Central-local government relations: theory and practice

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY QUARTERLY, Vol. 2, No. 2, ApriI 1983, 119-138

Central-local government relations: theory and practice’ MARTIN BODDY

school for Advanced Urban Studies, Rodney Lodge, Grange Road, Bristol i3S8 4EA, England

ABSTRACT.Conflict between central and local government

in Britain has reached new heights in the 1980s. Early attempts in the late 1970s to theorize the nature of local politics and the state have been overtaken by the radical restructuring of the geography of central-local government relations. This article takes stock of key issues in the analysis of local politics and the state at the level of theory and practice. It looks in turn at: developments in radical social theory; central-local relations and policy implementation, highlighting the emerging radical critique; the informal politics of community action and beyond; the post-1979 crisis in formal central-local government relations; and concludes by discussing local political responses to the shifting geography of central-local relations.

Introduction Deepening economic crisis and the election in 1979 of a radical Conservative central government raised conflict between central and local government in Britain to new heights, surpassing perhaps even the celebrated and mythologized case of the London Borough of Poplar where councillors were gaoled for their defiance of the government in the 1920s. Already in the 1980s we have seen the Greater London Council’s cheap fares policy outlawed by a House of Lords judgement, Norwich City Council forced by a Court ruling to comply with the ‘right to buy’ provisions of the Housing Act 1980, Lothian Regional Council impelled to capitulate to the Secretary of State’s demands for expenditure cuts in the face of the imminent appointment of Commissioners to take over the duties of the elected council members, and the imposition, under the far-reaching provisions of the Local Govemment, Planning and Land Act 1979, of financial penalties on individual local authorities for ‘overspending’. At the same time, and in the face of a government intent on imposing cuts and controls, local councils such as Sheffield and the GLC have been striving to develop progressive policies in the fields of employment, race and housing. These local ,campaigns, and clashes between central and local govemment, together with the emergence of the GLC’s Ken Livingstone or Lambeth’s Ted Knight as media ‘bogeymen’ of the Left, have catapulted local government into the public eye in a way which even T. Dan Smith, Paulson or the Clay Cross Councillors 0260-9827/83/02 0119-20 $03.00 0 Butterworth & Co (Publishers)Ltd

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failed to do-there has even been a soap opera (admittedly screened on BBC?) entitled ‘County Hall’. It was, however, in the late 1970s that preliminary attempts were made to make sense of local government as an aspect of the capitalist state, to analyse local government as ‘local state’ (Cockbum, 1977; Saunders, 1979). This work had its roots in the theory and practice of the Left and progressive groups in Britain. It developed in the context of, first, the theoretical and empirical evolution of radical Weberian and Marxian analyses of urban and social issues and the nature of the capitalist state and, second, the struggles of locally based progressive groups around local government policies, services and particularly cuts in provision. With a pedigree in the theory and practice of socialist politics the concept of the ‘local state’ was readily absorbed into the everyday language of at least more academically minded socialists (Corrigan, 1979). The advent of the Thatcher government in May 1979 however generated a much broader-based concern with issues of central-local relations which embraced mainstream as well as radical academics, local activists and media commentators.* For many Labour authorities, coping with or opposing the avalanche of cuts and controls has been an overwhelming preoccupation. Earlier attempts to theorize the nature of local politics or the local state have thus been overtaken by recent events which have radically restructured the geography of centrallocal government relations. The purpose of this article is to review and take stock of a number of key elements in the analysis of local politics and the state, at the level of both theory and of political practice. It looks in turn at: developments in radical social theory; approaches to the study of central-local relations and policy implementation, highlighting within this work the emerging radical critique; the informal politics of community action and beyond; the crisis in more formal central-local government relations post-1979; and then finally political responses at the local level to the shifting geography of central-local relations.

Radical

social theory

The major seminal contributions to theoretical analyses of local government as ‘local state’ by Cockbum (1977) and Saunders (1979) have obviously been the focus of considerable discussion elsewhere (see in particular the extended review by Duncan and Goodwin, 1982a,b) and will be addressed only briefly. Both Cockbum and Saunders turned to theories of the state in attempting to make sense of and provide a conceptual framework for studies in specific local authorities. Cockbum was seeking to explain the and ‘community development’ and the development of ‘corporate management’ relationship between them and focused as a case study on the London Borough of Lambeth. To achieve this, she argued: We need an analysis that sets local government in the context of the real economic situation of the period in which we live and asks: what is its job? Such an approach involves stepping outside the conventional frame of reference and seeing local government, our old redbrick town hall, for what it really is: a key part of the state in capitalist society (Cockburn, 1977: 41). The need to see ‘local government as local state’ and specifically as an aspect of the capitalist state as conceptualized in Marxist theory thus formed the starting-point for her study. She identifies the role of the local state in terms of the functions of the state in general in capitalism, namely securing conditions favourable to capital accumulation by contributing to both capitalist production and capitalist reproduction. The activities of

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the local state relate primarily to reproduction, both of the labour force and, through ideology and repression, of the relations of production. Electoral democracy at the local, as at the national, level promotes an ideology of representation and institutionalizes class contest. Opportunities for working-class militancy to win concessions are limited to the exploitation of ‘the play within tne structure of the state’, needed to enable the coordination of the interests of the divided, dominant class. It is, however, emphasized that the extension of the welfare state, though contributing to capitalist reproduction, was also a real gain for the working class. The particular relationship between the local state and women in the family is identified, and the specific role of local authority expenditure in the developing fiscal crisis of the state is noted (O’Connor, 1973; Cough, 1975). Theoretically, the local state is identified by mapping out which functions, established in Marxist theory of ‘the state in general’, are performed by local authorities. At a practical level this lack of autonomy, of the specific existence of the local state, is emphasized. Local authorities ‘are and have always been, subject to central government’, they are ‘aspects of the national state and share its work’. When I refer to Larnheth Borough Council as ‘local state’ it is to say neither that it is something distinct from ‘national state’, nor that it alone represents the state locally. It is to indicate that it is a part of a whole (Cockbum, 197’& 46-47).

