Devolving Choice to Communities through Local Income Tax (Rutland & Melton Liberal Democrats)

Rutland & Melton Liberal Democrats <info@rutlandlibdems.org.uk>

Devolving Choice to Communities through Local Income Tax

January 30, 2007 9:41 AM

Over the past forty years local government in England has been restructured in such a way that it has become a mere instrument of central government power and made to operate under a target driven culture. Local elections no longer determine solutions that meet the needs of the community whereas unelected quangos give rise to enormous inefficiency and very little change on the ground. Quangos nearly always reflect the metropolitan view of "the community". Even the term "community" has been high-jacked by central government for its own purpose. As a first step we need to reinstate the word to its proper meaning. We all live in communities whether they be villages, towns or cities, outskirts or central, urban, rural or suburban. They shape our daily lives.

At the regional level artificial attempts to devolve control from Whitehall have not been successful. Those regions enjoy no collective identity or loyalty, mainly because the regional councils are unelected and practically anonymous. The Countryside Agency no longer supports local communities by undertaking activities to stimulate job creation and the provision of services in the countryside. It is now restricted in scope to servicing central policy.

North of the border Scotland aims to improve the quality of life for people of Scotland by working with others to create sustainable, healthy and attractive communities by regenerating neighbourhoods, empowering communities and improving the effectiveness of investment.

The East Midlands Region has a population nearly that of Scotland 4.5 million against 5.0 million - so if such an initiative is good enough for the Scottish people why can't we in the East Midlands have something similar?

The Liberal Democrats approach is that local governance in different parts of the country should reflect local needs without a one-size-fits-all model imposed from the centre. Decisions should be made at the lowest appropriate level. Finance for community initiatives should be raised locally and that is why we wish to shift the balance of revenue raising from central to local government.

The Liberal Democrat solution is to replace Council Tax with Local Income Tax. This will make local councils more responsive to the community they represent.

[The above was mainly drawn from Policy Paper 73 - "Your Community, Your Choice: Policies for Local Government in England", June 2006 produced by the Liberal Democrat Policy Unit. See it on the party's web site www.libdems.org.uk It was endorsed at Conference in September 2006.]