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Decentralisation in the UK: localist dream or political nightmare?

Key Quotes

"Too much has been imposed from above when experience shows that success depends on the communities themselves having the power and taking responsibility to make things better." - Tony Blair 1998

"The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament; as soon as the Members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing" - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to look at reasons, problems and the political reality of decentralisation in the UK. After the recent experiments in participatory budgeting in the UK this paper aims to look at the importance of a decentralised system for local authorities and communities to have enough autonomy from central government to be able to develop and deliver their own political visions. The paper concludes that unless radical change occurs in the UK political system, effective decentralisation is unlikely to occur.

Introduction
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The UK has one of the most centralised systems of funding for local government in Europe, if not the world. As Jeremy Hall outlines, there is a long list of restrictions to local democratic freedom in the UK:

  • Limitation on local tax raising powers
  • Centralizing control of business taxes
  • The liability of local councillors to surcharging
  • Capital budget controls
  • Ring fencing of local funds (also known as 'passporting')
  • Performance management
  • Growth of Quasi Autonomous Non Governmental Organisations (QUANGO)
  • Expenditure outside of local democratic controls
  • The lack of co-terminus boundaries
  • Changes to the way Planning Approvals are being regulated
  • Area based regeneration, regional development and neighbourhood renewal
  • Neighbourhood Renewal Policy and Local Strategic Partnerships
  • Local Strategic Partnerships and other non-elected fund holders

According to Jeremy Hall (2005), 75% of a local authorities annual revenue budget is determined centrally. The preliminary findings of the Lyons Review also conclude that, "Council tax only provides a fraction of total local spending, which means the level of tax can need to rise substantially in order to provide relatively low levels of additional resources. On average across all local authorities in England, council tax provides 25 per cent of revenue expenditure. This means that a 1 per cent increase in total spending that is not funded through other means requires, on average, a 4 per cent increase in council tax. This is known as the ‘gearing effect’." (Lyons 2005:13) This 'gearing effect' helps make Council tax an extremely visible and unpopular tax because there must be a significant increase in Council Tax for local people to see any significant difference in local service delivery. The graph below shows total gross local authority income by source:



British local authorities gain income from a levy on domestic property (the Council tax), based on eight bands of market valuation. Council tax is the only local tax, and is levied annually on the occupier of a domestic property, or the owner of an empty one. Other local revenues may come from rents, fees, parking and motoring fines. The rest of the councils revenue comes from central grants, including the old business property tax, which is now centralised and returned to councils as part of the general grant formula. According to Simon Jenkins, "Domestic property taxes tend to suffer from acute "fiscal drag", revenue tending to lag behind the spending department on it, and having to be supplemented more and more from central resources. Thus over the course of the 1990s local taxes fell to just 4 per cent of public sector revenue, as against 46 per cent in Sweden, 18 per cent in France and 13 per cent in Germany."(Jenkins 2004: 99) Local taxation currently constitutes a very small proportion – around four per cent – of all taxes paid.

As the democratic audit conducted by the University of Essex concluded in 2002, "In the 20th century the UK became one of the most centralised political systems in the western world." (Bentham et al 2002: 247) When you compare the UK to other European countries, it is easy to see the low levels of local taxation and high ratio of central government support (CG Support):




Source: Travers 2005 p.14

Brief Historical Perspective

This degree of centralisation has not always been the case in the UK. As Travers and Esposito point out in The Decline and Fall of Local Democracy: A History of Local Government Finance:

"Local government expenditure has always been an important part of public spending in the UK. Post World War II, local government expenditure has remained a fairly constant proportion (in the region of 25%) of total public expenditure. The extent to which local expenditure has become reliant on the funding from the centre over the last 200 years, however, has undergone a vast change. From a completely locally funded system in 1800, to the introduction of the first central grant revenues in 1835, the subsequent trend has been an ever increasing reliance on central grants and the relative decline of locally raised income. In 2001, 60% of funds came from central sources (in the form of various grants and non-domestic rates), with only 40% being met from local sources (in the form of council tax revenues and service revenues). Such a high degree of dependence on central funding leaves local authorities severely constrained and local autonomy badly diminished. What is even more interesting to note is that this gradual movement towards the centralisation of local funding has happened irrespective of the political persuasion of the party in power of central government."

