The Democratic Deficit

Local councils were created to provide local services for local people.  Their origins date back to at least the Anglo Saxon era.  The idea, essentially, was that local people would vote for local representatives because they agreed with what they had to say about local needs.  If there were no great needs, then the councils needed to raise less money.  If there were great needs, then a majority vote of local people effectively endorsed a bigger budget.

For thirty years or more, governments of all persuasions - yes, including New Labour - have cut back local decision-making and, to a greater or lesser extent, local revenue raising.  David Cameron hasn't achieved much in his single term prime ministership but he has blown a truly massive hole in the concept of local democracy.

* The Tory-led Government has imposed the biggest funding reductions in the public sector on local councils.  Funding for local government has been cut by 40% over this Parliament, with councils having to reduce their budgets by a total of £20 billion by 2015/16.

* David Cameron and Eric Pickles are distributing these massive cuts unfairly – hitting those that can afford it least the hardest. It is scandalous that the areas with the greatest need are shouldering the largest reductions in central government funding.

* The Prime Minister says “we’re all in this together”, but his local authority of West Oxfordshire – one of the least deprived areas in the country (ranked 316 out of 325 in the indices of multiple deprivation) – is getting an increase in spending power of 3.1% in 2013/14, while most places faced significant cuts.

* The most recent Local Government Financial Settlement means that over this Parliament – between 2010-11 and 2015-16 – the ten most deprived areas will have had their spending power cut by ten times the amount of the ten least deprived areas.

* The Government is hitting the poorest people in those communities too. Eric Pickles lectures councils and says they have a “moral duty” not to increase council tax bills this year, but at the same time he has dropped his own council tax bombshell on people on the lowest incomes. 

* At a time when carers, the disabled, single mums, war widows and veterans are having to pay more council tax and the hated bedroom tax, the Prime Minister refuses to rule out cutting taxes for millionaires yet again. It tells you all you need to know about whose side he is on.