Should Neighbourhood Democracy Be Introduced? – Part. 4 From Local Administration To Community Government 1988

 A different approach was taken by John Stewart and Gerry Stoker (Professor and Lecturer  Institute of Local Government Societies, Birmingham University) in the Fabian Research series pamphlet From Local Administration To Community Government.  (No. 351.  August 1988)

They ‘argue that local authorities have in most cases become agencies for the administration of a pre-determined pattern of services, often unresponsive to community need’. Their solution is ‘that a future government policy must be based on a wider conception of local authorities’ role as the basic unit of community government.’

They envisage local authorities ‘should be developed as units of community government which are not limited to pre-determined pattern of service but can:

·     play a strategic role in enabling communities to meet the problems and needs they face;

·     seek responsiveness in action within collective purpose;

·     extend and develop an active local democracy.’ (p.1)

The major challenge to communities and local government is uncertainty. (p. 6)

As the welfare state was developed by Labour Governments, Labour’s ‘traditions of municipal socialism were forgotten’ and replaced by a ministerial model leaving little role for local authorities as institutions capable of political choice.’(p.8)

They argue that local authorities should:

·     ‘become the expression of communities governing themselves.’

·     ‘be seen as the basic unit of community government’.

·     ensure that ‘local accountability through local democracy’ is strengthened.

They envisage local authorities are to be enablers, responsive to improve access to services, learning from the public, communicating with the public, ‘extending choice over the nature and the type of services provided’, ‘working with staff to provide a responsive service’, and ‘reviewing procedures to  ensure they assist the provision of better services’ and accountable.’(pp. 16-7 & 21)

A new management agenda is needed to ‘provide a high capacity for community learning’, to ‘express political purpose in direction’, to ‘create space for responsiveness and involvement, diversity and choice’, to ‘monitor performance to learn’, and to ‘develop and involve staff.’(p. 19)

Accountability

Stewart and Stoker ‘do not believe …that the present system of local representative democracy is adequate.’ (p.21)

‘Local accountability through local democracy is at its most effective where there is active citizenship. That is most likely to be achieved through the development of participatory democracy. (p.23) They cite as existing at the time the Neighbourhood forums in Islington and Middlesbrough’s ward community councils. They point to the danger of those attending being ‘unrepresentative’, which Islington addressed through guidelines and ‘a model constitution’. (p.23)

Lessons

They set out what they consider to be the lessons ‘in developing participatory democracy’.

·     ‘(L)ocal people must be given the time and opportunity to learn the skills of involvement in decision-making  this may require training and community development support;

·     (L)ocal people must be allowed to discuss issues which interest them and in which they are confident in their knowledge – the agenda must be set by local people;

·     (T)he form of meetings – time, location and degree of formality – should suit the needs of local people rather than the norms of the local authority;

·     (L)ocal parties and councillors will have to recognise the legitimacy of alternative bases of power within the community.’ (p. 24)

TThey conclude:

·     ‘that our developing society needs an active form of community government, devolving and decentralising power. (p. 32)

Manifesto For Neighbourhoods

In 1988 the National Coalition of Neighbourhoods published its Manifesto for Neighbourhoods.  It comprised 16 national voluntary organisations which believed ‘that the value and potential of neighbourhood activity within our society’ had not been fully recognised.

It argued that ‘Neighbourhood activity is the foundation of a pluralistic society; it provides a counterbalance to the concentration of power in large bureaucracies. It enables people to develop citizenship skills and is particularly important as a way of empowering disadvantaged neighbourhoods, enabling them to have more control over the decisions which directly affect them.’

It considered that to release the potential ‘central and local government and the private sector must create the conditions which enable neighbourhood groups to develop and operate effectively.’

It envisaged local authorities entering into partnerships with neighbourhood groups, decentralising services, improving consultation by promoting neighbourhood councils.

It wanted central and local government and the private sector to recognise ‘the value of local experience and the importance of involving people in decision-making’ and recognising neighbourhood development as ‘a long-term investment’.

