The Changing Structure and Role of the Local Authority

This chapter will also demonstrate that there is a shift in the service delivery philosophy of local authorities to be more managerial and customer focussed. It could be argued that by viewing people as consumers of services rather than democratic citizens (McLaverty, forthcoming) this demonstrates a devaluation of the role of citizenship and represents an erosion of the ideals of public participation. Orr and McAteer (2004), however, dispute the notion that ‘citizenship’ and ‘consumerism’ are necessarily mutually exclusive concepts and are also rather dismissive of the dichotomous view of participative and representative democracy arguing that the lines between the two are not as clear as some of the literature implies.

Having outlined the key literature on public participation and given an overview of the debates and conflicting analyses on citizen participation issues, this chapter will now go on to outline the changing structure and role of local authorities and an overview of policies that have influenced the development of citizen participation initiatives in Scottish local authorities.

2.3 The Changing Structure and Role of the Local Authority

In the UK, local authorities supply a large range of services such as education and social care and are responsible for coordinating many separate functions and strategies for developing and maintaining the well-being of a community (Chandler, 2001). Local government in the UK has gone through significant restructuring over the years. The 1972 Local Government Act saw major changes to the boundaries of local authorities. In Scotland, the traditional counties were abolished and nine regions were formed (Chandler, 2001). There was further restructuring in 1985 in England and Wales but there was still widespread dissatisfaction and following the fall of Thatcher

there was more significant reforms to come. Local participative initiatives were gaining prominence in the 1980s with the publication of the Skeffington Report, the drive towards community development as well as factors such as the increased mobilisation of tenants’ groups (Wilson, 1999).

While the boundary reforms of the 1980s did not affect Scotland, there was more change in Scotland in the 1990s. The Secretary of State for Scotland abolished the regions that were created in 1973 and transferred the powers to the existing districts to create a network of unitary authorities that came into power in 1996 (Chandler, 2001).

The Labour government of Tony Blair which came to power in 1997 further reorganised the boundaries of English local authorities (Chandler, 2001) and sought to make sweeping reforms to the public sector in general putting forward proposals for the modernisation of public services and the public sector at all levels. At the same time the concerns about renewing democracy was gaining prominence. Tony Blair authored a paper for the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) in 1998 in which he was critical of the lack of direction of local authorities, variations in the standards of service delivery, lack of transparency in decision making and an unacceptably low turnout at elections (McAteer and Orr, 2003, p. 281).

In 1998 a report by the Department of Local Government Transport and the Regions Guidance on enhancing Participation in Local Government recommended the development of new forms of participation such as citizens’ panels as well as offline forms of consultation such as public meetings and ‘consumerist’ approaches of measuring satisfaction with public services. In Connecting with Communities (ODPM, 2002) the importance of engaging with local communities in order to strengthen local democracy is stressed. An emphasis is placed on the role of websites and other forms of electronic communications to provide information and encourage a dialogue with local people.

Central to understanding the Labour Government’s reforms of the public sector is Modernising Government (Cabinet Office,1999) which aimed to modernise and reform the public sector by improving the quality and delivery of public services. There is an emphasis on inclusion and participation by stakeholders in the development and delivery of services, joined up working with other agencies and a focus on electronic services delivery. Public services would be expected to produce evidence of

improvement in the form of Best Value (BV) indicators which are benchmarked and Best Value audits which were conducted in local authorities every three years.

The government introduced the BV framework into public-sector organisations to achieve both service quality and cost effectiveness. The BV framework encourages public-sector organisations to achieve effective partnerships and innovative approaches in the delivery of a quality service. (Magd and Curry, 2003).

Best Value was criticised for adding excessive bureaucracy to local authorities with the huge range of performance indicators and resulting reporting mechanisms. As a result Best Value was replaced in England and Wales (but not Scotland) with Local Government Performance Indicators which are purported to reduce the burden on local authorities. (DBIS, 2009).

Service provision is not the sole remit of the local authority at the local level in the UK.