Thus the local state is interpreted very much as ‘the state at the local level’, specific only in respect of the particular state functions it discharges. Saunders turned to theory of the state in general in seeking a theoretical context for his study of local power elites in Croydon, devoting a chapter to ‘The question of the local state’ (Saunders, 1979, chapter 4). The roots of his own study, which he identifies as American community power studies, urban managerialism and more recent radical critiques of the latter, emphasize ‘the crucial significance of the state’ (Saunders, 1979: 140). The idea of ‘the local state’ is introduced at the start of the discussion by simply substituting it for ‘local authorities’ and subsequently dropping the inverted commas (Saunders, 1979: 141). The functions of the local state are then identified, as in Cockbum, in terms of the functions of the state in general which are discharged by local authorities. Assuming initially a Marxist perspective, Saunders observes that: . . . the ‘local state’ is important in the provision of collective consumption, in the regulation of class relations, and in sustaining the conditions for capital accumulation (1979: 143). Combining

O’Connor’s

typology

of state

expenditure

in terms

of social

investment,

1973) and Cockbum’s more specific study of the local state he constructs a taxonomy of key functions of the local state under three key headings: sustenance of private production and capital accumulation; reproduction of labour-power through collective consumption; maintenance of order and social cohesion. The major part of this particular chapter in Saunders’ book, ostensibly discussing the question of the local state, is an excellent review of alternative theories of the state in general-representational, instrumentalist, managerialist and structuralist-with only limited reference to the nature of the local state specifically. The local state is only considered per se in discussing Lojkine’s (1977) analysis of the relations between the local state, and local and monopoly capital in Lyon and Rennes; in Saunders’ own discussion of corporatism which he sees as reducing the autonomy of urban managers; and, finally, in a concluding discussion of the autonomy of the local state. While social capital and social expenses

(O’Connor,

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emphasizing that many functions of the local state are ‘performed in conjunction with other levels of government and administration, and many are financed mainly through central government’ (1979): 148), Saunders stresses the degree of autonomy retained by local authorities in respect of most functions. Although ‘managerial autonomy’ is subject to what are termed ecological, political and economic constraints (1979: 189- 197) and local authorities are seen as subordinate to central government they are not merely the agents of the centre (1979: 231). He thus stresses much more than Cockburn the autonomy of the local state at a practical level which denies a simple definition of the local state as the state at the local level. He suggests, however, that the way this autonomy operates is ‘an empirical rather than a theoretical question’ (1979): 196) a point emphasized by Kirby (1982) who stresses the diversity of ‘local states’ and of central-local government relations at a practical level. The specificity of the local state in theoretical terms is not addressed in Urban Politics but is subsumed in theses of the state in general. Saunders does however take up this point in subsequent work, discussed below. Specific interest in the local state grew with the recent expansion of urban political economy and the ‘new urban sociology’ represented for example in contributions since 1977 to the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (see also Harvey, 1973; Lindberg et al., 1975; Pickvance, 1976; Castells, 1977; Harloe, 1977; Harloe and Lebas, 1981; and much of the work in the UK of the Community Development Projects). Although not directly addressed to the concept of the local state much of this work is concerned with the same issues. In particular, O’Connor’s (1973) categorization of state functions figured in the early development of the specific idea of the local state, while his analysis of state fiscal crisis has been drawn on by Markusen (1976), Alcaly and Mermelstein (1977) and Friedland et al. (1977). Markusen argues that the evolution in the USA of metropolitan political fragmentation has been a powerful factor in exacerbating the urban financial crisis. Friedland et al. stress the contradictory nature of they help to diffuse and manage conflict and fragmentary structural arrangements: segregate accumulation and legitimation functions; but they also lead to the proliferation of government activities and costs and the contraction of government revenues, leading to recurrent fiscal strain. This argument has been further developed by Dear (1981) who, following O’Connor (1973), reacting allocation

Hahermas (1976) and Hirsch to the political repercussions of state functions

to subnational

(1978) of crises

stresses the role of the in capital accumulation.

local state in The specific

levels:

. . represents a purposeful ‘conflict-diversification’ strategy, which shifts the effects of a structural crisis to community and local levels . The financial, rationality and legitimacy crises are regionulised, thus temporarily removing the burden from the central state, and implicating the local state in the genesis of the crises . . the decentralisation of certain powers to the local level implies that conflict over state outputs (rationality crises) are most likely to be focused at the local level. This may occur irrespective of the actual responsibility for a given state output, because it is at the local level that the output becomes manifest (Dear, 1981: 192-193). The process is to some extent, however, contradictory, since ‘one effect of these structural arrangements is to exacerbate the fiscal crisis of the local state’ (1981: 192) with the state fiscal crisis being concentrated in urban areas (Alcaly and Mermelstein, 1977). Dear also argues that the proliferation of subnational state bureaucracies serves