The problem with this approach, however, is that it was very top-down, rather than a manifesto of building upwards. It fails to recognise that:

·     central government had been centralising power and control over local authorities and community and voluntary sector funding, which has become worse since;

·     that for many residents using local authority services their Council can make life very difficult for them. e.g. through housing management and social work.

·     that the private sector is so diverse that it is impossible to obtain agreement about how they make changes in neighbourhoods with minimal consultation engagement even on medium and large planning applications.

Should Neighbourhood Democracy Be Introduced? – Part. 3. Labour Social Justice, Efficiency & Citizenship

 Labour Party thinking was developed in its Social Justice and Efficiency policies report but did not link them to its Statement of Democratic Socialist Aims and Values.  Professor Raymond Plant (Politics, Southampton University) argued in his Fabian Society pamphlet Citizenship, rights and socialism (No. 531. October 1988) ‘that democratic citizenship should be the key … that ... can provide a unifying framework within which policy can be elaborated and a link to Labour’s historical  principles be maintained.’ (p.1)

He cites from Neil Kinnock’s preface to the Statement: ‘We want a state where the collective contribution of the community is used to advance individual freedom. Not just freedom in name, but freedom that can be exercised in practice’. (p. 4)

He discusses why the New Right’s claim ‘that social justice is not possible through government action and that the distribution of resources is best left to the market … do not hold water philosophically or practically.’ (p. 6) Given the size of welfare rights support and the rise in homelessness that had occurred in the 1980s ‘to rely on the market and a residual welfare state which seeks to provide only for an absolute standard of need will not provide adequate resources for democratic citizenship. Social justice is central to securing the basic goods of citizenship not just to some but to all citizens as a right.’

‘If the basic goods of citizenship should be available to all, they should be considered as matters of right and entitlement.’ However, the range of rights cannot be ‘utterly open-ended’, as it ‘devalues rights and over-extends the role of government so that the powers which it needs to protect expanding rights actually become a major threat to liberty.’(p.10)

Plant discusses  to ‘what extent should the rights of citizenship depend upon the performance of obligations’. (p.14) ‘Clearly this issue raises a deep issue again between the libertarian and the communitarian strands of socialism.’ The latter sees ‘the community as having a right to insist on obligations as a condition of some benefits of membership’, while the ‘libertarian’ will see such ideas  ‘as intolerably coercive.’ (p.15)

Plant then discusses citizenship and the market. ‘The idea of democratic citizenship is profoundly anti-capitalist: it embodies the idea that individuals have a status and a worth to be backed by rights, resources and opportunities which is not determined by their status in the market and their economic value. Their underwriting of these rights of citizenship requires collective action and politically guaranteed provision outside the market.’ (p. 16)

However, ‘the economic market is a very useful and indeed central instrument for securing socialist aims’ because of its ability to distribute ‘a vast range of goods and services.’ The market has important defects including concentrations of wealth, external effects of the environment and self-interest. (p. 17-18)

Plant ends his discussion with:

‘In the context of community it is not the function of public policy to try to create a specific form of community for the whole of society …There are profound totalitarian dangers in that. Our natures are too diverse to fit into a single pattern of life. We should, however, seek the enable people to form and sustain, where they already exist, their own forms of community which meet their needs. To do this we do need some general community spirit to sustain collective provision, but this only needs to be modest. The idea of community is beguiling but as a general idea and as a guide to policy almost wholly indefinite. People create and sustain their own forms of community, not to have them imposed upon them. Given the resources, a society of citizens, rather than individuals or subjects would be able to form their own communities as indeed they did in the early years of the socialist movement.’ (p. 20)

Should Neighbourhood Democracy Be Introduced? – Part. 4 From Local Administration To Community Government 1988 follows

Should Neighbourhood Democracy Be Introduced? – Part. 2. Crosland, Kinnock and Labour 1972-88

The idea of increasing democracy and the potential role of neighbourhood councils was discussed by Anthony Crosland in his Fabian Tract in January 1972 A social democratic Britain. He sets  set out four Labour’s objectives. (p.5)

(1)     ‘(A)n exceptionally high priority, when considering the claims on our resources, for the relief of poverty, distress and social squalor – Labour’s traditional “social welfare” goal.’

