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What’s the meaning of national coalition government at local level?

There’s an unspoken rule in the villages that ‘this is no place for politics.’ So in answering a request from the Magazine to write about how the coalition government relates to local decision-making for us here in Melbourn, I will tread carefully.

No doubt about it, ‘politics’ has a bad name, although it means different things to different people. Indeed the dictionary defines ‘politics’ on a wide spectrum: ‘to deal with people in an opportunistic, manipulative, or devious way’ is not necessarily the same thing as ‘a process by which groups of people make collective decisions.’

The evolution of politics in the early history of our corner of South Cambridgeshire was documented by the Foxton local historian Rowland Parker, who observed in his book, The Common Stream, ‘as was inevitable, politics began to play a role.’ What did he mean? Perhaps a mixture of the two dictionary definitions: decisions on behalf of communities needed to be taken, but inevitably this involved some jostling, because that’s what happens when groups of people get together to make decisions. It can even happen when two people try and decide how to stuff a turkey at Christmas.

Much has happened since Saxon times, and in the latest twist, a national coalition government replaces our usual set-up of straightforward ruling and opposition political party groups. It is always a startling sight to see former adversaries smiling together and treating each other well, particularly at the door to Number 10 Downing Street. Inside the Prime Minister’s kitchen, I imagine five meat eaters and one vegetarian trying to decide on the menu for a state dinner.

What is perhaps stranger still is that while national government is run by a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, nothing has changed at our district and county councils, or at anyone else’s for that matter. The arrangement in our corner of the world is that South Cambridgeshire and Cambridgeshire County Councils both remain Conservative run, with Liberal Democrats forming the main opposition groups. You can just imagine the clever remarks and teasing which this national-local dichotomy has inspired in the council debating chambers.

You may also ask, why bother with political parties? My answer is that they are natural and inevitable clusterings of like-minded people based upon different outlooks and guiding principles, and tend to form in the context of decision-making on a large scale. They incorporate various aspects of discipline and a process of consensus decision making which inevitably involves an element of compromise.

Like all groupings of human beings they have strengths and weaknesses, encouraged or exacerbated by institutional features and flaws. In Parliament, the system for claiming expenses has led to abuses. At county and district level, the Local Government Act of 2000 imposed a cabinet system which encourages political groupings and a more confrontational style. The most local tier of government, the parish council, remains outside of party politics. But it too carries out a political function, and has its own potential strengths and weaknesses, again due to human and institutional reasons.

Where does the money come from for the public services we need on a day-to-day basis?

National government gives huge ‘grants’ to district and county councils to help finance the running of public services. Those councils work upon their rule-and-oppose frameworks to thrash out how that money should be spent. The grants may be huge but they make up only part of the spending pie, and much more is needed in order for public services to be delivered. The other big piece of the pie is Council Tax, which is a combination of levies from county, district and parish councils, and the Police and Fire Authorities. One of the District Council’s duties is to collect the entire Council Tax on behalf of all these parties, but sometimes there is a misperception that they keep it all.

The other major influence of national government on local decision making and public services is big policies about things like limits on how much tax local councils are allowed to raise, incentives to do certain things that result in further grant money being made available, and so on.

All local councils have the power to make decisions with huge implications for people: the county’s Guided Bus project, the district’s decision not to sell off our council houses, and the parish’s essential financial support to ground-level volunteer groups who make a big difference in people’s every day lives.

Coalition or no coalition, there is tussling throughout this whole chain of events as representatives of the people try and figure out what they think the people want and need.

It fascinates me that the very concept of a coalition arrangement at the top layer of our democratic structure, in a system largely understood in terms of adversarial relationships, has got even more sparks flying than when the coalition partners worked in strict mutual opposition.

If only Rowland Parker were still here, to shed a bit of wisdom, and maybe write another chapter for The Common Stream. Susan van de Ven