At the start of the 20th Century British public services were administered locally. Over the previous fifty years many of the services in which local authorities had played a leading role in the 19th century (such as electricity and gas supply, water and sewerage and local hospitals) moved to the control of other bodies. This left local authorities playing their most significant roles in
education, social services, social housing, planning and local environmental services. They were supported more than ever by central grants, increasingly distributed on the basis of complicated formulae intended to distribute resources to more needy and less at the operation of local government finance. Growing central grant funding and central intervention in local service prioritisation has weakened the degree to which people could hold central and local government accountable for their respective spending decisions.

Real resources must be decentralised

Local government should be better placed than central government to understand and meet local preferences due to its local knowledge and its ability to engage with the local community over what local people want. However, if it is unable to direct resources towards the services which are most important within its locality (and away from those which are not), it is difficult for it to respond to local priorities. Such a situation also gives rise to an ‘accountability gap’ between central and local government, with local government held accountable by local people for choices on spending over which it has little control. There is also a risk that a lack of flexibility and uncertainty about future priorities and funding can contribute to the level of pressure on local services overall.

For local democracy to revive, local revenue must rise to give local government more autonomy from the central government. As Travers points out, "In theory, there need not be a link between financial autonomy and local discretion, but in practice there clearly is one. However, any move to provide local government with a larger share of UK taxation would certainly require a concession of power by the Treasury. In 2004-05, local taxation represents just 4.3% of overall government receipts. The Treasury is responsible for the remaining 95.7%. Thus, a decision to increase the locally-funded share of local authority revenue expenditure from the 2004-05 level of 26% to, say, 75% would require the extent of the Treasury’s grip on the UK tax system to decline from 95% to about 85%." (Travers 2004: 9)

I will discuss the political reality of decentralisation in the UK later in this essay. For now I will try and address the fact that if effective decentralisation is to occur then real powers and resources as well as finance must be transferred:

"The number and type of functions transferred from national to subnational level has a major impact on the extent to which decentralisation achieves any particular objective...the more functions which are transferred and the more significant those functions are, the more impact decentralisation is likely to have." (Conyer 1999: 8)

Local institutions can only raise additional revenue if they have the necessary legal powers, administrative capacity and local political support. Unfortunately, according to Diana Conyer, "the lessons of past experience suggest that, in practice, decentralisation tends to result either in a significant increase in overall public expenditure or in cash-strapped local institutions which lack the financial resources necessary to perform the functions which have been decentralised to them." (Conyer 1999: 7)

Indeed, this is the case in the UK where the government often gives lip service to decentralisation (through programs such as local:vision) and local empowerment but after the 2004 Gershon Spending Review, has asked that local authorities meet an annual 2.5% efficiency target over the 3-year period 2005/6 - 2007/8.. Even though no targets are being set for individual local services and each council is able to choose how best to achieve it, local authorities have been asked to reduce spending by 2.5 percent annually. Capacity building, improving local services and genuine local empowerment do not often go hand-in hand with spending cuts and efficiency drives.

Often "the decentralisation of a function is not accompanied by the financial resources to operate the function effectively. For example, local authorities are given responsibility for the construction and maintenance of primary schools and the recruitment of teachers, but they are not given adequate grants or revenue raising powers to do so." (Conyers 1999: 10)

Many of the local councillors that I have spoken to are tired of these kinds of conflicting central government messages. If effective decentralisation is to occur then genuine capacity building must include "the delegation of powers (e.g. revenue raising powers), the provision of resources (e.g. finance, manpower, capital assets) or the means to acquire such resources, professional and technical training, and the promotion of an appropriate organisational culture...institutions (like individuals) learn to perform new functions most effectively by actually doing them, providing that during the learning period their performance is monitored and they receive advice and support." (Conyers 1999: 18)

Decentralisation of finance must be accompanied by a multitude of measures to enhance the capacity of local institutions, so that they are able to to perform the functions decentralised to them. If this does not occur, the local institutions which are now responsible for providing such services, often become blamed for the poor quality of service provision and for associated problems which they are not responsible. The current importance of central government grants in local budgets means that it can be difficult for local residents, taxpayers and service users to see a clear link between changes in the quality and efficiency of local services and changes in the level of tax they are expected to pay.

However, it is also important to question what decisions can be taken best locally without damaging consequences for people elsewhere, or without losing any benefits from being part of a nation-wide strategy. How far can subsidiarity go without creating wider inequalities between and within councils? How can citizens still have a stake in their local institutions without compromising on national standards?