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‘to obfuscate

the system of authority and control in capitalist social relations’ (1981: 194); the ‘partition of class-based conflict into a conflict based on spatial units (as in urban social movements) consolidates the role of electoral politics’ as a way of ‘containing and channelling social conflict and of obtaining the consent of the governed’ (1981: 177); and finally the local state ‘facilitates the locating of social pathologies at the level of the individual, family or community’ (1981: 198). Thus, while acknowledging the role of the local state in terms of employment, capital investment and the supply of goods and services, Dear also focuses on the effects of the particular structural arrangements of the state, and the effects of a set of spatially fragmented subnational state units. While Dear has emphasized the ‘conflict diversification’ and ‘obfuscation’ inherent in the allocation of functions to the local level, Corrigan (1979) has stressed the political possibilities which the contradictory effects of decentralized state functions offer. He argues that the local state is: . . an arena for class struggle in the locality. It provides the opportunity for organising pressure and change in a local area of struggle, at all times recognising the influence of central government and the power of the multinationals in the struggle but underlining that the consciousness of the great mass of working people is around local issues (1979: 204). and he emphasizes that democratic local pressure for change can be brought to bear politically on the local state even though ‘power’ resides predominantly outside the locality. Restructuring of the state apparatus and the introduction of corporate management are interpreted, more explicitly than by Cockbum, as necessary for the effective restructuring of capital and labour in the attempt to avert the economic crisis of capitalism: . . monopoly power has attempted to move as much democratic power away from the locality because it is in the sphere of locality that the working class as a class has some possibility of a mass politics (1979: 209). forms of the state, as in the restructuring of the local authority in Bologna by the PCI, are significant because ‘the structures of the state can provide a set of experiences for the mass of the working people that acts as a springboard for socialism’ (1979: 208). Corrigan thus emphasizes the specific nature of the local state as an arena for political struggle. The specificity of local government and of local political processes is explicitly addressed by Saunders (1981) in attempting to reformulate the field of urban sociology. Saunders initially adopts O’Connor’s distinction between ‘social investment’ and ‘social consumption’ (while denying the functionalist implications of O’Connor’s theoretical framework).3 He then notes Offe’s (1975) argument that as the productive role of the state in capitalist society expands the state increasingly encounters a rationality problem: three possible counter-strategies are outlined by Offe-expanding state bureaucracy, state planning, or participation in policy-making-none of which, argues Offe, can ultimately succeed. Saunders concentrates on the third possible strategy, increased popular participation in policy-making, which Offe sees as inadequate due to the consequent vulnerability of policies to the demands of non-capitalist interests. Saunders develops this participatory strategy with the aid of Jessop’s (1978) distinction between a corporate mode of politics and traditional representative democracy. He argues, drawing together these various threads, that the tensions between social investment and social consumption and between corporatist and competitive politics are to some extent resolved by the Alternative

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relations

location of different functions and different modes of interest mediation at different levels of government (paralleling Friedland et al. and Dear’s argument on the localization of conflict). Then ‘local consumption policies will reflect competitive political struggles between different groups while national investment policies will reflect the particular demands and general requirements of different sections of capital’ (Saunders, 1981: 272). In his analysis (1981: 261), to which this brief account does little justice. Saunders constructs what he terms an ideal typical conceptual framework which is offered both as a possible means of reformulating urban sociology and as a basis for generating statements which can be empirically tested (see Table I). As Saunders suggests, the value of this framework lies particularly in its productivity in guiding and stimulating empirical work. While this goes beyond the present discussion, a few of the particular questions which are posed at the empirical level can be briefly noted. TABLE 1. The three elements of the urban question Conceptual criterion

Urban aspect

Relational

Principal tension

Primary function

Social consumption

Social investment

Economic management v. social provision

Mode of interest mediation

Competitive politics

Corporatist politics

Planning v. democratic accountability

Level of administration

Local government

Regional/national government

Centralization v. peripheral autonomy

The key question is, perhaps, how far local policy and expenditure problems are open to democratic, competitive determination (in contrast with the national/regional level). There is little clear evidence that policies and expenditure are influenced by voting at local elections, which tends in any case to reflect primarily national political issues and trends; non-elected officers play a major role in policy-making and day-to-day implementation in conjunction to varying degrees with a few key officers; and evidence of significant variation in local policies and patterns of service provision reflecting local 1979; Bennett, 1980; Green, 1980). political structure is inconclusive (Johnston, Furthermore, the autonomy of local government at a practical level is severely bounded by the financial framework through which central government influences capital expenditure and the size of the annual revenue grant to local government (on which the latter depends for over half its income); and by the legislative and administrative framework establishing local government powers and duties across the range of its activities. The limits of autonomy are anecdotally illustrated by the GLC fares case, the ruling on Norwich City Council’s policy on council house sales or the financial penalties exacted on overspending authorities during 1981/82 (discussed below). The question then is what significance can be attached to the degree of freedom which remains within these limits and to the influence of democratic, competitive policies. As Saunders himself are likely to find that even their scope for action observes, ‘radical local administrations in the social consumption sphere is extremely limited’ (1981: 266). In passing we might also question the extent to which social consumption is primarily the concern of local government and social investment of national and regional levels. Empirical evidence suggests considerable blurring of this distinction.

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125

A second major question relates to the description of national/regional politics as ‘corporate’. Even allowing for Jessop’s useful redefinition of the concept as representing a ‘mode of interest mediation’ rather than a qualitatively new mode of production (as Pahl, 1977, and Winkler, 1975, imply), state intervention is portrayed as ‘the product of negotiation and consultation between large capital, organized labour and the state’ (Saunders, 1981: 263). The form and significance of such tripartite negotiation and consultation in determining the policies and expenditure patterns of national/regional state institutions is obviously a matter for empirical investigation. Without, however, attempting a systematic review it would not appear that corporate politics is a generally applicable model. The incorporation of organized labour in recent years into certain aspects of industrial strategy, pay policy and industrial relations may be recognized, but the role of negotiation and consultation with organized labour in the determination of major areas of government policy, such as defence, social security, health and social services, levels of central grant to local authorities, or pubic housing, does not seem great. Similarly it is questionable how far the interests of capital are represented through direct negotiation and consultation across the range of national/regional state activity rather than being ensured by, for example, a combination (following Miliband, 1969) of ruling-class participation in government, the common class background, outlook and personal inter-relations of the ruling class and government personnel, plus the ultimate dependence of state personnel on maintaining conditions to ensure continued capital accumulation. It may be more productive to approach empirical investigation with the proposition that social investment at the national/regional level is more subject to the interests of capital or sections of capital than is social consumption at the local level, rather than to posit a specific corporate mode of interest mediation. It seems that problems of applicability relate to the fact that the field within which the proposed framework might hold has not been defined or restricted in any way, and the categories have been presented as absolutes. The framework was developed through discussion of particular issues yet offered apparently as a general model applicable to all aspects of government policy and intervention. Notwithstanding such immediate questions, the value of Saunders’ conceptual framework lies in the attempt to theorize the specificity of local government and local political processes and to do so in a form which invites empirical testing. In terms of academic endeavour it is undoubtedly serving this function of stimulating analyses of local politics and the state grounded in radical social theory.

