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Procurement reforms, three to five year budgets for councils and a public sector impact duty form part of a plan Labour council leaders want their party to adopt if it is successful at the next general election.
A coalition of seven Labour council leaders has unveiled a roadmap for overhauling public services and rebuilding trust under a Labour government in a report co-authored with think tank New Local titled, ‘A Labour vision for community power’.
Leader of Islington LBC Kaya Comer-Schwartz told LGC how the prospect of a Labour government is keeping her and her colleagues “going in the context of 13 years of austerity”.
She said: “When it feels like the fabric of society has been eroded, you have a choice in that moment to manage decline, or to do something different. And in this report, I think what is illustrated is the strength of local Labour leaders in doing something different.”
Our communities need us to trust them
The council leaders have put forth a series of concrete proposals aimed at giving communities more authority and influence such as first refusal when buildings of significant community value come up for sale and allowing them to participate in “spending decisions that directly affect their neighbourhood” including on the use of developer contributions.
Procurement reforms would include a legal baseline for social value in procurement of 30% in a bid to empower local public sector partners to actively pursue beneficial objectives such as contributing to Net Zero targets or creating affordable workspaces.
Plans also include the obligation for public services to “identify, understand and engage proactively with communities affected by decisions” as part of a community impact duty.
Cllr Comer-Schwartz said this would ensure the “expertise, knowledge and the intrinsic energy of the community” was valued.
“As much as we need national government to devolve to local government, our communities need us to trust them to help shape our localities,” she said. “We should be asking our community and local business what they want as they live, shop and work here, which we believe they do because they love their community.”
Their report also laid out hopes to “reorient our entire system of governance, inverting power concentrated at Westminster and Whitehall, and relocating it in communities”.
The councillors called for a future Labour government to “give councils clarity of funding, informed by local needs, over three to five years” at the first spending review after a general election and explore further fiscal devolution.
Cllr Comer-Schwartz said their had been “positive conversations” with the national Labour party about the proposals but it was “too early to say” whether any of them would make it into a future Labour manifesto.
She said council leaders wanted to see a “mature relationship” between local and central government with ministers “trusting us to continue to know what’s best for our communities and back us with resources and the controls”.
“Everything is so centralised,” she added. “You get a single grant to do a single thing with lots of conditions and you have to report back, and on top of that you’re all in competitions with other local authorities. It feels like it’s initiative after initiative rather than trusting that we have an in depth knowledge of our citizens.”
A renewed focus on prevention policy, tackling deprivation and a renewed devolution agenda were also outlined in their 68-page proposal backed with case studies such as one of the largest community energy co-operative in England, Bath & West Community Energy, and the success of early help hubs in Manchester.
Manchester leader Bev Craig (Lab) said the current top-down decision-making system is “hoarding too much power at the centre, and change will need to come from the grass roots up”.
“A Labour government would inherit public services in crisis, yet from day one it will need to demonstrate a different way of doing government and empowering communities,” she added.
“This is a window into what the next Labour government could do. This is not about spending more money, but about spending money differently and better.”
The other council leaders involved in the producing the report were Tracey Dixon (South Tyneside MBC) , Georgia Gould (Camden LBC), Denise Jeffrey (Wakefield MBC), Peter Mason (Ealing LBC) and Kieron Williams (Southwark LBC).
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