Grants

As the pie chart above shows, local authorities are highly dependent on centrally allocated grants. This is because the needs for and cost of delivering public services differs in different parts of the country, and the amount of money that local authorities can raise from council tax varies.

Government grants are used to 'equalise' tax and service levels in different parts of the country by aiming to provide the resources necessary for all parts of the country to enjoy a standard level of public services. Higher grants are therefore provided to areas with greater needs, higher costs and with a smaller capacity to raise money from council tax.

The use of these grants have been growing in a variety of ways. The Lyons Inquiry shows that the growth in the proportion of local funding provided through specific and ring-fenced grants has increased from 5% in 1997 to 22% in 2005. For example under the "best safety practice" regime of the "community safety programme", "a local council found no fewer than 15 separate organisations were setting it 60 targets. Failure to comply with each might jeopardise a funding stream from the Treasury." (Jenkins 2004: 51)

The government uses these specific-purpose grants in services such as health, education and social housing to influence local provision and provide equity in the delivery of these services. However, these targeted and specific grants are also used "partly for micro-management, regardless of equity objectives." (Travers 2005) Grants are supposed to help avoid "postcode lotteries," but are often used to influence and manipulate local government.

The growth of a grants economy significantly weakens local democracy. As Hilary Wainwright points out:

"This grants 'system' makes its decisions in the shadows, if not in secret. Rarely are representatives on the various grants-giving committees obliged to report back to a wider constituency. It's not that the system is corrupt. On the contrary, most of these grant-giving bodies have clear rules and go out of their way to avoid subjective factors or personal vested interests creeping in. But there is no open debate, discussion or negotiation. And grant-givers are rarely accountable – at best they abide by their own procedures, which, in some cases can be traced back indirectly to formally democratic decisions in Westminster or in the European Parliament. There are positives to the grant economy. It is better than nothing but it stifles debate about the allocation of public resources and about how to raise these resources." (Wainwright 2003: 107)

Grants give local government less discretion in what they spend money on locally. The current approach to setting targets and allocating resources can seriously undermine the scope for local authorities to set their own priorities:

"Estimates of how much of their activities councillors can consider discretionary, that is not required by central government, vary widely. The usual figure is between 5 and 15 per cent. But on this depend such high-profile services as libraries, the arts, parks and the local environment. The steady decline in such resources also means that any overspending by a council on statutory services requires often massive rises in local taxes. A 1 per cent overspend requires, on average, a 4 per cent rise in tax. This has lead to council taxes rising 60 per cent in real terms since 1997. This further drives councils into conformity with government budgets and discourages innovation." (Jenkins 2004: 99)

This presents a serious dilemma. If local government is committed to community leadership and autonomy, centrally held government purse strings mean it must meet 'outcome' targets. Short-term outcomes are often valued above processes that could lead to longer term success and stability. This can lead to a "reluctance to take risks, and to enable people to arrive at new solutions through trial and error – a necessary part of participatory democracy." (Wainwright 2003)

Some commentators, such as Jenkins and Travers, have suggested the end of ring-fencing grants and instead returning to a block grant system. Before the 1980s, local councils were dependent on the 1958 block grant principle. Calculated on the basis of a nationwide assessment of needs and resources, they were for councils to spend as they saw fit.

If trust is to return to relations between the centre and locality the government should move away from ring-fencing towards block grants for local councils. The government should be able to redistribute resources between its councils and yet allow them autonomy in using them. To this day the UK councils are not trusted with local spending while the "block grant principle survives unscathed in all three regions [Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland], and the devolved responsibility that goes with it." (Jenkins 2004: 84)

It may, however, be difficult to move away from such grants unless central government can be convinced that there will be no move away from broad equity. As Simon Jenkins points out:

"The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Andrew Turnball, wanted a return to block granting, and a number of permanent secretaries realised that targetry and ring-fencing were driving them towards a wholly nationalised public sector and an intolerable burden on them and their ministers. Targetry was now costing hundreds of millions of pounds to adminster...This did not happen. The treasury soon let it be known that there was to be no real autonomy." (Jenkins 2004)

A balance between equalisation and variation

If we want local authorities and communities to have more power over the decisions that effect their lives, more money raising powers must be decentralised. However, if equality between regions in the UK is a major factor, then a balance must be made between ensuring adequate national standards in service provision for all citizens, and allowing sufficient local variation to meet the diverse needs of local communities and to allow them to exercise choice over their own priorities.

