Localism?

Brent's Chief Executive Gareth Daniel has a Local Government Chronicle piece HERE on the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA). As well as the standard local government compliants about the length of time and resource it takes to report to government inspectors, it raises an issue over accountability that has been troubling me for some time.

The idea of the CAA and local strategic partnerships is that the Council co-ordinates various partnership agencies which agree a common strategy. It doesn't take much account of the differeing priorities of the partners. It also removes priority setting from elected members. There is currently very little oversight by elected members in this process. It also cuts directly against the push to make local authorities more responsive to residents, either directly or through their councillors. The danger is that the agreed priority of the partnership and the Audit Commission will carry on independently of attempts by the public or members to influence it. I am not sure what the solution to that is, but all political parties need to recognise the problem if there really is going to be any kind of new "localism".