power, if it is meaningful, has to include the right to do things differently rather than simply adhere to standards and processes laid down elsewhere. 

My politics starts from the notion that sovereignty resides with the people, and that we can choose how that should be pooled and where; AMs, like MPs, seem increasingly to believe that sovereignty is theirs to divvy out – or retain – as they wish.  The gulf between those viewpoints is far from being a small one, and unless we are careful, Wales could end up being more centralised than the unitary British state ever managed to be.

Decentralism and the EU

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Yesterday’s post about the EU and structural funding actually goes to the heart of one of the issues which I’ve always found hardest in terms of political philosophy.  It also relates to one of the issues which Plaid Cymru has found difficult for decades, and never really got to grips with, as the recent report of the party’s review identified.

What exactly is decentralised socialism?  It’s not that there aren’t definitions around, of course there are.  It’s more that, in some ways, the two concepts (decentralism and socialism) don’t always mesh together very well.  And the reason that I’ve found it difficult is that I consider myself to be both a socialist and a decentralist, and whilst it’s comparatively easy to support both positions in theory, it can be difficult when it comes to specifics.

As a result, to an extent, those of us who advocate decentralist socialism have got away with it for years without really having to put the flesh on the bones.  Plaid’s review has recommended doing some work on that – I look forward to seeing it, but suspect that it will be easier to recommend than to achieve.

I remember Phil Williams once saying that decentralised socialism is an oxymoron – socialism requires by its nature a strong central authority to ensure redistribution and fairness.  It doesn’t stop at European level either; how are we to achieve global fairness in access to the earth’s resources without strong global institutions?

That need for a strong central redistributive policy is really the reason for supporting the continuation of EU structural funding.  It doesn’t make the EU a socialist organisation; far from it.  But it’s hard to see how a fully decentralist model works to enable fairness without such supranational structures.  And that creates a dichotomy.

The question thrown at myself and others over the years – how can you argue for both devolution and the EU; you’re just swapping one remote central government for an even more remote one – is far from being an unfair one.  The answer depends less on what the institutions are than on what powers we cede to each of them.

The problem is that to get where I want to go, I wouldn’t really start from where we are, but if change isn’t going to be sudden and revolutionary, then it is going to be slow and evolutionary, based on where we are now.

In practice, support for devolution to and within a Wales which enjoys full membership of the EU is something of a compromise, and I recognise that.  But it’s a compromise which represents progress from where we are now.