Derek Deedman

The Local Government Association (LGA) has made some good comments on the 2008 draft legislative programme: -

• “The best way to make the police more accountable would be through councils and councillors.  Councils are visible, open and democratically accountable to the residents they serve. Bypassing directly elected councilors risks disrupting the successful local work which is already occurring.” But the first past the post electoral system means that here in West Sussex the Tories have an overall majority on all County and District Councils and they can, and do, ignore the majority of local views on many issues - the opposition to a South Downs National Park despite massive local support for such a Park being just one example! 
• “Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) must be more accountable for the decisions they make. Health accountability can be achieved through the use of local government structures already in place and an additional local electoral structure would be unlikely to be effective or efficient.” The West Sussex County Council  should be campaigning  to become  the PCT for the County.
• “The government is absolutely right to want to improve people’s influence over local decisions.  Many councils are already leading the way on this issue, responding to thousands of petitions every year.  Councils will want to ensure that new legislation doesn’t impose unnecessary new rules for town halls to follow.” Right! But we can really only oppose this if councils actually represent, and make decisions on, the whole range of local political views. It does not happen like that in West Sussex!
• “The LGA is disappointed that the government has been overly cautious in its approach to the Supplementary Business Rate. It is important that local authorities should be given powers to levy the supplement and it is regrettable that the power will not be available to district and London councils.” Many local businesses are already struggling to survive in current economic circumstances, so giving powers to both County and Districts to levy supplementary business rates could be the final straw for a large number of them. There is a case for local authorities to have the responsibility for levying the Business Rate restored to them to help fund economic regeneration in their areas, but it should be at the strategic county level - perhaps the Government should be moving to a unitary local government system as the basis for its business rate proposals?