How greater devolution can enhance community based governance

1. How greater devolution can enhance community based governance Dr Mike Reid Principal Policy Advisor LGNZ

2. The current model is faltering There is a growing feeling … that the nation state is not necessarily the best scale on which to run our affairs. We must manage vital matters like food supply and climate on a global scale … At a smaller scale, city and regional administrations serve people better than national governments (MacKenzie, 2014 p. 31).

3. Centralised government in a post-Fordist age Britain is the prisoner of a cult of centralised government that was created in the age of mass production but is increasingly irrelevant in the age of tailoring and customisation. This cult is killing innovation(The Economist 29/4/17).

4. Loss of legitimacy

5. Benjamin Barber 1991 Barber’s solution: A confederal union of semi autonomous communities Participatory & self determining in local matters

6. Brexit/Trumpism – lessons for LG • The Big Sort • Significant clustering of like-minded people in the US (47% of people live in landslide electorates) • The like-minded bubble effect • People accessing news and information that agree and reinforce their own world view Councils have a critical role in bridging social capital

7. Deepening democracy The most direct way of making governments accountable is to shorten the route of accountability by devolving power to the lowest possible level where it can be more directly responsive to popular will (Fukuyama 2014).

8. Central gov’t expenditure (% total)

9. Changing the supervision regime • Increase transparency • Consultation and annual plans • Strengthen voice • Increase public access • Standardise local services • Tight performance measures • Reduce local fiscal discretion • Rate capping • Fiscal targets Local discretion - high (autonomy) Local discretion – low (agency)

10. Decentralisation locally elected authorities, distinct from the state’s administrative authorities, (which) exercise, within the framework of the law, their own powers and responsibilities for which they have a degree of self-government and direct accountability to citizens.

11. Three dimensions • Fiscal decentralisation • Transfer of financial decision-making and authority to levy local taxes • Administrative decentralisation • The degree of administrative autonomy • Political decentralisation • The range of functional responsibilities and level of decision-making autonomy

12. Applying the principle to ourselves Citizen involvement in decision-making Decision-making by citizens

13. Citizen involvement Implicit in the idea of consultation with communities is promoting, fostering a richer kind of citizenship and of civic engagement (Sandel) e.g. meaningful engagement, citizen juries, referenda Rebalancing from consumers to citizens

14. Citizen & community empowerment • Goldsmith’s recipe for Indianapolis • self governance and personal responsibility create a healthy society. Residents wise enough to provide direction to their neighbourhoods. (Building better neighbourhoods programme.) • establish a form of municipal federalism in which council decision-making and services are devolved to more locally based organisations co-production; co-design; community governance

15. Community governance A shift from the traditional top-down, expert-driven approach to governance towards a governance model in which government leaders, staff & community members work more as partners in shaping the community and in local decision-making.

16. Not a new idea • Edmund Burke: • Little platoons - the germ of society and the first sub-division in society we belong to; • Walter Lippman • We need to return to older forms of social organization (communitarian institutions) in order to address the problems caused by centralization.

17. Councils as place shapers • building and shaping local identity • representing the community • regulating harmful behaviours • maintaining the cohesiveness of the community • ensuring marginalised voices are heard • supporting the creation of new businesses • understanding local needs and preferences • working with other bodies to respond to complex challenges (Lyons)

18. The future? The future structure and exercise of political power will resemble the medieval model more than the Westphalian one. The Westphalian model is about concentration of power, sovereignty and clear cut identity. Neo-medievalism means overlapping authorities, divided sovereignty, multiple identities and governing institutions, and fuzzy borders (Zielonka).