................................................................................
ON THE RECORD
JOHN REDWOOD INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 7.3.93
................................................................................
JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Minister, the Prime Minister talks about
an end to the wrangling and the wrestling, calls for renaissance in local
government, he's got his work cut out, judging by the critics. What does he
mean by it?
JOHN REDWOOD MP: Well he means exactly what he says, that
we wish to see good local government providing high quality services at a
sensible price and having considerable powers and responsibilities within their
local communities. I strongly believe in local democracy, your film is a
travesty of what is going on, a large number of new powers have been added to
local government, year by year. We see them as important regulators, as
important leaders, people who set the tone in their local community, as well as
service providers and enablers.
DIMBLEBY: Just on the point of it being a
travesty, the leader of the Association of County Councils - who's not unknown
as a leading Tory - says that what is happening is obnoxious because you're
removing powers, so he's speaking a travesty of the truth as well.
REDWOOD: What happens every year is that local
government comes to see ministers in good time before we settle the money, to
tell us what they want, and every year in recent years, they've come along and
said they need more money, not less, because they point out we've asked them to
do a lot more things.
In the current year, for example, we're
adding care in the community starting in April. But we've added a whole series
of things, in planning, in environmental areas, in regulatory functions, to
local government, and that's important. We think they can do those best, close
to their local citizens, using local democratic means.
DIMBLEBY: I want to explore the implications of
that for local democracy a little more closely. Would you agree first of all,
with Bill Dixon-Smith, that effectively, power is where financial authority
lies. Ultimate power lies with the piper who has the power to call the tune.
REDWOOD: I think a lot of power lies with money,
which is why we give councils a block grant. We give them a huge sum of money
in each case, and say use that and use it for whatever range of services you
wish. Of course they have to meet their statutory requirements, they have to
educate the number of children in their area, but beyond that they can decide,
they can decide whether they want more on parks, more on recreation, or more on
better education, we don't tell them, they decide.
DIMBLEBY: But isn't this precisely where the
erosion of power lies. So greatly have the statutory obligations of local
authorities increased, now what, around eighty per cent of the budget is taken
up by statutory obligation, that the room for discretion is sharply reduced.
REDWOOD: Well a fifth is still a lot of
discretion in the sums of money we're talking about. Local Government is going
to spend eighteen hundred pounds for every adult across the country, next year.
That's a huge amount of money, that's more than families are spending on the
mortgage or the family car, for the two adult household, and a lot of that does
come from central government and it comes as a block grant. And what is
interesting around the country, is just how good some of the good local
councils are that they're doing an excellent job, which you don't show on
your film. But go and look at those councils setting zero Council Taxes in
the case of districts, or two or three hundred pounds for the full range of
services, as in the case of Wellingborough, with the county. Go and ask them
how they do it, they do it by using their discretion.
DIMBLEBY: You say go and ask them, the leader of
the Association of County Councils may be be held to represent those
Tory councils. He's the one who's saying that you are denying him proper
freedom, it's not us saying it, it's him. So you mean tell him to get his
facts right and go and see those people.
REDWOOD: No, no. Bill agrees with a great deal
that the government is doing and you are misconstruing exactly what Bill said.
DIMBLEBY: He said it pretty clearly, didn't he.
REDWOOD: There are a lot of councils around the
country...
DIMBLEBY: You heard him say it on the film, didn't
you?
REDWOOD: There are a lot of councils around the
country who find the grant more than adequate, who are budgeting well within
the limits we set and who are providing excellent services. And part of the
renaissance of local governent is having its minister and the Prime Minister
being proud of it, and I am very proud of what a lot of councils around this
country are doing, they are seeking value for money, they are setting realistic
taxes and they're doing a first class job in leading their local communitites.
DIMBLEBY: Fine, now just let me pursue this
thought with you a little bit further. You talk about a fifth of the money
being under your own control is still quite a lot of money. What it means is,
when you also have capping, that it's that discretionary area that you actually
have to tap, because you have to spend the money on the statutory obligations,
so you lose the power to decide how many libraries you have, whether or not you
keep the old people's home open, we saw one in Doncaster that's got to close.
Whether or not you do a whole range of services outside the statutory
obligation.