(2)     ‘(A) more equal distribution of wealth, not because redistribution today will make all the workers rich, but to help create a more just and humane society,’

(3)     ‘(A) wider ideal for social equality, involving not only educational reform but generally an improvement in our social capital such that the less well off have access to housing, health and education of a standard comparable, at least in the basic decencies, to that which the better off can buy for themselves out of their private means.’

(4)     ‘(S)trict social control over the environment – to enable us to cope with the exploding problems of urban life, to protect the countryside from the threat posed by more industry, more people and more cars, and to diminish the  growing divergence between private and social cost in such fields as noise, fumes, river pollution and the rest.’ (p.1)

He argues that growth will help achieve these objectives and participation in decision making is an important part of this.

Participation

Participation ‘should mean that the general public participates directly in decision making, and not just indirectly through its elected representatives.’ However ‘in a society as large and complex as ours, participation’ through mass meeting or the strictly local forum ‘can occur only on a limited scale’ (p.12)

He differentiates between single issue campaigns like CPAG and Shelter and that voluntary group activities ‘are on balance an enormous force for good.’ ‘They provide a badly needed element of countervailing power in our society.’ However, ‘these activities are not necessarily socialist in either content of intention’ (p.13)

He urges Labour to ‘seek ways of involving the majority in what is so far largely a minority movement; and I revert here to the concept of the neighbourhood or community council… decisions that most affect people’s lives are decisions about their locality … It is at this local level that people often feel most helpless in the face of authority. They do not want a continuous process of active participation. But they do want to be consulted about, and to influence, these decisions which profoundly affect their daily lives.’

Crosland had included in the White Paper on Local Government Reform published earlier in the year ‘the idea of smaller local or neighbourhood councils – urban parish councils.’ He refers to the work of Michael Young and the Association of Neighbourhood Councils. He concludes that ‘the neighbourhood council opens up a way forward which we should boldly take even in advance of legislation.’(p. 14)

Neil Kinnock & The Future of Socialism

Moving on another 13 years in his Fabian pamphlet The Future of Socialism. (January 1985) Neil Kinnock view flows from a realisation that Labour strategy and tactics need to adjust its values to win the support of ‘the modern working classes whose upward social mobility, increased expectations and extended horizons are largely the result of opportunities afforded them by our movement in the past. (p.2)

‘British democratic socialism is a tapestry and the thread that runs through the weave is above all a deep concern with fellowship and fraternity; with community and participation.’ (p. 3)

‘Collective provision has not been the enemy of individual freedom, it has been the agent of individual emancipation and for that reason it will occupy a central position in the forging of socialism.’ (p. 5)

Kinnock admits that past Labour ‘strategies have been incomplete, ill-thought out, and – usually – externally imposed by people who will not have to live with the consequences.’ (p.8)

His final paragraph includes tapping into ‘those civic virtues which are in effect, socialism in action-mutual care and mutual aid.’(p.12)

Should Neighbourhood Democracy Be Introduced? – Part. 3. Labour Social Justice, Efficiency & Citizenship follows.

Should Neighbourhood Democracy Be Introduced? – Part. 1. Michael Young & Labour 1947-1953

 

The Labour Leader Keir Starmer is promising fundamental reform to give people more control over what happens there they live. I this just rhetoric. The idea has been discussed in the Party since the end of Second World War.

‘Communal activities should be based on neighbourhoods small enough to be felt as such by the people who live in them.’

So wrote in 947 Michael Young, the drafter of the 1945 Labour General Election Manifesto. It reminds us of the enormous contribution he made to thinking about democracy and socialism within and outside the Labour Party.

