Tory plan to hand quango powers to councils

Ben Walker and Richard Garlick, Regeneration & Renewal, 22 June 2007

Cameron: 'much to welcome and develop'

The party's Cities Taskforce, led by former environment secretary Lord Heseltine, recommends the introduction of executive mayors serving four year terms for top tier urban authorities. The mayors would take over the funding of the regional development agencies, learning and skills councils, English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation and administer the award of European cash. The report says this would transfer £10 billion a year into local authorities' hands.

Under the proposals, the money would be allocated to the authorities partly by formula, and partly by a competitive bidding process. The latter would require the mayor to submit a corporate plan drawn up with local private and voluntary stakeholders, and is described in the report as an "expansion" of the City Challenge programme that Heseltine introduced as a government minister in the 1990s.

The mayors would also have power over strategic and transport planning, regeneration and development, vocational training, highways, passenger transport, fire, waste disposal and policing. All urban unitary authorities would get mayors, with the exception of councils in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle, where pan-city mayors would operate.

"In many cities, such as Sheffield and Bristol, the existing authorities cover the whole city," says the report, explaining the proposal to extend London's city-regional government approach to other areas. "However, in the four largest cities outside London, the same problem exists as it did in London before 2000: leadership on some issues needs to be exercised on a pan-city basis, yet these cities comprise between five and ten local authorities." In those major cities where boundaries truly encompass the city, such as Sheffield and Leeds, the existing local government structure would remain, it says.

The task force also suggests allowing mayoral authorities to issue their own bonds and borrow money. The bodies would be financially independent of central government and would have their own credit rating, it says. The comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) target regime for local authorities should be abolished, it concludes, while councils should be allowed to retain the business rates which they collect from businesses in new developments in their first five years.

- Cities Renaissance is available via www.regen.net/doc

THE MAIN PROPOSALS

- Directly-elected mayors for every top tier urban authority.

- Some £10.5 billion a year of funding currently allocated to quangos such as the Learning and Skills Council and regional development agencies to be placed under the control of mayoral authorities.

- Mayoral authorities to be allowed to issue bonds and borrow independently of central government.

- City-regional mayors to be introduced in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle.

RESPONSES

Ian Keating, senior policy consultant, Local Government Association.

"There isn't really any support for city-regional mayors. Elected politicians don't favour them. We would like to see more Manchester-type senates of leaders (for city regions)."

Dermot Finch, director of think-tank the Centre for Cities

"We agree that the big cities outside London should have more financial powers and one of the ways to unlock this is to have city regional mayors"

David Cameron, Conservative leader.

"I don't support everything they propose. But there is so much to welcome and develop: the slashing of unaccountable regional bureaucracies; the creation of new tools for local councils.".