REDWOOD: No, that's not true. Well managed
councils have a great deal of choice and discretion, why don't you go and ask
some of the councils who are in difficulties how much money they've borrowed
over recent years, and how many mistakes they've made in their financial
controls, or in the way they've spent their money. The big difference between
the councils setting zero Council Taxes now, and the districts setting two
hundred plus pounds of Council Tax for a typical house, lies in their attitude
in the past towards borrowing and expansion of services. Whether they've done
it recklessly or sensibly.
DIMBLEBY: Is high borrowing something that's a
cardinal sin in the mind of this government.
REDWOOD: Well we are very modest borrowers as a
nation compared with countries abroad.
DIMBLEBY: ...thirty seven billion, forty
billion, fifty billion.
REDWOOD: If you look at the stock of debt it is
very modest compared with the continental countries, and there is at the moment
a cyclical problem which means we're borrowing at quite high levels, but we all
want to see that down, and I'm sure you do as well.
DIMBLEBY: ...(both talking at once).....your
borrowing is good, their borrowing is bad.
REDWOOD: No, it is very important to keep control
of total borrowings, and the government will bring down the amount of borrowing
over the cycle. Only a few years ago we were repaying debt which is why our
total stock of national borrowings is not unacceptably high at the moment.
Some councils have gone on borrowing
year after year after year, they've never had good years in which they've
repaid borrowings. Thos who have repaid all their borrowings, this year, are
expanding services, hiring more people, because they're not having to pay all
the interest on the debt.
DIMBLEBY: Now given what you're saying, and you
have statutory obligations, you have capping, now whether that is for better
for worse, it has to be true, does it not, that the power of the elected
councillors is reduced by the limits on their range, either to raise money, or
how they spend it?
REDWOOD: But most find that the existing controls
still leave them with a great deal of choice. It does matter how you run
things. We just say that there has to be an absolute maximum because the
sums involved now are so huge and because the tax powers are very considerable,
we do think we need to impose an absolute maximum. But if you look at what
government's been doing, over the last couple of years, it has increased the
amount of money going to local government by ten thousand million pounds, that
is a colossal increase in expenditure.
DIMBLEBY: But that's not, with respect, quite the
point, the point is whether or not the more money is going to meet statutory
obligations, whether or not capping is good or bad, it involves willy-nilly, it
involves a reduction in the independent power of the local authority. You
retort to that by saying, well they like it really. They're saying, in the
words of Bill Dixon-Smith, "it's obnoxious".
REDWOOD: I didn't say they like it really, I said
that if they're well run, it isn't a problem, and there are many other ways of
achieving what they want to do.
DIMBLEBY: At the beginning of...sorry..
REDWOOD: I'd rather live in an uncapped world,
but I do think...
DIMBLEBY: Because that's where freedom lies, isn't
it?
REDWOOD: Because that's..but where we have very
large sums of money, it is important that the Government expresses an overall
view of total public spending and how much tax people can be expected to pay.
DIMBLEBY: Now, you've talked about borrowing and
responsible Local Authorities. In order to preserve YOU from angry
Councillors in Dorset that started off this film, ringing up and saying "we've
got a crisis with our schooling, and you're accusing us of borrowing too much
as a way of explaining it" you would like to say to them "Yes, I acknowledge
you've NEVER borrowed", because that is the case.
REDWOOD: But I'd like to look at Hampshire -
another Conservative Council.
DIMBLEBY: What do you say to Dorset, because
Dorset will be watching this?
REDWOOD: I'm just telling you something about
Hampshire which they might find interesting. Hampshire have been repaying
their borrowings. Hampshire don't get a great deal of grant by national
average standards, but this year they are setting the lowest Council Tax as
from April and they are hiring nine hundred extra people, including a lot of
teachers and care workers who will improve the quality and range of services in
Hampshire. It can be done. It's about good management; it's about value for
money; it's about contracting out; it's about concentrating expenditure on
front-line services rather than bureaucracy.
DIMBLEBY: A school report from John Redwood to
Dorset - "Could do better".
REDWOOD: I'm not saying that about Dorset. I'm
just saying that there are many Councils around the country - of which
Hampshire is a prime example - that are under Conservative control that are
finding the controls quite easy to live with and are doing a first-class job.