Policy

implementation

and central-local

relations

There is of course a wide area of mainstream local government studies, much of it relevant to debates around the nature of ‘the local state’ (see, for example, Dearlove, 1973, 1979; Newton, 1976; papers in Local Government Studies and Policy and Politics; and the review of local political studies by Dunleavy, 1980a, chapter 1). Here, however, I would like to focus in particular on the expansion and evolution of work focused specifically on the study of central-local relations and policy implementation, which draws to some extent on organizational theory. Following the Layfield Committee report on Local Government Finance in 1976 and the Central Policy Review Staff survey in 1977, Relations Between Central Government and Local Authorities, an SSRC Panel on Central-Local Government Relationships was set up (Jones, 1980). Two reports were commissioned in order to develop an analytic framework (Rhodes, 1979) and explore the area of policy implementation (Hill, 1979) in relation to central-local

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Central-local

government

relations

relations and a number of research projects were subsequently set up. These are summarized by Jones (1980), whose book contains a dozen papers commissioned by or submitted to the Panel on the subject of central-local relations. While it is impossible to do this large volume of work justice here, at risk of caricature some of its general characteristics can be indicated. The central concern of much of the work is with organizational efficiency, the process of implementation and the effectiveness of public policy. It reflects the fear of ‘ungovemability’. Rhodes’ ‘bargaining model’ of central-local relations distinguishes organizational interdependence, resources, strategies, skills and rules of the game as key factors, while Hill elaborates in some detail a tripartite ‘policy/implementing agencies/environment’ model. The research informed by these studies focuses on discretion and linkages, planning systems, grants and decision-making, interorganizational relations, and professional, party political and local authority association links. Furthermore it ranges over a wide variety of substantive policy areas (see Barrett and Fudge, 1981). One product of this broad area of work has been the development of a relatively sophisticated and detailed picture of local government functions and central-local government relations. While, for example, financial dependence and detailed control remain themes, thinking has developed beyond simple ‘agency versus partnership models’ of central-local government relations (Rhodes, 1979) and ‘top-down’ models of policy implementation (Hill, 1979), to a concern with unravelling the ‘complexity, ambiguity and confusion’ which Rhodes identifies as characterizing current views of central-local relations. In comparison, treatment of the nature, role and function of the local state from the perspective of radical social theory is relatively undeveloped and based on fairly crude notions of central-local government relations, emphasizing broad structure much more than detail and variety (Kirby, 1982). There is undoubtedly scope for cross-fertilization. This has been hinted at by Saunders (1981 : 277) in his suggestion that ‘managerialist’ approaches may provide the means whereby the relation between local competitive consumption processes and national corporate investment processes may be studied, though his designation of managers as mediators remains problematic. There are, however, obvious conflicts and contrasts between this work on centrallocal relations and analyses of local politics and the state grounded in radical social theory and situating its analysis in the context of a wider analysis of social totality. From a radical perspective, analyses of public policy implementation and central-local relations grounded in political science and organization theory can be criticized on a number of related grounds. First, they either ignore the issue of the nature of the state and of class relations, assuming that questions of organizational structure and central-local relations are somehow neutral; or they operate with an implicit pluralist or plural-elite theory of the state. In the case of the SSRC initiative (Jones, 1980), only Dunleavy’s essay explicitly considered this question, setting out the contrasting conceptions of centrallocal relations embedded in alternative theoretical approaches to demonstrate that ‘these issues or problems cannot be defined or identified in any theory-independent way, contrary to the premises of much administrative or management orientated work’ (1980b: 116). Second, it is concerned with the managerially defined goals of ‘efficiency’, service delivery or ‘governability’ reducing problems of politics to problems of administration, and explaining organizational structure and evolution in terms of these goals. It has failed to relate organizational structure and processes to sectional or class interests and to ask whose interests are served by the control implicit in organization (Salaman, 1978: 521-523). Heydebrand (1977) has argued that it is not rationality and pursuit of

MARTIN J~ODDY

efficiency tions, but one hand Third,

127

which accounts for the evolving form of the state and its constituent organizathe tension between the need for legitimation and ideological closure on the and the consequences of the state fiscal crisis on the other. organizations are isolated from the wider social context:

The society within which the organisations occur, and its relationship with these organisations, has been studied very little. To the extent that the outside world does impinge on the structure and functioning of organisations, it is conceptualised not as a source of interests, values, class loyalties, ideologies, market development, 1978: 525).

etc., but as the organisation’s

‘environment’

(Salaman,

Hill (1979),

for example, noted that in talking about the organizational ‘environment’ he was touching the periphery of arguments about the relationship between the state and the class structure but felt this was ‘a good point on which to end’ rather than a point to be pursued. Fourth, organizational structure is itself treated as neutral and value-free, divorced from societal context. The possibility, for example, of a fragmented local government system enabling the displacement of crises, or the significance of state structure to the possibility for democratic struggle noted by Corrigan, would be discounted. As Salaman (1978: 529) emphasizes, issues and problems related to organizations and implementation are not unique to or generated by capitalism; they would not disappear under socialism. But the nature of these issues and problems relates to the societal context. As this brief critique indicates there is within organization theory and the study of policy implementation itself a developing radical critique (Heydebrand, 1977; Benson, 1977, 1980; Salaman, 1978, 1979; Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980; Clegg, 1981). Much of this analysis is focused on the labour process and on organization and control within capitalist firms rather than on public sector organizations, policy formulation and implementation, and it draws in particular on Marx (Capital, Volume I> and Braverman (1974). Their emphasis on organizational structure and processes as an aspect of wider social relations and as determinants of outputs is however particularly relevant to the public sector. Furthermore, Heydebrand and Benson explicitly encompass public sector organizations, utilizing O’Connor’s theory of state fiscal crisis and the related work of Habermas (1975, 1976) and Offe (1973, 1975) on capitalist crisis and legitimation problems. The application of such approaches to the study of local government offers the possibility of transcending the cruder ‘radical agency’ analyses of local government as local state. They may suggest ways of unravelling the complexity of local structures and allocative processes, while recognizing them as expressions of specific social processes and power relations related to the social totality. Williams (1982) in suggesting the need for a reappraisal of urban managerialism similarly argues the need to analyse institutions as complex organizations, and he provides a useful introduction to the radical organizational literature (see also Batley, 1980). How the necessary links are to be forged and whether indeed this is possible remains to be seen. Community

action

and beyond

Political strategy, campaigns and conflicts have generated and fed the debate around local politics and the state, notwithstanding the disjuncture between political practice and some of the more academic theoretical work. Local struggles and action within the