Any decentralisation efforts must be wary of its potential negative effects. For example, it may result in:

  • Decisions which only benefit a minority of the population;
  • The waste of resources on projects which are technically infeasible; and
  • A situation in which those regions or localities with good financial or technical resources prosper at the expense of those without. (Conyer 1999)

Conyer further illustrates this point when she says, "an elected local government which lacks the financial resources to perform its functions and is composed of corrupt and lazy councillors who represent the interests of a small minority of the population, is far worse than a council or committee appointed by the central government but with adequate power and financial resources and composed of honest, committed and knowledgeable people." (Conyers 1999: 13)

If local public services are expected to achieve equal outcomes regardless of relatively wide income and other societal differentials, there will be significant pressure on equalisation grants. This pressure will often require central government interventions as a national response to demands for guaranteed, equal, service delivery standards. Public expectations that central government will be involved in the avoidance of "postcode lotteries", coupled with the massive demands placed upon local government to achieve equal outcomes, currently leave little room for local discretion. Indeed, as Travers points out, "England, Wales and Scotland have arrangements that seek to achieve full equalisation of expenditure needs and taxable capacity. Few, if any, countries go as far as those in Britain in the pursuit of full – or near-full – equalisation." (Travers 2005 p.3) The scale of personal income and other differences in Britain and England, together with the desire for equal standards, means demands for centrally-determined equalisation will continue unless the electorate can be convinced that local variation is an inherently beneficial concept.

To counter this claim, Sir Michael Lyons interviewed a wide range of people to determine the publics views about who should set public service standards. He found that they vary widely between services. There was a wide belief in his focus group research that some services that were viewed as essential or necessary should be provided to consistent, nationally set standards across the country. The table below, based on the survey research, shows how people responded when asked whether different services should be provided to national standards, laid down by central government, or if local councils should be free to decide what level of service they provide:



As can be seen from this table, people tend to think that services such as education, emergency services and health should be provided to nationally set standards. In other areas they tended to think local flexibility is necessary. These included public transport, refuse collection, planning and leisure services. On some services opinions were more divided.

Interestingly, according to the Inquiry, "three times as many respondents were willing to see different standards in different areas, if local people are consulted and are happy with the service they receive. 63 per cent of respondents agreed with this statement compared with 21 per cent who agreed with it without the qualification." (Lyons 2005: 36). This suggests that people may feel that difference in standards between areas is acceptable so long as the right arrangements are in place to ensure accountability and responsiveness.

Although it is true that the more decentralised money raising powers are, the more scope there is for local government to misuse its powers, local taxes in the UK have effectively become "merely another way in which the centre raised money for what it regarded as national public services." (Jenkins 2004: 39) This has deprived local government of a source of locally determined revenue that responded well to local needs.

Central government must lay down minimum standards and orchestrate redistribution from rich areas to poor ones to make such minima attainable. However, as Sir Michael Lyons shows, it need not intervene in their implementation to the degree it does.

Political reality?

Power must not just be redistributed from one set of distrusted politicians and institutions to another. As the Power Inquiry points out, "there is a deep distrust of local government. It is widely perceived as inefficient, wasteful and unresponsive to citizens' wishes." (Power Inquiry 2006: 158)

David Miliband, previous Minister of Communities and Local Government has said that "at a local level we need a stronger framework and responsibility... - in fact a double devolution, not just to the Town Hall but beyond, to neighbourhoods and individual citizens."(Milliband 2006: 8). David Miliband was calling for power to be devolved not just from the centre to local government but also from local government to neighbourhoods and communities.

If the genuine empowerment of local people and effective participation in local politics is to be achieved, "Decentralisation to the district level is necessary but not sufficient for such purposes, since power and influence are concentrated in the hands of a small elite who do not necessarily represent the views or interests of the majority." (Conyer 11)

Although the Government has devolved significant powers and resources to the administrations in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London as well as developing forms of decentralisation to service delivery level organisations such as hospitals, many members of the opposition are understandably sceptical. William Hague responded to the double devolution agenda by saying:

"We have one member of the cabinet moving power to a local level, while the rest of the cabinet are busy amalgamating police authorities, ambulance trusts, crime and disorder partnerships and fire control centres - removing local control and accountability across the board, and diminishing faith in local democracy." (Weaver 2006)

Indeed, many decentralisation initiatives of the government have moved decision making downward to front-line service delivery organisations such as hospitals, but within a centrally determined framework and subject to central scrutiny and control!

