Take back control – locally

By Tim Knox

EGF Editor

Recent polling from Savanta – here – shows that most people in the UK want more control to be exercised at a local level:

•       Seven in ten people (69%) want their community to have more control over how their council delivers services. Only 3% want less control.

Earlier polling in April 2023 – here – reinforces this strong desire for more local control:

•       56% want a greater proportion of their taxes raised by and for their local community instead of by central government. Only 14% disagree.

•       Over three in five (63%) want elements of health and social care to be devolved to a more local level. Only 11% disagree.

There is also a great disconnect between what people feel they should do and what they actually do: Four in five people (81%) say that it is important to vote in local elections – yet only about 30% of people actually do so.

This illustrates powerfully how people feel that they are effectively disenfranchised.

Finally, in an age of cultural divide between right and left, young and old, Remain and Leave, one policy change on which a majority of voters agree is the call for greater localism.

The above findings come from a Savanta poll of 2,055 UK adults aged 18+ online between 9 and 11 June 2023. Data were weighed to be representative of the UK by age, sex, region and social grade.

Read our report on Decentralisation HERE