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Central-local government relations

community have been an important element in this interaction as well as the more formal politics of local government and of central-local government relations. Most people’s everyday experience of ‘the state’ is as consumers of local government goods and services-public housing, transport, schools, roads, social services-and as ratepayers. The state for them is ‘the council’ or ‘the corporation’. As Corrigan observed, in the day-to-day struggles of progressive groups in the community ‘the council’ is increasingly recognized as an element of the capitalist state. There is probably an element of political wishful thinking in the observation-most struggles and campaigns have been isolated, community-based actions over specific issues, precisely the contained limited protest which the fragmentary local state system serves to promote. Saunders (1981: 268-278) makes clear the distinction between ‘urban’ struggles on consumption sectors and struggles based on class interests, with no inherent relationship between the two. There is thus a long history of protests against local authority policies, as for example rent strikes against increases in council house rents, the overall political achievements of which are unclear. Successive waves of public expenditure cuts, particularly since 1976, have on the face of it led to a proliferation of local campaigns against cuts in the standard and provision of local authority services. The property boom and pressure for commercial redevelopment in the first half of the 1970s coupled with continued housing shortage and inner-city decay also generated widespread locality-based opposition (Massey and Catelano, 1978) focused in some cases (Colenutt, 1980) on local authority planning policies. Many of the local campaigns which do not of themselves produce a great deal of literature to review are reported in Community Action magazine. The problem politically has been how to explore the possibility of building on such campaigns, and overcoming the cleavage between urban struggle and class struggle. In this area the Community Development Projects and the local groups which continued their work were of major importance in linking theory and practice at the local level. A number of the locally based projects early on rejected the initial assumptions on which they were set up, which had focused around the idea of area-based community work, developing instead analyses grounded in political economy and class politics (CDP, 1975). The analyses of the position of women and racial minorities, government poverty measures, industrial change, and the housing market which were developed, although focused on the local area, drew on structural analyses of the capitalist economy (see, for example, CDP 1977a,b, 1978). Local government was to a large extent seen in terms of the capitalist state. A particularly important aspect of everyday struggles is the position of state workers, addressed by In and Against the State (London Edinburgh Weekend Return Group, 1980). This analysis attempts to link state workers’ everyday experience to theories of the capitalist state at the local level as a way towards developing new forms of opposition not merely to cuts in the welfare state but to the existing form of the state as essentially a capitalist state, an expression of capitalist relations in the local structure.4 It goes on to discuss the sort of action state-workers might take to exploit whatever possibilities exist for achieving change at the local government level, stressing the need to go beyond traditional socialist organizational and strategic thinking, along the lines argued by Rowbotham et al. (1979) in Beyond the Fragments. The latter poses in particular the question of how we act on the lessons of the local struggles and community action of the 1960s and 1970s and on the lessons for socialist organization and strategy contained in the experience of new movements, particularly the Women’s Movement.

MARTINBODDY

Post-1979:

the crisis in central-local

government

129

relations

Within the more formal political structures the tension inherent in the relationship between central and local government has since 1979 been increased to crisis-point in Britain by the policies of the present government. There is of course a history of tension and conflict between the two levels of government, and instances of local government radicalism in the face of central government, which must not be forgotten (Bassett, 1981; Dickens and Goodwin, 1981; Byrne, 1982; Duncan and Goodwin, 1982a). Furthermore the previous, Labour, government had itself embarked on a strategy of expenditure cuts and controls encouraged in the mid-1970s by the IMF. The impact of the Thatcher government has, however, produced a major shift in the balance of central-local relations, radically restructuring the geography of political power relations within the framework of state institutions, and it is on this recent period that attention is focused here. The measures themselves have subjected local authorities to expenditure cuts, controls and, particularly in the housing field, privatization. They seem to reflect more the ideological shift within the Conservative government with respect to public expenditure, the welfare state and the relative roles of public and private sectors, fuelled by monetarist and market economies (Barlow, 1981; Jackson, 1982) rather than any coherent strategy directed at local government (Bassett, 1982). Central to these measures are the financial provisions of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act, 1980 and supplementary measures which have greatly strengthened central government control over local government spending. There are two principal elements to the provisions: the first relating to local authority capital expenditure (expenditure to acquire assets such as buildings, land, plant and machinery); and the second to revenue expenditure (to meet both the current cost of providing goods and services which includes wages, fuel, office supplies and the current cost of past borrowing, i.e. interest). Looking first at capital expenditure, a large proportion of capital expenditure, 66 per cent in 1980, is funded by borrowing. The level of local authority borrowing has been controlled in recent years by central government ostensibly in pursuance of macroeconomic policies. Authorities were, however, free to incur capital expenditure met by means other than borrowing-with receipts from the sale of capital assets or by surpluses of current income over expenditure. The 1980 Act introduced overall ceilings on total capital expenditure (as opposed to simply borrowing) set annually for each individual authority. Certain capital receipts are exempted, although via complex regulations, but surpluses which accounted for 27 per cent of expenditure in 1980 and other sources of capital are caught within the net. Within the ceiling, local authorities have been given greater flexibility to determine expenditure patterns and they can switch up to 10 per cent of expenditure between financial years. As a whole, however, the measures represent a rigid framework of central control over the capital spending programmes of individual local authorities. The measures relating to revenue expenditure are more complex but in some ways more the key issue for authorities. Pre-1980, current expenditure was to a considerable extent locally determined. Elected councillors were free to determine expenditure subject to the level of rates (which accounted for 31 per cent of income in 1980) which local ratepayers would meet. The total rate income required for a given expenditure level was influenced by the rate of central government grant to authorities (which accounted for 50 per cent of 1980 income); but under the old Rate Support Grant system, as an authority increased its expenditure, the ‘resources’ element of the RSG met a constant 5

