Cutbacks in democracy?

Article published: Wednesday, February 24th 2010

Moves to create an authority to oversee all of Greater Manchester have been criticised as undemocratic. The Manchester City Region Combined Authority will take powers away from elected local councils and put them in the hands of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities Executive Board.

The City Region plans are being portrayed by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) as a devolution of powers from Westminster and a rationalisation of governance. While the region will gain some autonomy it will not be put in the hands of elected bodies. The AGMA board, which is set to receive these new powers, is made up of the leaders of each of the ten metropolitan borough councils.

“This makes sense in one way, there needs to be planning on a wider scale, but this really lacks credibility and accountability at a local level. One leader from each council will take sole responsibility for representing their borough. That’s not on,” said Jonathan Atkinson of Manchester’s Urban Research Collective.

Atkinson, who is involved in research and activism around the issue of local democracy, added, “We should be looking at how London does it. They’ve done some good stuff with transport and on climate change.”

AGMA have tried to draw parallels between their plans and the Greater London Authority (GLA). However, unlike the Greater Manchester plans the GLA consists of a directly elected mayor and assembly.

Under the proposed regime the Combined Authority will have powers with regard to housing, planning, transport, development and the low-carbon economy. It will also be given the wildly ambiguous “wellbeing power.” This is defined in the consultation document as, “the power to do anything it considers likely to improve the economic, social or environmental well-being of the area.”

Efficiency

Sir Richard Leese, the Leader of Manchester City Council, and its representative in AGMA has recently been appointed joint-chair of the new government Task Force set up to bolster efficiency in local councils.

It just happens that they will be promoting the merging of services between local councils. This will include encouraging councils to share a chief executive. There have been suggestions that the non-elected Manchester City Council Chief Executive Howard Bernstein could benefit from such a move.

Problems arose with governing Greater Manchester when the County Council was abolished in 1986, leaving the boroughs to act independently. AGMA was established to fill the gap but it doesn’t have the power to make decisions on its own. This means planning on issues like transport, development and climate change cannot easily be tackled on a regional scale.

AGMA claims that the Combined Authority will solve all of these problems and that it is “fundamental to the City Region developing its full economic potential.”

AGMA was awarded the right to trial the City Region model by Westminster last year. It is now in the process of seeking agreement on the plans from the AGMA Executive Board and the individual borough councils. The AGMA hopes to submit these to the government for approval by mid March.

AGMA claims to be carrying out a substantial consultation programme. However, this appears so far to have consisted only of asking local councils what they think, without the involvement of the public in the process.

Patrick Smith

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Comments

1. looks like the deal may be off – http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1193560_council_powersharing_deal_on_brink_of_collapse

   Check the comments part for some interesting views on how the powers are once again trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the electorate

   Comment by M on February 25, 2010 at 2:29 am

2. Seems to be just about holding together – the leaders of Trafford and Stockport councils both abstained http://blogs.menmedia.co.uk/politics/2010/02/combined-authority-deal-on-a-knife-edge/

   Comment by andyl on February 26, 2010 at 3:53 pm

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