Today's Financial Times is running a feature on the cuts in spending by Conservative run councils, with a particular focus on Essex, Barnet and Hammersmith & Fulham.  Whilst the Liberal Democrats have also talked about spending money better, and indeed many Lib Dem councils have also worked hard to keep tax rises low, this article suggests that what the Conservatives are doing is something much more fundamental.

Many of the changes in these particular councils have revolved around further outsourcing of service provision, cuts in frontline services such as parks, street cleaning, libraries and 'culture'.  Core services that Liberal Democrats usually go to great lengths to defend.  But at the same time, the changes often involve cutting down the artificial divisions between departments, prioritising frontline staff over senior management and making services more transparent and accessible at hours that are more convenient.  Something that Lib Dems would often support.

The question is whether what the Conservatives are doing is simply a more efficient way of running local government with the attendant cost savings, or is it simply service cuts by the back door (or in some cases, the front door).  With the Conservatives now the largest party in local government, is this the sign of things to come in more and more parts of the country?

We're not quite sure what Conservative Party Chair Eric Pickles means when he suggests that many Local Authority Chief Executives could be abolished. In an interview with the Independent this morning Mr Pickles said "recent changes to the structure of local government meant many chief executives were no longer needed. Since 2000, many councils have switched to having a leader and elected cabinet members handling specific portfolios."

Eric goes on to suggest that: I'm not one of these people who gets excited about high salaries but it should be in proportion to their responsibilities," Mr Pickles said. "A lot of council Chief Executives do not have that level of responsibility."

So is he suggesting that Council Leaders get paid more to do the Chief Executive job?

Yesterday the Conservative Party launched its Local Government "green paper" entitled "Control Shift - Returning Power to Local Communities". 

Key points include (for a full list - see LGA Briefing): 

• Discretionary power to levy business rate discounts and firms given power to support/stop increases in local business rates through local referenda.
• New relationship between local and central government (including power of general competence).
• Local referenda on ‘excessive’ council tax increases.
• Legislate for referenda on directly elected mayors in 12 major cities. (Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Wakefield, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, Newcastle upon Tyne) 
• Directly elected police commissioners. Giving local people more power over local spending priorities

Richard Kemp - who leads the LGA Liberal Democrat Goup commented on the proposals: 

"Tories right for Direction but woefully lacking in substance"
The Leader of the Liberal Democrats in local government, Cllr Richard Kemp has welcomed the direction of the Tory proposals for local government, but has cited four major concerns.

"This is a wholesale repudiation of the Thatcher and Major governments which stripped councils of their power and finance and made them into puppets of central government, but the plans lack substance in 4 areas".

1. They do nothing to correct the imbalance between central and local funding. Whilst central government supplies up to 80% of the money spent by local government they will continue to call the tune asserting national priorities over local ones. They have similarly chickened out of tackling the way we raise money locally by keeping in place the grossly unfair Council Tax whilst we would propose a fair local income tax.

2. They have learned nothing about local mayors. Some Mayors, and of course our own in Watford, have been successful. And where people decide that they want a mayor they already have the right to elect one. But of the 12 elected mayoral systems in England two are in deep trouble with Stoke already voting to end their mayoral system. If the same proportion of councils generally were in trouble there would be aid teams outside 38 Town Halls today.

3. They have learned nothing about regionalism. They are, of course, right to rail against the bureaucracies of unelected regional government. But to suggest that employment, housing, transport and planning matters stop at the boundary of each council is ludicrous. Councils must and do work together and should be empowered themselves to develop sub regional and regional frameworks.

4. Proposals for elected commissioners for the Police are deeply scary. Most people believe that the head of the Police should be a serving and experienced police officer. Although the green paper does not define what an elected commissioner would do there would be no point in having such a position if that person were unable to radically change policing policy and operational policing activity.

Cllr Kemp added: "In these proposals the Tory MPs are clearly not listening to their own councillors who would support many of these points especially the one about police commissioners. In particular they have shown that they know little about urban government with many major urban councils like Liverpool. Sheffield and Newcastle being entirely Tory Free Zones."