I once heard Kensington and Chelsea LBC chief executive, Barry Quirk, talk about evolution. The temptation is to think of a slow process, as we gradually evolve. But it is a misconception – evolution is not always a slow process. From the big bang to the dinosaur extinction, evolution owes more to swift catastrophic events than it does to incremental change.
The coronavirus crisis is the catastrophic event of our time. The impacts – economic, institutional, community and personal – will resonate for many years to come.
Any local government transformation plans underway before the pandemic – and the associated budgeted savings that went with them – are incremental compared with what is to come. Already, we have started to see the green shoots of ambition of a new deal for local government.
As central government responses look increasingly shambolic, local authority delivery on the ground looks far more impressive and the confidence of the sector is buoyed. There is already a new relationship across the public, community and voluntary sectors, boosted by necessity, but set to last into the future.
As Rob Whiteman told MPs this week, the crisis has exposed the gaping holes in council finances and the weakness of covering essential services – including social care – on the back of two meagre property taxes and a rag-bag of fees and charges.
More than ever, the limitations of local government autonomy have been tested. An initial promise from ministers to cover the costs of the pandemic, wavered – adding financial anxiety to an already arduous task. The sector is at the whim of a handful of ministers as local communities need more support than ever.
It's no surprise that the announcement of the latest tranche of cash caused a scramble of lobbying from different factions of the sector, arguing why they deserved more when we all know the truth: the problem is not the size of your slice, the cake is just not big enough.
Local government shouldn't have to go cap in hand to Government to cover the costs of a national emergency, to look after UK citizens at a local level. They should have control over their own tax-raising powers.
The current system of local government finance, of top down bureaucracy and central control, looks more and more like it was designed by dinosaurs and is due for extinction.