He was a particular champion of Neighbourhood Councils and wrote Hornsey Plan: A Role for Neighbourhood Councils in the New Local Government (1971)

Other initiatives he was involved with were the Consumers Association, Which magazine, the National Consumer Council, the Open University, the National Extension College, and the Open College of the Arts.

Socialist Democracy

In 1947 the Party’s Research Department published Young’s Small Man: Big World. A discussion of socialist democracy.

‘Democracy … seems to require smallness. But efficiency, promoted by the growth of science, often requires bigness. This is the great dilemma of modern society.’ (p. 3) ‘How can the individual be made to matter more? How can the human advantages of the small group be combined with the technical advantages of the big?’

He suggests:

(1)     securing the right kind of democratic leadership.

(2)     establishing close two-way communication between those at the bottom and those at the top.

(3)     reducing the size of organisation wherever it can be done without harming efficiency.’

He envisages that

·      the second Labour Government should work ‘for the people to run the new and old institutions of our society, participating at all levels as active members … workers, consumers, citizens  – of an active democracy.’ (p. 4)

·      leaders should ‘(s)hare power with the people on the widest possible scale’ in between elections. .. (D)emocracy … requires a continuous two-way traffic of contribution to government from below and information about government from above.’ (p. 5)

He discusses democracy in the economy involving workers and employers in drawing up national plans, and in the workplace.

There is a section on ‘Neighbourhood Democracy’ in which he suggests that ‘(c)ommunal activities should be based on neighbourhoods small enough to be felt as such by the people who live in them.’

‘Community spirit is not something which can be created, but it can certainly be encouraged, by the right combination of necessary buildings and open space.’ He notes that community associations were springing up all over the country and that some 7,200 parish councils ‘have shown remarkable vitality in the last few years.’ (p.11)

The idea was being discussed of setting up urban parish councils as neighbourhood councils. They could have many roles under the local authority and working with existing charities. ‘The guiding principle of the neighbourhood councils would be to give most people an opportunity  to play an active part in some small democratic group additional to the family.’(p.12)

The final section of Young’s discussion paper stresses the importance of social research adding knowledge to ‘enrich socialism’. (p. 13)

Discussion Questions

Young sets out questions for discussion groups to consider.

(1)     Does the individual feel that he matters far less in the big organisation than in the small group like the family?

(2)     Do people regard the authorities of one kind and another to remote and impersonal?

(3)     When is election the best method of picking leaders, and when appointment?

(4)     If the Discussion Group were selecting (a) a candidate for Parliament,(b) a candidate for the local council, (c) a town clerk, (d) a foreman in a local factory or (e) an official in the local Employment Exchange, what sort of qualities would the members look for?

(5)     Are the wish to get more money and the fear of the sack both weaker incentives to work that they used to be; and if so, what should be put in their place?

(6)     Are there are ways in which there could be more direct contact between Government planners and the rank and file of industry?

(7)     Should there be consultation between the rank and file worker and the foreman or other official immediately above him?

(8)     What methods would the Group suggest for overcoming apathy and distrust in industry?

(9)     Should there be urban parish councils for urban neighbourhood units?

(10)Have Socialists taken too rosy a view of human nature?

It would be interesting to assess whether these questions have relevance today.

Labour’s ‘The Challenge to Britain’

How far did his thinking influence Labour policy? In June 1953 the National Executive of the Party presented Challenge to Britain to the Annual Conference.

It states ‘If local authorities are to play a still more important role in the nation’s life the organization of local government must become more efficient and more responsive to local control.’ (p. 27)

Commenting on the role of local  authorities in health services, the NEC states ‘that local democracy must be strengthened, these arrangements will be reviewed and revised.’ It did not spell out any detail. (p. 24)

It says that ‘Labour will investigate existing structure of local government and take whatever steps are necessary to improve efficiency, and to extend local democratic control of services.’ (p. 31)

Part 2 follows: Should Neighbourhood Democracy Be Introduced? – Part. 2. Crosland, Kinnock and Labour 1972-88

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