While it is promising that a specific minister is responsible for communities and local government, a government full of ministers who support centralisation may be difficult to sway. As Diana Conyer points out, "the ministry responsible for local government is likely to support decentralisation as a means of empowering local authorities, partly because its role is to create strong local authorities but also because its own power and influence is related to the power of these local authorities." (Conyer 1999: 4)

Diana Conyer is also sceptical about blaming decentralisation implementation problems on a lack of 'political will':

"there is a tendency to blame implementation problems on the lack of 'political will.'...This sort of analysis is over-simplistic, in that it grossly underestimates the political complexity of and sensitivity of decentralisation. It ignores the fact that governments are composed of many different interest groups, each with its own views about and interests in decentralisation, and that policy decisions are the result of a process of bargaining between these various interest groups. Furthermore, it fails to recognise that it is often not in the interests of many in the individuals and groups which constitute 'the government' to decentralise power, or at least to do so in the way or the extent required to achieve the explicit or stated objectives of decentralisation." (Conyers 1999: 15)

The British government signed the European Charter of Local Self-Government in 1997 which recommends that local revenue should be roughly equivalent with local responsibility, and should be within the democratic control of local councils. It should also be of a "diversified and buoyant nature." The Council of Europe also recommends that councils should not be dependent on just one tax. According to Simon Jenkins, "These principles have been ignored by every modern British government."(Jenkins 2004: 98)

Indeed, the UK government introduced the 1999 Local Government Act two years later which "enabled the centre, by statutory instrument [through clause 14], to vary or overrule anything that a local authority might do, the so-called "Henry VIII" provision. Within two years there were 42 such interventions in local education and social services alone." (Jenkins 2004: 50)

However, major reform in local finance has been possible in the past. As Travers points out, "Few local government finance systems have been created as the result of a major, radical, recent reform - Spain being perhaps the best example of an exception, though even there the move from totalitarianism has no parallel in Britain. However, Britain itself has managed dramatic reform to local government finance twice within the past 15 years or so." (Travers 2005: 4)

While this gives some hope for the possibility of radical reform, true localism would need a significant change in the attitudes of those who order local government from Westminster and Whitehall in London.

Ultimately, the extent and type of power decentralised is limited to what the government is prepared to relinquish, especially in an environment such as the UK where it is doubtful that localities will seize power. The Double Devolution White Paper, which will be published in late 2006 by the Department for Communities and Local Government, should show us how far the government is willing to go.

Decentralisation should give real powers to local people

Decentralisation should not just be about giving local government greater freedom in delivering priorities defined by central government. It is also about giving local communities more choice to set their own priorities for service improvement. Giving local government more power and choice over local services could lead to more responsive services which are better matched to the preferences of local people. It might also help to make authorities more directly accountable to local people for the decisions they make and the money they spend. However, decentralisation should not just be about the transfer of power and funds from central to local government, but from different levels of local government to communities so that local people have the potential to become genuinely empowered.

If local empowerment is one of the main objectives then "decentralisation must involve those functions which are necessary – and which local institutions themselves consider necessary – to give them more control over the development of their own areas." (Conyer 1999: 9)

Decentralisation must not purely strengthen the role of the party at the sub-national level or help retain central cohesion and control. Decentralisation is frequently advocated as a means of empowering local communities, but the reality is often different. As Conyer points out, "even in cases where decentralisation is genuinely advocated as a means of local empowerment, this does not necessarily mean that the population in the areas concerned will actually be empowered. In fact, past experience with decentralisation programmes suggests that in many cases very little significant power is actually transferred, while in others the powers that are decentralised are concentrated in the hands of a small local elite."(Conyer 1999: 4)

Hilary Wainwright also asks what popular participation or local empowerment is dependent on:

"How far do efforts to achieve popular participation come up against obstacles that require change in city-wide, national or even international institutions? Can shifts in power towards local people over local management of public resources act as a pressure for a wider redistribution of wealth and power? And is the wider political system sufficiently democratic for that local pressure to work its way through to the real centres of power?" (Wainwright 2003: 87)

For local empowerment to be successfully pursued in the UK, financial and political decentralisation must occur from national to local institutions to give local areas greater flexibility. Statistical representativeness through central government targets must not be chosen over genuine empowerment.