There are a network of interconnected public and private agencies such as health trusts, the police, business development agencies etc that contribute to service delivery and some authors have observed that the term ‘local governance’ is more applicable to the UK context rather than simply local government (Chandler, 2001). Since the Labour government came to power there has been increased emphasis on partnership working with the voluntary and private sectors as well as other public sector bodies (Lowndes and Wilson, 2003). This has resulted in the co-production of services which blur the lines between public, private and voluntary sectors (Bovaird, 2007) which aim to create better and more appropriate service delivery but also raise questions about accountability and transparency as power is devolved from the local authority to these unelected bodies.

The focus on joint working was emphasised in a report produced in 2000 by the Performance and Innovation Unit entitled Wiring it Up (Cabinet Office, 2000) which aimed to overcome barriers to inter-agency and inter-departmental working for tackling complex policy areas such as drug problems. The report identifies the need for effective consultation with stakeholders as being essential to the development of cross-cutting.

The drive towards greater participation as a means of solving the problems of the democratic deficit has also been influenced by organisations such as the OECD

(Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) who produced a report in 2001 entitled Citizens as Partners: Information, Consultation and Public Participation in Policy-making, which stressed the importance of building frameworks to promote greater citizen involvement in consultation and active participation in policy making (Malina, 2003).

The development of eParticipation can be seen as being facilitated by the modernisation agenda and the desire to engage people more in politics through participatory mechanisms. Certain groups such as the Hansard Society, members of the All Party Information Technology Group (PITCOM) and some MPs have promoted eParticipation as a possible solution to problems of public disengagement (Parry, 2004). After the 2001 general election there was great concern expressed at the low turnout of younger people who were viewed as a group that could benefit from the development of eParticipation because they are traditionally viewed as being disengaged from politics and are also more likely to be users of ICTs. This was evident in the consultation paper In the service of democracy which was published on 16 July 2002 and launched in tandem with the government’s e-democracy website. ‘It took as its starting point what it perceived to be various ‘challenges to democracy’: a low and declining turnout at elections, an increasing tendency for people to pursue their political interests through single interest lobby groups rather than using the traditional institutions of democracy, the rise of the digital society’ (Parry, 2004).

Parry (2004) identifies other important initiatives for developing electronic democracy such as The House of Commons Information Committee report in July 2002 entitled Digital technology: working for Parliament and the public. An All-Party Parliamentary Group was formed in the summer of 2003 to promote eParticipation in conjunction with the Hansard Society. For the development of The House of Commons Modernisation Committee’s report of June 2004 - Connecting Parliament with the Public an online consultation exercise was held and the Committee made recommendations and analysis of online consultations. A further development was that The 10 Downing Street website also developed an ePetitioning system where members of the public can start petitions on any issues (Parry, 2004).

In 2002 Kearns et al. conducted research to investigate the use of eParticipation in English local authorities. The researchers took a much wider definition of eParticipation than I have in this study which encompasses electronic engagement activities in general including email links. The study found that eParticipation was being

under-utilised and that local authorities should be encouraged by central government to make more use of eParticipation. There have been initiatives set up subsequently by central government to facilitate this. The ODPM provided £4 million pounds of funding for a Local e-Democracy National Project In England and Wales for local authorities to develop eParticipation tools.

The National Project on Local e-Democracy saw a large range of technologies employed to try innovative methods for using ICTs for engaging citizens. Bristol City Council have been heavily involved in the Local eDemocracy National Project and have developed tools such as online consultation finders and have piloted e-petitioning using the system that was developed for the Scottish Parliament. They also claim to be the first to have developed an electronic citizens’ panel and have experimented with a deliberative polling tool (Hilton, 2006, p. 416).

However, in an analysis of the Local eDemocracy National Project, Macintosh and Whyte (2006) found that projects tend to be isolated exercises and that there is ‘no view of what a coherent, and sustainable participation environment should be like’ (p.

15). As well as government funded initiatives there have also been pilot projects funded by external funding such as the DEMOS project which was a European wide initiative to promote renewal of democracy at the local level by encouraging the development of public participation initiatives and involved Aberdeen City Council and Edinburgh City Council (Carley, 2004).

Further to the initiatives outlined about, the Labour government also pursued an agenda of decentralisation of power and devolution of powers promoting the election of local mayors in England, proposed regional assemblies in England and devolution in Scotland and Wales. The responsibility for legislative competence over Scottish local authorities has been devolved to the Scottish Parliament within the limits of its powers.