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Central-localgovernment

relations

proportion of the additional expenditure-the resources element was ‘open-ended’. Total local authority expenditure at the national level was estimated by central government in its annual public expenditure White Papers, but for guidance and planning purposes; it was not enforced as a target or ceiling. The 1980 Act and an avalanche of subsequent measures have now given central government tight control over the spending levels of individuat authorities. The system may be complex but the principle is fairly clear. Central government (the Department of the Environment) determines what it believes each individual authority should spend. It then cuts the level of grant paid to any authority whose spending exceeds these prescribed levels; increasing expenditure beyond these levels thus throws a rapidly increasing burden onto the rates which, while it does not represent absolute control, constitutes a powerful disincentive to ‘overspending’ as centrally defined. The framework evolved has two elements, one systematic and one ad hoc. Simplifying somewhat, the systematic element of increased control operates through the new Block Grant which replaces the old Rates Support Grant. To determine the level of grant to be paid to each authority annually, the DOE assesses how much each must spend in order to provide a common standard of service across the country. Expenditure exceeding this level by more than 10 per cent attracts a decreased rate of grant; the new grant schedules are not open-ended but taper away, throwing an increasing proportion of the marginal increase in expenditure onto the rates. The ad hoc measures include a series of provisions introduced subsequently within the general powers and framework of the Act. First, if as in 1981-82, central government fears that total local authority spending is likely to exceed the expenditure target in a particular year it can ‘claw back’ grant part way through the year. Second, alongside prescribed levels, the DOE introduced expenditure targets-these were set for 198 l-82 for each authority as the level of spending in 1979-80 less 5.6 per cent in real terms. Authorities which exceeded these new targets could be, and were, individually penalized by the withdrawal of arbitrary amounts of grant. Particularly hard-hit were inner London boroughs, the GLC, West Midlands and Merseyside. The government is currently seeking to confirm the impact of penalties through a Bill which wouid also prohibit authorities from levying supplementary rates part way through the year-not common in the past but a possible strategy to cope with withdrawal of grant. J#nfact the Law Lords’ judgement in the GLC fares case has given a further twist to the situation. The case itself turned on the legality of the level of fares subsidy. The Law Lords, however, ruled in the course of the case that the GLC, by losing grant by exceeding its prescribed expenditure limit, had failed in its fiduciary duty to its ratepayers. Though it has yet to be tested in court, this implies that any local authority which, by overspending, loses grant could be acting illegally-overspending may simply be outlawed. From a system of guidance and influence which left considerable scope for the iocal determination of expenditure we have thus moved towards much firmer central control Particularly significant in the case of the Block over local government expenditure. Grant is that government has taken the power to influence not just the impact of local authority spending as a whole in keeping with macro-~onomic objectives but it can influence the spending levels of individual authorities-a power unnecessary in pursuit of macro-economic objectives and, as some such as Caulcott (1981) have argued, political rather than economic in essence. Actual expenditure figures are detailed in Table 2 which shows past current and capital expenditure, and planned outcome for 1981-82 and 1982-83. The figures indicate the significant cutbacks in current expenditure, in particular compared with the

MARTIN BODDY

late

1970s.

Capital

expenditure

has

been

131

particularly

severely

cut

back

both

by the

Labour government and under Thatcher, with in fact a minor increase planned for 1982-83. What these figures do not show is that the proportion of English local authorities’ expenditure met by central government dropped from 66 per cent in 1975-76 to 56 per cent in 198283.5 previous

TABLE 2. Local government survey) prices, f million

Current expenditure Percentage change on previous year

(ltif)

Capital expenditure Percentage change on previous year

(1 06f)

expenditure

in England

1976-77

to 1982-83

at constant

(1980

1976-77

1977-78

1978-79

1979-80

1980-81

1981-82

1982-83

13415

13332

13720

14079

13569

13016

(12014)

-0.1

-0.6

+2.90

+ 2.6

-3.6

-4.1

(-7.7)

5235

4120

3552

3535

2778

2351

(2713)

-17.5

-21.6

-13.8

-0.5

-21.4

-15.4

(+15.4)

Source: The GovenmentS &penditure Plans 1983-84, Cmnd 8175 and 1982-83 to 1984-85, Cmnd 8494-11, HMSO. Figures are expressed in constant 1980 public expenditure survey prices, broadly the price of goods and services in autumn 1979. 1982-83 figures are indicative only (the price base for Cmnd 8494 was changed from constant to cash terms) and are based on the simple assumption of 10 per cent price inflation, 1981-82 to 1982-83. Figures up to 1980-81 represent outcomes; 1981-82 and 1982-83 represent plans. Capital expenditure is now subject to an overall cash limit as are most central government grants; current expenditure is not subject to an overall cash limit but is now subject to strong indirect control related to planned totals (see text).

Alongside the financial measures a range of other changes has further eroded the autonomy of local government. Chief amongst these are the provisions of the Housing Act, 1980 which gave council tenants the statutory right to buy their dwelling at a discount. This removes local authorities’ discretion as to whether council houses should be sold and undermines both locally determined housing policy and the quality of provision. The strength of central government in this case was confirmed when Norwich City Council’s opposition was defeated in the courts-the case illustrates as a wider observation the increasing role of the courts in adjudicating conflict between central and local government as in the cases of the GLC and the London Boroughs of Hackney and Camden. Also within the housing field central government subsidies to local authorities’ Housing Revenue Accounts have been set assuming considerable increases in council rents. Authorities must either comply with these increases or find other sources of finance which would imply in most cases a significant increase in the rates. Privatization has been further pursued in the powers established in the Local Government, Planning and Land Act to require local authorities to draw up, and make publicly available, registers of their ‘surplus’ land holdings in order to encourage sales to the private sector, which are backed up by powers (as yet unused) for the Secretary of State to require that land be sold. The Act also introduces controls and restrictions on the operations of local authority Direct Labour Organizations, limiting their ability to compete with the private sector and setting narrow financial criteria of performance. Enterprise Zones and Urban Development Corporations, introduced under the 1980 Act, have been represented by some commentators (Kirby, 1982; Duncan and Goodwin, 1982a) as eroding autonomy.

