Local government this week feels a bit like the culmination of many, years of planning and plots.
The select committee reports on local government finance are the next step in the finance reform agenda which has been creeping slowly forward, seemingly forever.
The snail-like pace of the balance of funding review and the Lyons inquiry has been painful to watch. At any sign of a result, it has been kicked back into touch for further consideration.
Plans for the supplementary business rate may have been badly received by the business community – and who would expect anything less? – but they are a sensible move forward in the partnership between central and local government. Let's hope the Government doesn't succumb to the temptation to be over-prescriptive.
It is not returning business rates to local control, but perhaps that was too much to ask.
Plans for council tax benefit – or rebates, as we should now call them – are almost universally welcome. The current savings threshold is a disgrace. No council has ever wanted to raise the tax burden on those who are unable to pay – but many have been left no other choices to make ends meet under the current finance system.
None of this goes towards really addressing the problem of funding local government – but it is a step in the right direction. It has validated the Lyons review which may have been given a cool reception by the Government initially, but looks set to prove itself in the long run.
So now we move to the new era of partnerships – the only way to make ends meet, with CSR07 looking so very tight.
Optimists may see this as a new era of efficiency and co-operation – with extra powers for councils. Cynics – of which, I am one – are more likely to see it as trying to give out even less cash to over-stretched services.
And so we come to the next generation of CPA. It has been dead so long, thank goodness, we finally get to bury it. Councils will have to lead in a way they never have before – exerting powers over others – to meet the challenge of CAA.
Come September, local government will be coming back from the holiday season, ready to move on in the Brown era of British politics. The building blocks are in place – if only the cash was.
Heather Jameson,
Deputy Editor, The MJ
