A new deal for local government funding

With the date for the general election about to be called any day soon, thinktanks are working overtime to get their reports out before the curtain comes down on government activity. Today sees the proposal of a "new deal" for the way funding is allocated across central and local government, with local areas getting more power in return for a flat rate cut in funding. This fundamental shift in the way funding is distributed is outlined in Delivering a Localist Future: A Route-Map for Change , published by the 2020 Public Services Trust, which aims to set out a route map for achieving the goal of localism. This, it says, could be implemented "from day one of a new government taking up office". The report proposes a "negotiated autonomy deal" in which localities get more for less. They would agree a single budget with the Treasury, which would be less than is now being spent on services in their area - but the payoff would be the ability to integrate local approaches to public services to tackle issues such as youth offending, worklessness and preventative health care, using devolved central departmental budgets. Getting people back to work The Trust says the UK remains one of the most centralised states in the developed world, and this has been bad for our ability to create services that engage with people's lives. Its report says more devolved powers and funding may lead to a separation of big, transactional services, which would be done nationally and online, and "relational" services - such as getting people back into work. It proposes a new unit to replace the existing Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, to negotiate single place budgets. "In the next spending review, each spending department would be expected to devolve delivery functions to the locality, except where a strong case can be made for preserving central functions," says the report. While the report is a well-argued case for localism, which aims to look at practical ways to get round the many barriers in getting money moving out of Whitehall into local delivery of services, it may underestimate just how hard this would be to do in practice. It argues for negotiations between central and local government taking places at large city, strategic county or sub-regional level, reflecting a view that the government is incapable of conducting "meaningful negotiations" with all unitary and county councils.