LibDems push on with decentralisation at conference

Hats off to the Lib Dems who are pushing on with their decentralisation agenda at their conference in Bournemouth this week.

Among their top speakers who will be discussing Setting our cities free: London’s role in the national devolution agenda  is London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon who spoke eloquently and passionately to the Effective Governance Forum about decentralisation and the need for local councils to have far greater financial autonomy.

In her blog she said: “At present, virtually all taxation in the UK is determined by central government.  Only council tax (and in England from April 2013, a proportion of business rates) can be seen as local taxation – and even this is subject to cumbersome controls, including referendum rules set by central Government.  When you compare this internationally, you realise the power that Whitehall holds.”

Greater local control means councils can offer costed programmes to their communities that are designed exclusively for those communities and their local needs.

If the community doesn’t like them, it can reject them at the ballot box.

At the moment, central government controls so much of what local council do, it is hard to know what is a local and what is a national policy.

Decentralisation is much more democratic.

Also speaking alongside Caroline is:

·      @Gareth_Roberts_  Vice Chair of London Councils and Leader of the London Borough of Richmond (Chair)

·      @AkashPaun, Programme Director – Devolution, Institute for Government

·      Sonika Sidhu, Principal Policy Adviser, Local Government Association

·      @cllrbridget Smith, Leader, South Cambridgeshire District Council

Read Caroline’s original blog post for us: HERE