DIMBLEBY: Now, given that you want this
renaissance which you say a better relationship between Central and Local
Government, leaving aside the restriction of freedom imposed for good, you say
(they're not so happy with it through capping and through the constraints of
statutory spending), how can you have a renaissance when in a whole area of
their powers and responsibilities you've been...and in a couple of central
areas you've been hacking off the limbs of their powers. Education, for
example.
REDWOOD: You're not responding to my point that
every year the range of their activities and duties has increased and they have
come to Central Government seeking more money, quite understandably, to meet
those requirements. Now, I make no apology for the fact that we are so
democratic that we say to parents "if you wish your school to be more
independent of the Local Education Authority, you can vote to do so". But that
isn't strengthening central control, that is giving individuals on the ground
more say over their own lives, and good luck to them if they wish to take it
away from the LEA. If they don't, they don't have to.
DIMBLEBY: Now, that's you see, that's a very
interesting point, because that's the pitch that is often made by Ministers.
But on this very programme last week the Secretary of State for Education, John
Patten, conceded that in the process of creating grand maintained schools power
(and he conceded it was enormous power) was taken from Local Authorities to the
hub (his terms, Kenneth Baker's term) the hub of Local Government from where,
in due course, it will go out down the spokes to the rim.
Now, the point surely is that you have
decided that where there have to be great residual powers they should lie at
the centre, rather than with the Local Authorities. That is a HUGE reduction
in the democratic power of elected Councillors.
REDWOOD: No, it's a great extension in the powers
of individual constituents and citizens around the country to make a choice.
We're not saying their school has to become grant maintained. We're saying "do
they wish to?". They can decide. They can vote on it. What more democratic
procedure can you have than that.
(Both talking at the same time)
...if people want to opt out of
Government altogether and run their own institutions, along with a certain
amount of public funding and.....
DIMBLEBY: But inside the LEA's at the moment, the
self-Government exists in schools. That's what you have created, but the LEA's
have residual powers of determining how many schools, how many surplus places,
and so on. That power is being removed to the centre. Now I don't want to get
into the argument about whether it's a good thing or a bad thing itself, but
you have to appreciate that that is a sharp reduction in power and a transfer
of power from the Local Authority to Central Government. It's self-evident.
REDWOOD: But that is coming about as a change
because we've given people the right to decide on whether their school is
better controlled by its own independent Board of Governors, within a general
State system, or whether it should be more answerable to the LEA. That is a
strengthening of democracy. The other changes follow from that particular
change. Now I welcome that change because I think it is a good idea to give
individuals much more say over their own lives and over the institutions that
affect them, and the nearer that it can be to the local community the better.
We're trying to get decision-taking down to local communities and to
individuals, which I would have thought our critics should have welcomed.
DIMBLEBY: Yes. Financial power shifts in that
process from the Local Authority to the centre. The power of decision in that
area (you say for better) moves upwards and downwards. It certainly doesn't
remain with the Local Authorities, so their feeling about that - jolly cross
because it's a reduction of what... I mean, most of their budget is spend on
education. Now if you move on from that to the police; if you bring in
changes which are being discussed now to reduce the power of Local Authorities
over the police, it's yet another key area where power is taken away.
REDWOOD: The Home Secretary said he thinks
it is a service that requires a strong local input and so we'll have to wait
and see his full proposals, but he may surprise you. He may even have
suggestions on London which currently houses centralised police service which
moves in the other direction - that's something he'll obviously think about
during the course of his review, but I'm very heartened by the way in which the
Home Secretary has laid considerable emphasis on the local importance of this
service.
I want to see Local Council Leaders,
Councillors, Magistrates and others leading local communities in the drive
against crime. A very important task, a big task where they can make a big
difference in their local areas.
DIMBLEBY: Meanwhile, I put it to you that the
Prime Minister is going to have his work cut out on everything that you've said
to me so far, to persuade them that he's not asking them to be merely an agency
of Central Government. Yes, Prime Minister, you are doing that; No, Prime
Minister, we aren't having your renaissance, will be their reply.
REDWOOD: Well, I'm not in that business of
cutting down on their powers and duties. I'm in the business of strengthening
good Local Government. I think they have a vital role in leading their local
communities and I think a lot of them know I'm on their side and I'm out to
encourage all that is best in English Local Government.
DIMBLEBY: John Redwood, Minister. Thank you.
...oooOooo...
|