Considering the current political turmoil, it is easy to forget the chaos that reigned last summer.
As MPs lined up to oust the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson – and he resisted calls to back down – his sacking of levelling up secretary Michael Gove was approaching farce. Then came his replacement. Former communities secretary Greg Clark was back – albeit for a brief stint of 10 weeks in the role as a caretaker.
Now, sitting in his Portcullis House office in the heart of Westminster, he tells The MJ it had been ‘completely unexpected’ – not least because Mr Johnson had sacked him from the Parliamentary Conservative Party as a punishment for voting against Brexit in 2019.
In typical Johnson fashion, he was asked to do the role with a Latin flourish, pro bono publico – for the good of the public. Or in this case, for the good of local government.
Mr Clark recounts his walk back in, with a ‘rogues’ gallery’ of former ministers lining the corridor at the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities’ (DLUHC) Marsham Street offices. ‘At that time, there was only one person who had been secretary of state twice and featured twice on the wall. That was Michael Heseltine.’ Since then, Mr Clark and Mr Gove have both served twice – adding to the clutter of portraits.
Lord Heseltine, coincidentally, was the first person Mr Clark called when he was made secretary of state first time round. Despite his position as a former deputy PM and an elder statesman of the Conservative Party, Lord Heseltine signed up as special adviser during Mr Clark’s first service.
Despite his short-term stint, Mr Clark says he was ‘determined to make the most’ of his 10 weeks at the helm and he had ‘some unfinished business’ – devolution.
Throughout his ministerial life, Mr Clark passionately carried the decentralisation and cities portfolios around Whitehall with a determination that has led the sector to where it is today. The first Green Paper in 2011 on decentralisation brought forward proposals for city deals with Liverpool and Manchester, which later became the mayoralties.
At the time, London was the only city with a mayor but as they spread, he says the East Midlands was a ‘standout example’ of a place that still needed a devolution deal – so he gave it one. ‘It was quite a sprint…but we got there,’ he says.
Mr Clark’s devolution legacy is alive and well but the other policy at the heart of his ethos – plans for an industrial strategy – were mothballed by Boris Johnson and then business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
Mr Clark cites the Covid vaccination as evidence of its success – the vaccines task force ‘came directly from the life sciences sector deal which was part of the industrial strategy’, he says. It had established a vaccines manufacturing innovations centre that the Government then heavily invested in as the pandemic took hold.
It clearly irks that the push for productivity has been thwarted. Paradoxically, this has happened just at the time when the rest of the world is going crazy for industrial strategy,’ he adds. ‘The frustration has been that, at a time when the rest of the world was putting industrial strategy in the shop window, we put the shutters on the shop window, but actually the stock was still there.’
He is hoping for a revival under current chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
His tenure as secretary of state also oversaw the start of some financial failures in the sector and his clampdown on a creative accountancy deal planned by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council.
Councils are not expert in complex financial investments, and it’s dangerous for them to be mixing with the shocks that can exist in the financial markets – even if it is for the right intentions,’ he says.
Mr Clark points out that all the issues he addressed were in train before he went back into the department, but he was not willing to let business slide over the summer.
There have, he says, been some commercial successes in local government, but he suggests it is problematic when it becomes either ‘opaque’ or ‘risky’.
He cites ‘unorthodox’ accountancy, like BCP’s attempts to sell assets – its beach huts – to a subsidiary of the council and borrow cash against it, as an example of opacity. ‘It is when things are complex and opaque, and when they’re risky and speculative that I think the red flags should be raised,’ he says.
The Government’s new watchdog, Oflog, was the brainchild of his predecessor – and successor – Mr Gove, and he had his concerns the existing improvement process and data was not being used fully in the plans for it.
Had he been in post longer, he says he would have been keen to find out exactly what the department felt was lacking, to try to co-ordinate it with the new body.
‘A lot of what was said was about the provision of information, rather than regulating local government…the justification was about transparency and information. If that were the case, then there’s a lot of information that could have been made better use of.’
When it comes to Whitehall trust of local government, he says it is a mixed picture. Outside DLUHC, much of the rest of Government does not interact much with the sector. Even the Department of Health and Social Care is dominated by the NHS and it is difficult for local government to get a look in.
He cites the example of the Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), which specified chairs would be from the NHS. ‘I can’t see any earthly reason why it shouldn’t be open to distinguished people in local government,’ he says.
The record of delivery of local government – particularly during the pandemic – and the understanding of communities makes the sector ideally placed for the ICB landscape, he suggests.
When it comes to unfinished business, he says there is more to be done on devolution, to ‘give more power’ and to strengthen leadership.
He tells The MJ: ‘I do believe the time has come to think about the two-tier structure of local government, especially in a world in which combined authorities are coming together to create a more strategic capability.’
The right organisational structure is ‘something for the next Parliament’. He says: ‘I think a conversation as to how we can have a simpler system is probably the medium-term.’ But while he clearly favours unitary local government, he defaults back to his ministerial line: ‘My preference has always been to work with councils and people, rather than to impose from the centre.’
As someone who was the minister for decentralisation, it would be odd to impose blueprints: ‘But to encourage the resolution of the question locally, that may differ from one place to another. I think that would be one thing I would want to do.’
He would be in favour of fewer councillors too. In a demanding world, it is no longer possible to get as many people to put in the hours and the energy – single member wards, he suggests, would offer more visibility.
He was struck on his return to DLUHC by how many councils were under the watch of the department.
‘Comparing it to how it was the last time I was in post, that was one of the most striking things,’ he says. But intervention ‘should be the last resort’.
‘You want local government to be able to turn itself around. If you believe in localism, as I do, it should be painful to send people from outside that authority.’
Officials were, he says, wrangling with solutions ‘rather than the idea that the “feds” were being sent in to run the council’.
He suggests the image of people being sent in from London when things go wrong is ‘unfair’, claiming commissioners were people with a good track record, immensely qualified for the job – and rarely lived in London.
Instead, he tried to send in local support: the mayor of Liverpool City Region to help Liverpool City Council; Essex CC to help Thurrock Council. ‘I did that, consciously wanting to establish, during my 10 weeks there [at DLUHC] a slightly different model of intervention.’
As former PM Boris Johnson departs Parliament, with speculation he will return, it may be unlikely we will see Greg Clark back as secretary of state. But stranger things have happened.
Former levelling up secretary Greg Clark will be starting a new regular column for The MJ shortly
