{"id":6895,"date":"2019-10-01T15:59:10","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T15:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=6895"},"modified":"2019-10-01T15:59:12","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T15:59:12","slug":"local-difficulties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=6895","title":{"rendered":"Local difficulties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Manchester Town Hall\/pxhere.com<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Local government, eh? Guaranteed to raise a yawn \u2013\nespecially at a time when our national politics have taken on the complexion of\na cheap melodrama populated with double-dealing villains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local government is seen as at best dull and at worst\ncorrupt, and there is no denying that there has been some spectacular graft\nunder the guise of local development. In fact, it amazes me that anyone\nactually wants to rise through the ranks of local government. Compared to a\nlocal authority chief executive, captains of industry have it easy: they only\nhave their shareholders, customers and possibly staff to worry about, and\nmaximising profit while remaining within the law is a direction of travel\neveryone can sign up to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a local authority chief executive, you have a far more\nunruly bunch to deal with, all pulling in opposite directions: the local electors,\nmany of whom just don\u2019t want to know (average turnout for local elections over\nthe past few years has been hovering around 35%); national government, which\ndoes little more than cut their funding, pile more responsibility on them and criticise\nthem; their staff, many of whom spend all day and every day confronting a tide\nof human misery \u2013 and as if that wasn\u2019t enough, they have a gang of squabbling\ncouncillors to negotiate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly the report Elitist\nBritain<\/a><\/em> noted that only 9% of local authority chief executives have\nbeen privately educated (in contrast to the predominance of public school\neducated people in the upper echelons of government and the civil service). I\nwonder why this is? Insufficient glamour to attract those with a sense of\nentitlement is my guess. You have to have a genuine desire to grapple with the\nproblems that beset your community to accept such a poisoned chalice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u2018squabbling councillors\u2019 is a rather glib and unfair\ndescription. To be sure, some just like to be a big fish in the small pond of\ntheir wards, but thousands of them turn out year after year, on cold February\nnights, to things like taxi licensing subcommittee meetings, and shoulder the\nburdens of the most vulnerable society, all for no reward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t envy them the\nincreasingly difficult choices they have to make: should they withdraw services\nfrom the elderly and disabled so they can continue to support children? Should\nthey dispose of property to generate funds? Property decisions have caused widespread\nuproar and accusations of corruption \u2013 Lewisham Council\u2019s plans for the redevelopment\nof the area around Millwall football ground look decidedly dodgy. (And as for\nSouthwark Council\u2019s offer of mindfulness courses to assuage the anguish of those\nkicked out of their homes when the Heygate Estate was redeveloped \u2013 with every\nflat in the new development sold to foreign investors . . . )<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we cannot do without even the\nmost incompetent of councils, as the BBC\u2019s The\nStreet That Cut Everything<\/em> (2011) amply demonstrated. The residents of one\nstreet in Preston were reimbursed their council tax for six weeks so they could\ngo it alone. It wasn\u2019t long before rubbish was piled up in black bags in people\u2019s\nfront rooms and neighbours were at loggerheads debating whether a portion of\nthe street\u2019s budget should go on one single mother\u2019s housing benefit or on home\ncare for another\u2019s elderly father. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole Big Society idea came to nothing, but its spirit was there all along in those who take on the responsibility on our behalf for making things work as best they can \u2013 I take my hat off to them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone for a subcommittee meeting?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,55,65,62],"tags":[232,231,230],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6895"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6901,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6895\/revisions\/6901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}