Don't ringfence me in

For someone who has spent so long in local politics, David Parsons has retained a surprising degree of naivety, in the nicest possible sense of the word. A mere two questions into an interview with someone he's never met, he is launching into a no-holds-barred analysis of the Conservative frontbench with a candour that appears to be giving the press officer sitting opposite a heart attack. "You will be nice to me, won't you?" Parsons says, halfway through this off-the-record assessment – a phrase he repeats at intervals. At another point, he stops in the middle of an impassioned defence of local councils to remark, "You're not actually going to print any of this, are you?" – not aggressively, but with an almost childlike wistfulness. A solidly built 59-year-old, with tidy grey curls, Parsons has been the Conservative leader of Leicestershire county council, a four-star authority, since 2003. As well as chairing the local government improvement board, he sits on the high-level board overseeing the Total Place pilots. The government is right behind Total Place, he says, as evidenced by the presence on the high-level group of Liam Byrne, the chief secretary to the Treasury, who in Parsons's phrase "really gives this some oomph". The Conservatives have, of course, been loudly proclaiming their localism credentials since David Cameron's ascension. But do the Tories really believe in local government? Off-the-record remarks aside, Parsons says he is "working on" his frontbench colleagues. There are still sceptics around. But support for the initiative is growing Some were sceptical of Total Place at the outset, "and there are still sceptics around". But support for the initiative is "growing", he says. "The more the project has gone on, the more it has picked up the pace, the more it's shown what it could do – [the more] people have seen it could well offer the solution to the dual problem of a lack of joined-up services and the lack of money in the public purse." His main concern now is that there remain too many Tories who are no more fond of local councils than they are of government in general, and who would like funding to bypass councils and go straight to individuals. This highlights a fundamental tension within the still unclear Conservative manifesto: how to give more power to individuals, in the time-honoured Tory way, without losing what Parsons calls the "overview of the locality", the ability of councils and other bodies to deliver joined up-services and run them more efficiently. Parsons fears that giving money directly to individuals will prove "expensive" because it will feed their demands for more money as their expectations of public services rise. "How do you control the horizon [of public expectations] if you provide services that could be limitless?" He then raises an interesting point about accountability. Even quangos – which he would, unsurprisingly, like to see abolished – are accountable to Parliament, but how will individuals be held responsible for spending public money? "If you give people money, how do you hold them accountable?" Taking the flak Handing power down to councils would have one cynical advantage, Parsons admits: it would help insulate an incoming Conservative government from the unpopularity of budget cuts. "You can make savings nationally, and hand them down to councillors who whine," he says, "or you can make them locally... "Why the hell would they [the government] make decisions when we can take all the flak?" Parsons would also like local councils to have total freedom over their budgets. "I'm in favour of abolishing all ringfencing," he says. What, all of it? "Every single bit of it." When asked why a new administration would break the habit of centuries of central government and cede control over funding, Parsons makes an endearingly naive appeal to his frontbench colleagues to trust their "friends" in local councils. "Local government has earned its spurs. Why should the worst-performing part of the public sector [Whitehall] insist that the better part of the public sector have ringfenced money? "You have got to be able to trust your friends ... with a few exceptions, we have a bloody good track record." Public and politicians alike would have to become more confident with the idea of postcode lotteries, he says. But wouldn't devolution of funding and power leave poorer areas left to struggle on without the help and money they need? His only answer is that some deprived areas have "superb leadership" and that devolution "need not" lead to more unequal outcomes. Despite his ardent defence of community autonomy, Parsons believes that local bodies might need to be forced to work together to make Total Place work. The shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Philip Hammond, has already ruled out the idea, describing forced collaboration as "old politics". But Parsons says a law change might be needed if local bodies refuse to work together to improve services. "I do think if there is a need for primary legislation, it will be in the realm of a duty to co-operate ... you might well have to do that." There won't, however, be a one size fits all solution, he says – adding, charmingly, "I never thought I'd say that bloody crap, but it is absolutely true."