[ad_1]
And so the great project of English devolution, of shifting central government power to cities and regions, ends where it began: in the heart of Manchester.
In the long and bitter history of Westminster and Whitehall failing to value council work in England, 2020 has been the nadir. The year has left councilors of all parties, elected mayors and officials reeling, and their voices, according to Manchester Evening News reporter Jennifer Williams, literally cannot be heard by the government.
On 2 November 2013, when the men (yes, they were all men) representing the 10 councils of Greater Manchester signed an “unprecedented abrogation from Whitehall”, no one could have foreseen that the region’s ambitions to lead his own affairs would collapse just seven years later for just £ 5 million.
That is the sum that on Tuesday caused the talks between the Westminster government and the leaders of Greater Manchester to fail. It’s the difference between the £ 65 million that Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham asked for and the £ 60 million that Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would give.
The 2020-21 annual budget for the Manchester Combined Authority is £ 924.6 million (which is just the expense of the Combined Authority itself and its powers, not the expense of each of the 10 councils). This includes £ 352 million for capital expenditures, £ 86.7 million for transport and £ 110.9 million for fire and rescue; £ 5 million is equivalent to 0.5% of the annual budget. It also pales in insignificance against the amounts the UK government has spent on contracts with private companies over the course of the last eight months. And there is rage outside London that adequate financial compensation has been considered only when the UK capital enters level 2 restrictions.
Local government is used to being the poor cousin of public service, ignored and underfunded. But it is not about money. These are central government power plays, exemplified by Burnham on Tuesday looking at Sir Richard Leese’s mobile phone to find out the financial settlement of the area; and their dismay on Thursday when Chancellor Rishi Sunak looked back on support for Level 2 areas, which Burnham had been calling for during the negotiations. Why, I askWasn’t it clear on Tuesday?
Honestly, I can hardly believe what I am reading here. 👇
Why the heck wasn’t this put on the table on Tuesday to come to terms with us?
I told the Prime Minister directly that a deal could be reached if the effects on GM’s business of three months were taken into account at Tier 2. https://t.co/w2AeeLitGP
– Andy Burnham (@AndyBurnhamGM) October 22, 2020
Looking back, the cracks were there from the beginning. The central government’s ongoing austerity program has held back local spending since 2010. With little or no power to increase spending in areas such as transportation or health, local and regional politicians are still firm on the Treasury’s budget grip.
Yes, Greater Manchester still controls many parts of local spending that other places do not manage, including its combined £ 6bn health and social care budget. But without extra money to support change, local NHS and social care systems have found it more difficult than they expected to create an integrated system.
As Adam Lent, director of the New Local think tank, puts it, the UK government’s centralizing tendencies are brutal but deliberate: they keep people powerless and poor. And they are not new.
Burnham’s spectacular appearance on Tuesday and the fallout since then, with Manchester’s only Conservative council now negotiating its own deal with the government, demonstrates more clearly than ever the need for a fundamental rethinking of local government finances. Without that, as Burnham told the Commons business committee on Thursday, England only has the name return.
[ad_2]
