There is a tendency to treat local government as if it were a dress rehearsal for national politics. Most coverage of the May local elections across England, before and after, will be a disguised audit of the fortunes of the prime minister. If, as expected, the Labour party suffers a significant loss of seats, the speculation about Keir Starmer’s hold on office—the story he cannot make go away—will be renewed.
But local government is more than an audition for the national stage. Some distinguished political figures have learnt their trade there. Clement Attlee was always grateful for the political education he received as mayor of Stepney, east London, in the 1920s and, more recently, David Blunkett ran Sheffield before he ever ran the Department for Education. Local government wielded political power from grand town halls, such as Alfred Waterhouse’s spectacular building in Albert Square, Manchester, which proclaimed the virtue of local civic autonomy.
This is principle is now under threat. Even after the creation of the Scottish parliament, the Senedd and the metropolitan mayors, the UK remains a -highly centralised state. One reason why there is a popular sense that power is remote from the people—lost in the arcane world of London SW1—is that this is true. Central government not only hoards its power, it raises roughly a third of the money for local government. Devolution of power will never be serious until more -money is raised locally, although ever since the poll tax brought down Margaret Thatcher, -national politicians have treated local government finance as a toxic substance.
In opposition, Starmer threatened to take the spread of power seriously. But the 2025 English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill is a tidying-up exercise, an attempt to simplify structures by making a unitary power from some formerly two-tier local -authorities. It is hardly the bonanza for local government that it might have been. This is not just another instance of the Starmer government promising more than it can do. In fact, it is a characteristic of Labour -governments that they -rarely redeem their promise to relinquish central power. A party committed to the pursuit of equality finds the prospect of local variations uncomfortable in practice.
Local authorities are also still struggling with the inheritance from that most paradoxical figure of modern times, George -Osborne. The -coalition government extended the -Labour policy of the mayoralties, and Osborne was keen for the combined authorities, notably in Manchester, to take on more powers. Yet, at the same time as local government assumed new responsibilities, budgets were scythed. In the decade from 2010, overall core funding for councils fell by 26 per cent per person in real terms. Even this was only possible because council -taxes were raised, to partially offset an extra-ordinary fall in funding from central government of 46 per cent. In these parlous circumstances, local government became a victim of the demands of ageing Britain. The cost of providing statutory social care is punishing, and the rapid growth in demand for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Send) provision has been a heavy burden.
If it is not too late for this government to find a mission, the spreading of power might be part of it. It will be hard, after local elections that will promote hundreds of inexperienced Green and Reform politicians into office, for a Labour government to find the generosity of spirit to make the repair of local government a priority. But a better, more responsive state and, in time, a more generous form of politics would mean taking local government more seriously.