Conclusion

I have tried to show that local government is better placed to understand and meet local preferences because of its knowledge of the local area and what local people want and need. However, if it is unable to direct resources towards the services which are most important within its locality (and away from those which are less so), it is difficult for it to respond to local priorities, and unfair for it to be held accountable by local people for choices on spending.

Ultimately, a balance must be struck between ensuring adequate national standards in service provision for all citizens, and allowing sufficient local variation to meet the diverse needs of local communities and to allow them to exercise choice over their own priorities. Local councils should have greater control of local revenue, either through block grants or by increasing local revenue raising powers, to ensure that they respond to the priorities set 'from below'.

Similarly, citizens and groups "must be able to appeal against decisions that affect them, even decisions of those they elected, where they are infringe statutory requirements. They must be protected against corrupt and arbitrary government – local as well as central."(Jenkins 2004: 95)

In the future, the government needs to decide if it wants a country which allows local views and choices, expressed through the local democratic process, to affect decisions making processes or does it want to carry on centralising, with more decisions that affect people’s lives taken in one place on the basis of national policies.

Problems with the above text

  • Vast literature on decentralisation not cited.
  • Have only quoted the interim instead of the final Lyons Inquiry Report
  • I do not sufficiently discuss that one of main barriers to decentralisation in the UK, as evidence suggests, is that any attempt to promote this political reordering will not necessarily reinforce local governments and strengthen their relations with local citizens, eventually producing a new and virtuous "co-governance". Most probably, it would mean the creation of more "quangos", with no social basis and political legitimacy, and problems of accountability, transparency and trust would be pending. Given the lack of popularity of local councils and a growing scepticism by local residents in their local governments, an attempt to transfer power and funds would not be received with applause.
  • It is not sufficiently focused. Is it primarily concerned with the financial aspects of decentralisation or with broader issues? With the local government level or with community empowerment? Is the intention to emphasise the political aspects, and if so what is the main political argument?
  • I rely too much on block quotes which are poorly integrated into the text and sometimes only marginally relevant to the issue under discussion.
  • I do not talk enough about how the problems of decentralisation can be overcome (or diminished). For example, decisions benefiting minorities are reduced after publicity is made possible (which enhances transparency); incompetent decisions based on infeasible projects may be avoided with technical support by central government or national agencies in charge of particular areas; and imbalances between regions (when distributing resources) may be diminished creating a higher level of public discussions in order to compare different localities or communities and decide on priorities and criteria that reduce differences. This is the experience of some Latin American countries where processes of decentralisation have made some progress.
  • I have not been able to include the white paper on Double Devolution because its release has been delayed.

Bibliography

Bentham, D, Byrne, I, Ngan, P and S, Weir et al (2002) Democracy Under Blair - A Democratic Audit of the UK, Politicos, London
Conyers, D (1999) Decentralisation: A Conceptual Analysis, Paper presented at Ministers' Conference on Local Government in Eastern and Southern Africa

Hall, J (2005) Field Studies in Great Britain in Yves Sintomer et al. (eds.), Participatory budgets in a European comparative approach: perspectives and chances of the cooperative state at the municipal level in Germany and Europe, pp. 269-278

Jenkins, S (2004) Big Bang Localism – A Rescue Plan for British Democracy, Policy Exchange and Localis, London

Lyons, M (2005) Lyons Inquiry into Local Government: Consultation Paper and Interim Report

Milliband, D (2006) Empowerment and the Deal for Devolution: Speech by Rt Hon David Miliband MP, Minister of Communities and Local Government. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

Power Inquiry (2006) Power to the People: The Report of Power: An Independent Inquiry into Britain's Democracy, York Publishing Distribution

Travers, T and L Esposito (2003) The Decline and Fall of Local Democracy: A History of Local Government Finance

Travers, T and L Esposito (2004)
Nothing to Lose But Your Chains: Reforming the English Local Government Finance System, Policy Exchange

Travers, T (2005) International Comparisons of Local Government Finance: Propositions and Analysis London School of Economics and Political Science

Weaver, M (2006) "More power to the people, urges Miliband", The Guardian,

Wainwright, H (2003) Reclaim the State: Experiments in Popular Democracy, Verso, London

Posted in Politics ed's blog | 3167 reads
Submitted by ed on Fri, 2006-08-25 17:32.