132

Central-local government relations

It is, however, hard to see these as significant alongside the measures discussed above.” There are, however, indications that the erosion process is continuing with central government currently considering reducing the powers of non-inner-city authorities to incur expenditure under ~137 of the 1972 Local Government Act, used among other purposes for economic and industrial development. Responses This shift in the balance of central-local relations and the erosion of local autonomy has generated considerable opposition from a localist perspective (e.g. Burgess and Travers, 1980; Caulcott, 1981; and, in general, Local Government Chronicle and Municipal Journal). The Association of Metropolitan Councils launched a major press campaign on the theme of ‘Keep it Local’. For the ‘localists’ the measures represent an attack on local democratic principles established since de Tocqueville at least. To compress a number of diverse arguments, it is held that democratic local government as a matter of principle: accommodates diversity of needs and necessary responses matching expenditure to needs at the local level; diffuses power through the political system; represents visible, open government accessible and accountable to the population; and allows local communities to influence policies and expenditure, spending more or less than the norm should they so desire. There has been little opportunity as yet for considered analysis in the more academic arena of radical social theory, one exception being Duncan and Goodwin (1982a) who provide useful social historical background. Many of the broader propositions of radical social theory as set out above remain to be examined in relation to the recent measures, which have obvious implications for the autonomy and specificity which can be ascribed to the local government level. One might also, for example, consider how far the thesis of ‘conflict-diversification’ and localization of state fiscal crisis is supported. The squeeze on local expenditure might superficially seem to support the thesis. It is, however, questionable whether the cuts reflect a structural crisis of capital manifested specifically as a state fiscal crisis as argued by O’Connor; or whether they reflect more the particular combination of macro-economic policy and ideology pursued by the present government. Furthermore, increased central control and usurpation of local autonomy runs counter to localization of conflict. A distinction must also be drawn between ‘privatization’, a general rolling back of the state (common to many areas of government activity though manifest in a particular way with respect to local authorities) and centralization and erosion of local autonomy as such. The specific conflicts which have been generated by the recent changes have been essentially clashes between a Conservative central government and more or less radical local councils. It is in this political arena that the issues have been confronted most starkly and where perhaps the issues of principle (on which the localist case to some extent rests) and of politics have run together. In the political arena it is, in the present circumstances, in Labour-controlled local councils that the conflict and debate has been most acute and issues of strategy have been faced. As Bassett (1982) has detailed, Labour councils confronted with centrally imposed cuts and controls have a range of options open to them. These include: implementing cuts and blaming the Conservatives; protecting key services by raising the rates; bureaucratic obstruction; strengthening the local mandate via referenda or new elections on a ‘no cuts’ platform; resignation and majority opposition to block unacceptable controls and cuts; refusal to implement cuts and controls, generating confrontation

~~ARTIN E+ODDY

133

and crisis. So far councils have relied on the first two options. Council house sales have in some cases been obstructed by bureaucratic delay but the strategy is of dubious value as a campaign base and, as Norwich City Council discovered, untenable in the long run. Referenda and new elections even if successful simply delay the problem of effective opposition; Coventry’s referendum served mainly to allow the Labour leadership to outflank its dissident Left. As Bassett points out, the problems of effective opposition are formidable. Furthermore, the debate within ruling Labour groups has been divisive, splitting several groups and leading to the expulsion of ‘left-wing rebels’. The more extreme options demand a degree of effective agreement and coordination among local councils, backed by the party at the national level, that is hard to envisage, and they raise major questions of legality and principles of parliamentary democracy. A particular problem for the Left in general, and reflected indeed in related areas of radical social theory, has been to distinguish between immediate political expediency and longer-term thinking on the role of local government and the local political level in the developing strategy of the Left and the Labour movement. The irony of the present situation is that past Labour governments have not been noted for their efforts to devolve power to the local level nor the Labour Party for its democratic decentralized power structure. It may be that the current opposition of Labour authorities to Tory cuts and controls represents the kind of pragmatism that allowed the Labour government in 1976 to extol the supremacy of the nationally elected parliament over Conservative Tameside Council’s resistance to the introduction of comprehensive education. This implies that the current highlighting of local government and local politics is a temporary phenomenon and would fade into the background with the election of a Labour government. There are, however, some indications that it is more than a response to the blocking of national-level politics by a reactionary government. For the present divisions and crises within the Labour Party nationally and locally represent more fundamental issues, including internal democratization and opposition to bureaucratic centralism and statist tendencies in the formulation of policy and strategy. Socialist thinking within the party has, as Bassett suggests, to some extent recognized this, calling for: the development of a local democratic, participatory dimension to take forward and build support for the Alternative Economic Strategy; the pursuit of a complementary Alternative Social Policy around the elements of social consumption (for which local government has major responsibility); commitment to a sounder financial basis for local government, replacing rates with a system of local taxation; more generally, recognition of the need to transform the social relations embodied in the structure and functioning of the state apparatus rather than simply to extend state control and the welfare system. These aims, particularly the last point, imply considerable democratization and decentralization within the Party itself, new powers and responsibilities for local government, popular participation in identifying and responding to needs, and decentralization of management and decision-making at the local level. Concluding

observations

Analysis of local politics and the state at a theoretical level is in a period of rapid development and attracting increasing interest both in Britain and elsewhere. In the case of Britain in particular but other countries also, France in particular, this has paralleled and reflected developments in political practice and policy at the local level. As suggested earlier, attempts to theorize have been overtaken in the British case by both the heightened conflict between Conservative central government and Labour-controlled

134

Central-local

government

relations

local authorities and by the positive attempts by many Labour authorities to develop progressive policies at the local level, policies which are in a sense prefigurative of wider economic and social programmes for change rather than simply oppositional. Given this state of flux at the level of both theory and political practice, and the dislocation between the two, I want by way of conclusion to offer simply a number of observations on what appear currently to be significant issues and trends.

