Be quiet, you make my head hurt!

This article is a further attempt to understand all the ramifications of the Prime Minister’s address to the Local Government New Zealand conference. I come up with what may be a very surprising conclusion; the Prime Minister has done the local government sector what may turn out to be an enormous favour.

He has sent a message loud and clear to local government. First, at the moment, he, not councils, speaks for the interests of ratepayers. Secondly, actions (and inactions) by local government at both a sector and an individual council level have given his government a mandate to put in place further and significant micromanagement of councils (see the Minister for Local Government’s statement, back to basics for local government, released contemporaneously with the LGNZ conference - https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/back-basics-local-government

Reactions to the Prime Minister’s speech seem to fall into three categories. In the first category come LGNZ and some councils saying we are already doing the back to basics and going line by line through our LTPs so what’s there to do? The second is another group of councils and councillors who dismissed it as rude and uninformed - Greater Wellington councillor Thomas Nash called Luxon’s speech “one of the most mana diminishing, paternalistic and visionless speeches to a group of people I have ever heard”.

In the third category came most of the media - print, TV, radio and online - and well-known lobby groups applauding the Prime Minister suggesting he was the person speaking for ratepayers. This from the Taxpayers’ union celebrating what it regarded as one of the best speeches on local government: “Last week, Christopher Luxon had a good go at wasteful local councils, telling them that the big spending 'party is over'. And boy, did they take it personally!”?

How on earth could this happen? To be candid (and possibly unpopular), through years of major policy mismanagement.

LGNZ’s approach to localism

It’s just over six years since LGNZ launched its local government position statement on localism. The keynote statement included “Instead of relying on central government to decide what is good for our communities it is time to empower councils and communities themselves to make such decisions. Strengthening self-government at the local level means putting people back in charge of politics and reinvigorating our democracy.”

The statement included a great deal of rhetoric clearly designed to appeal to people disenchanted with the top-down central government approach to governance as this extract illustrates:

“Localism is a political system that brings “government” closer to citizens and their communities. By decentralising decision-making local policies and programmes will be informed by the people they are designed to assist and thus be more effective.

“The arguments in support of bringing government closer to communities are extensive but some of the major ones are that it strengthens our democracy; improves the efficiency of government by taking a place-based approach, and addresses complexity.”

Fast forward to LGNZ’s recently refreshed website. Its section on local government explained includes statements such as:

“It’s the way communities make democratic decisions about how their towns, cities and regions work and how they’ll grow and develop; and

“Local government is all about community. It’s about ensuring that the needs and wants of you, your family/whānau and the people in your region/rohe are heard and considered when decisions are made — whether that’s in community discussions, the council chamber or the highest levels of central government.”

Why the Prime Minister’s speech demands a rethinking of localism

Now to why the Prime Minister’s speech may have done local government an enormous favour. Those extracts from LGNZ’s statement on localism, and from its recent website, and scores of others I could have cited, paint a picture of an organisation, and a sector, presenting itself as absolutely committed to local democracy and the voice of communities. Surely, operating on values and aspirations such as those, local government must have the overwhelming support of its communities (residents and ratepayers) for what it is doing and how it does it.

No. What the Prime Minister has demonstrated to local government is it is he and his government which have ratepayers’ support, not local government.

Local government can try and bury its head in the sand, ignoring the reality the Prime Minister has so clearly demonstrated (something which current reaction suggests is quite likely). Alternatively it can explore how to gain the trust and confidence of ratepayers in the role of councils including the what, how, and why councils do what they do (and don’t do).

This means doing the hard yards of looking to understand why it is the Prime Minister who enjoys ratepayers’ support despite years of rhetoric extolling local government’s commitment to community and local democracy. The short answer is local government has not been able to build the relationships with empowered communities needed to secure the confidence of its communities and thus protect it against an interventionist central government. Nor does it have any effective defence against the numerous and often powerful interest groups criticising the way it functions and manages its business, including how it sets priorities for expenditure, - this ranges from groups like the Taxpayers’ Union to many of the lobby groups representing infrastructure interests.

What does local government need to do to turn this around? This is where the “be quiet you make my head hurt” part of this article comes into play.

First understand the real implications of LGNZ’s interpretation of localism

What should be the simple answer to trigger the changes needed is recognising LGNZ simply misunderstood localism. This answer is not simple for a couple of reasons. First LGNZ is very clearly deeply attached to the understanding it has developed, something which will be very difficult to turn around. Second, it does require looking closely at a wide range of international research and practice which has simply not been on the radar for New Zealand local government.

Start with understanding the true implications of the idea of localism as devolution from central government with councils taking on the responsibility for delivery of one or more major public services. This is what the New Zealand Initiative persuaded LGNZ represented localism. LGNZ clearly did not recognise there is only one significant developed country in which devolution of major services from central government to local government has played an important role, England, and that has been disastrous for local government (there are a number of other developed countries in which local government is responsible for delivery of one or more major public services but these are countries where local government has always been involved in those services and the associated funding arrangements have been well embedded). The model of ‘localism’ LGNZ has embraced is directly responsible for a number of English local authorities having been forced into the equivalent of filing for bankruptcy and a number more being on the verge of doing so.

There is also nothing inherent in the devolution of services to councils which would necessarily result in a greater community voice; there is simply an assumption that if major services were devolved to local government, councils would naturally partner with their communities. There is good reason to believe that almost the opposite could happen especially if councils focused on efficiency in service delivery.

Next explore the extensive international research and practice on localism

The core message from the international research is that localism is about voice, choice and control for communities over decisions that affect their place.

The exemplar report comes from the English think tank Locality’s report of the findings from its Commission on Localism reviewing the impact of the Localism Act of 2011, a review which was chaired by a former head of the Home Civil Service. It had this to say:

Localism must be about giving voice, choice and control to communities who are seldom heard by our political and economic institutions. Localism should enable local solutions through partnership and collaboration around place, and provide the conditions for social action to thrive. Localism is about more than local governance structures or decentralising decision-making. It is about the connections and feelings of belonging that unite people within their communities. It is about how people perceive their own power and ability to make change in their local area alongside their neighbours.

The same theme has been picked up by a number of other leading think tanks and practitioners in both the UK and the US. Prominent among these are the Carnegie UK Trust which adopts democratic well-being as one of its four well-being domains - “we all have a voice in decisions which affect us” - and New Local, a UK think tank which argues “community power has the potential to answer some of the deepest and most persistent challenges in our society today. Our work is driven by deepening the case for change, and helping people and institutions to put this transformational approach into practice.” ? ?

The Scottish government has recently legislated to enable recognition of and support for self-identifying communities with the power to undertake local place planning as a means of helping shape the future of their communities.

In the US it’s very common to speak of working with not on or for communities. This is at the heart of the work of the Kettering foundation which for something like 100 years has been the leading US foundation arguing the case for local democracy, and is the theme of the work of literally hundreds of other local government focused think tanks and foundations.

The National Civic League’s model city charter includes a section on public engagement as an essential part of civic infrastructure stating that “The city shall treat public engagement as an integral part of effective and trusted governance, not just as an occasional process or activity.”

It goes on to note “The term “public engagement” is understood to include “public involvement,” “public participation,” “citizen engagement,” “community engagement,” and “stakeholder engagement,” and includes robust forms of in-person, technology-aided, or online communication that provide opportunities for public input, dialogue, or deliberation among participants, so people’s concerns, needs, interests, and values are incorporated into decisions and actions on public matters and issues.” ?

Why has the international research not featured in New Zealand discussions about localism

New Zealand local government, and entities with an interest in local government, have not had a practice of building close relationships with think tanks, practitioners and others internationally with the purpose of understanding how thinking about the role of local government is continually evolving.

This came through strongly, albeit unintentionally, in the work of the Future for Local Government Review Panel. The Panel was charged with considering the future of local government over the next 30 years. A reasonable expectation was this would include engaging with leading-edge international thinking about how local government and local governance is evolving. That did not happen. The final report contains no reference to any of the thinking about localism discussed above.

Reaction to the report suggests this lack of awareness is generic through the government sector and other entities with an interest in local government.

The stark choice confronting local government

Local government as a sector faces a stark choice. It can choose to stay with the current LGNZ policy on localism. The Prime Minister’s speech, and the policy initiatives central government is currently rolling out, make it very clear what this means. Essentially local government will shift from being a potentially significant element of local democracy to being fundamentally an instrument of central government policy micromanaged to deliver whatever central government requires.

The comfortable aspect of this choice is it avoids any serious debate within the local government sector itself over the impact of LGNZ’s localism policy on the role and independence of councils. The less comfortable aspect is the loss of any effective voice on behalf of its communities not just on immediate issues such as infrastructure and who pays for what but also on more challenging long-term matters such as restoring social cohesion.

Alternatively, local government can choose to learn from the international experience demonstrating that the core role of an effective local government sector is enabling and supporting empowered communities with a likely outcome, amongst others, of restoring trust in councils and creating an effective discipline on central government’s treatment of the sector. There is no better way of protecting local government’s position than demonstrating it is local government which has the support of the people who ultimately will vote for central government.

This is a less comfortable choice. It requires what is effectively a U-turn in years of established LGNZ policy which has seemingly been supported not just by executive management, but by LGNZ’s governing body. There is simply no means in place specifically intended to call LGNZ to account on the effectiveness of its policy decisions.

So, what can be expected as the local government response to central government?

It seems virtually certain that any U-turn in policy will not happen as a sector wide shift; instead, as seems to be happening at the moment, there will be a series of disjointed shifts. More councils will join the four which have already left LGNZ but not necessarily because they understand the difference between current LGNZ policy, and effective localism. Leaving is more likely to be a result of a growing sense LGNZ is simply not able to deliver for councils for anything that matters with central government policy.

Those councils, indeed all councils and LGNZ itself, will hopefully understand that regardless of current difficulties, New Zealand’s local government sector and the communities it represents need a strong sector organisation. The reason is simple. It is beyond the scope of most, indeed possibly all, councils to develop the kind of in-depth understanding of how the nature of local governance is evolving and to build and maintain the networks and knowledge exchanges this requires.

Those few who do follow international developments in local governance would know that there is currently a major debate taking place about the respective roles of central and local government. At the heart of this debate is the growing realisation central government simply lacks the capacity and capability to work with and understand the needs, circumstances and preferences of individual communities. An important part of restoring the capacity and capability of major public services to meet the needs of the communities they serve is the ability to have dialogue with individual communities and enabling this is uniquely the role of local government, a role which requires a strong and policy informed sector organisation.

In conclusion, don’t be quiet, be noisy if you believe the quality of New Zealand’s future well-being depends on strong local governance.