Theoretical specificity

Conceptualization at the level of theory as to what is specific about politics and the state at the local level remain relatively underdeveloped. Cruder agency models of local government as the state at the local level have been transcended. Saunders in particular has tried to define politics and the state at the local level in terms of the specific functions performed (consumption) and the specific nature of politics or ‘interest mediation’ (competitive). Such a dual model, however, suffers major problems of oversimplification and generalization in its practical application. Such attempts at abstraction, this suggests, may be at best premature if not actually inappropriate given the diversity of local situations and the lack of systematic concrete research from which to generalize. Diversity

Case studies of particular individual local authorities have generated significant insights into the nature of local politics and the state at the local level. There has been little, however, in the way of systematic comparative study. Both empirically and conceptually most studies have been isolated one-off studies, detailed in themselves but frustrating attempts to juxtapose and compare. Theoretical development needs to be grounded in basic research at two levels. First, while considerable work of a technical nature has been directed to establishing needs and resources across the range of local authorities in relation to the provision of central government grant, more general research is required to establish patterns of variation between authorities in expenditure, levels of service provision, the forms in which services are provided and the ways in which central government policies or rules are implemented in practice. Second, there is a need for more detailed comparative study in particular localities, aiming to explain the nature and sources of diversity in local government and local political processes. Historical analysis would be an important component of such work which could draw to some extent on existing local studies but should embrace the spectrum of local diversity-the more obvious dimensions on which case studies might be differentiated would include London/ provincial, Labour/Conservative/other, radical/moderate, shire/metropolitan, district/ county. Autonomy

In the face of conflicting claims of the end of local government and optimistic assertion of the possibilities for achieving progressive changes, the extent of local government autonomy remains unclear. Systematic study to identify the extent of diversity between authorities is obviously crucial in this respect-to the extent that diversity exists and can be linked in explanatory terms to the local level, there exists autonomy within the general framework of financial dependency and control by central government. Also important, however, is the extent to which individual authorities are able to develop

MARTIN E~DDY

135

progressive policies in fields such as economic regeneration and employment, race, women, decentralization of management and control, within the boundaries of current powers and financial resources. Politics The political significance of the local level remains somewhat confused but undoubtedly operates on a number of different levels. Recent developments have understandably focused attention on relations between central and local government, the extent to which cuts and controls can be imposed from the centre, the increasingly legalistic nature of central-local relations, and the extent to which progressive reforms can be achieved in particular authorities. Local policies and activities whether oppositional and defensive or positive and progressive in character are double-sided. Local opposition to cuts and controls may aim in the first instance to defend service provision in a particular locality, but it also forms part of wider political processes at the national level-putting pressure on central government, demonstrating to and encouraging other similarly oriented authorities, provoking debate and development of policy in the party nationally. Local attempts to develop radical progressive policies similarly relate in the first instance to the local population but have wider implications beyond the local authority boundaries-this would apply equally to a radical Labour authority developing, say, employment policy and to a Conservative authority intent on privatization of rubbish collection or public housing management. Local strategies by either party will, however, inevitably remain fragmentary in national terms given the pattern of political control at the local level. A central government can in no way implement the policy, through local authorities, of its own party throughout the entire country. In this sense there is a basic disjuncture between national political and party structures and local. This is emphasized by the ambiguity of the major parties at the national level towards the place of local government and local politics within the wider political system. The dilemmas facing the Labour Party were touched on earlier, but similar confusions are evident in at least the explicit policies of the other parties. Consumption, reproduction and the family The functions of local government have been identified as relating largely to consumption rather than production. This in itself may be questioned. Equally if not more important, however, the role of local government in the reproduction of both labour power and social relations has been particularly neglected in terms of both theory and political practice. Emphasis on the role of local government in consumption has displaced attention from the continuing centrality of the family and of women in the family to reproduction, despite Cynthia Cockbum’s identification of what she termed the ‘partnership’ between the local state and the family in this area. The impact of cuts and controls on local government appears to have shifted the burden of reproduction to some extent back to the family, re-emphasizing the role of women within patriarchal family structures. In this sense the establishment in a number of authorities of Women’s Committees is a particularly significant move. International comparison Finally,

with the growing

interest

in the area of local politics

and the state, work

136

Central-local

government

relations

conducted in different countries is increasingly being brought together. Such work arises, however, both out of different concerns and analysis of very different political structures. The American concern with fiscal crisis is of little direct relevance to the British situation; federal as opposed to non-federal states raise different issues; the highly centralized French state contrasts with other West European countries, while the problems of comparison with Eastern European local government and political systems have yet to be faced. There are undoubted benefits to be obtained from international research, but the problems of diversity must obviously be borne in mind and comparison conducted if possible within a systematic framework if the results of such work are to be other than superficial. Of particular significance is the question of how far changes in central-local government relations and the development of local strategy in different countries reflects in different ways the impact of the recession and economic crisis. Attempts to restructure both capital and social relations might be expected to lead to increased central control, expenditure cuts at the local level, heightened political struggle both locally and between central and local governments of differing parties and, finally, the attempt of more radical authorities to develop both defensive and oppositional policies to combat economic and social deterioration at the local level. Notes 1. This is an extended and revised version of an article included in M. Boddy and C. Fudge (eds) (1981), The Local State: Theory and Practice, Working Paper 20, School for Advanced Urban Studies, University of Bristol, containing papers from a conference of the same title held at SAUS, December 1980. 2. The focus on contemporary events is by no means meant to imply the unimportance of the broad though imperfectly charted history of local political struggles and central-local conflict. 3. O’Connor’s third category ‘social expenses’ which relates to legitimization and the maintenance of social harmony is ignored by Saunders. 4. This parallels the argument of radical organization theory that organizational structure and processes express specific social processes and power relations. 5. Percentage of relevant expenditure met by aggregate exchequer grant-see Cmnd 8175, Table 4.3 and Cmnd 8494-11, Table 4.4. 6. Many local authorities actively bid for Enterprise Zones to be established in their areas as adjuncts to economic development policy; only two UDCs have been established nationally and their powers and finance fall considerably short of those enjoyed by the conventional new town development corporation.

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