1 - 2 - 3 - Miller, W.L Dickson, M & Stroke, G (2000) Models of Local Governance

Models of Local Governance
Public Opinion and Political

Theory in Britain
William L. Miller, Malcolm Dickson

and Gerry Stoker
Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Newcastle, Australia - PalgraveConnect - 2014-12-27
10.1057/9781403920119 - Models of Local Governance, William L. Miller, Malcolm Dickson and Gerry Stoker
Also by William L. Miller
ALTERNATIVES TO FREEDOM: Arguments and Opinions

ELECTIONS AND VOTERS: A Comparative Introduction (with M. Harrop)
ELECTORAL DYNAMICS IN BRITAIN SINCE 1918
HOW VOTERS CHANGE: The 1987 British Election Campaign in Perspective
(with H. Clark, M. Harrop, L. LeDuc and P. Whiteley)
IRRELEVANT ELECTIONS? The Quality of Local Democracy in Britain
MEDIA AND VOTERS: The Audience, Content and Influence of Press and
Television at the 1987 General Election
OIL AND THE SCOTTISH VOTER (with J. Brand and M. Jordan)
POLITICAL CULTURE IN CONTEMPORARY BRITAIN: People and Politicians,
Principles and Practice (with A. M. Timpson and M. Lessnoff)
THE END OF BRITISH POLITICS? Scots and English Political Behaviour in the
Seventies
THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTOR (with K. Young)
THE SURVEY METHOD IN THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES:
Achievements, Failures, Prospects
VALUES AND POLITICAL CHANGE IN POSTCOMMUNIST EUROPE
(with Stephen White and Paul Heywood)
Also by Gerry Stoker
CITIES IN THE 1990s: Local Choice for a Balanced Strategy (with S. Young)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN THE 1990s (with J. Stewart)
REMAKING PLANNING: The Politics of Urban Change in the Thatcher Years
(with T. Brindley and Y. Rydin)
RETHINKING LOCAL DEMOCRACY (with D. King)
THE NEW MANAGEMENT OF BRITISH LOCAL GOVERNANCE
THE POLITICS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
THE PRIVATISATION OF URBAN SERVICES IN EUROPE (with D. Lorrain)
THEORIES OF URBAN POLITICS (with D. Judge and H. Wolman)
THEORY AND METHODS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE (with D. Marsh)
Public Opinion and Political Theory
in Britain
William L. Miller
‘Edward Caird’ Professor of Politics
University of Glasgow
Malcolm Dickson
Lecturer in Politics
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow
and
Gerry Stoker
Professor of Government
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow
© William L. Miller, Malcolm Dickson and Gerry Stoker 2000
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Miller, William Lockley, 1943–
Models of local governance : public opinion and political theory in
Britain / William L. Miller, Malcolm Dickson, and Gerry Stoker.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–333–79005–7
1. Local government—Great Britain. I. Dickson, Malcolm. II. Stoker,
Gerry. III. Title.
JS3111 .M55 2000
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Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction and Overview 1
1 From Local Government to Local Governance 11

Two decades of institutional change 11
Governance: a strange new world? 18
What price local democracy? 21
New Labour: reform beyond reform 24
Normative models of local governance 28
Conclusion 32
2 A Multi-Level Survey 33
The test of public opinion 33
Levels of opinion: the general public and rival local
governance elites 34
The survey 36
3 The Limits of Local Identity 45

Objective links to locality 46
Subjective links to locality 51
Pride, responsibility and exclusion 64
Conclusion: multiple identities and inclusive citizenship 68
4 The Role of Local Governance 71

Minimalism 72
National or local standards? 73
The Tiebout thesis 74
Local interests 75
A mission to mobilize? 76
What influenced ideas about the proper objectives of
local governance? 79
5 The Image of Traditional Local Government 85

Representation and responsiveness 86
Interests 87
Effectiveness 90
Satisfaction and trust 95
v
vi Contents
Influences on images 97
Conclusion: low on efficiency but high on honesty and
trustworthiness 103
6 Institutional Preferences 105
Localism 105
Democracy 111
Paying for services 114
Rival institutions of local governance 115
Influences 119
Conclusion: a general preference for democratically elected
governance 122
7 Governing Perspectives 130

The local connection 131
Party and ideology 140
The role of local governance 141
The image of local government 148
Institutional preferences 168
Conclusion: a governing consensus between rival
elites but divisions within 181
8 Testing Models against Public Opinion 188

Assumptions about local identity and citizenship 190
Aims and objectives 202
Images 213
Institutional preferences 220
Conclusion: winners and losers among the four
models tested 237
9 Public Support for Local Democracy 242

A democratic form of local governance 243
Autonomous local governance 251
Conclusion: defending local democracy on two fronts 259
Notes 262
Index 268
List of Figures
3.1 Objective links to locality 49
3.2 Strength of local identities 58
3.3 Regional patterns of identities 64
4.1 Focus on those who need council jobs 83
4.2 Provide as few services as possible 83
5.1 Trust in councillors, board members and government 102
6.1 Impact of local identification on institutional ratings 125
6.2 Impact of ideology on institutional ratings 126
6.3 Autonomous local governance 128
7.1 Identifications 136
7.2 Councils compared to private businesses 159
7.3 Perceptions of each other’s efficiency 160
7.4 Quango accountability 174
7.5 Institutional ratings 178
8.1 Testing models of local governance 239
9.1 The impact of a good image of local councils 247
9.2 The impact of ideology and pragmatic localism 258
vii
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Acknowledgements
We must thank the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council)
which funded this research under the Local Governance Programme
grant L311253054 to William L. Miller and Malcolm Dickson. Iain
Murray acted as our principal research assistant and the interviews
were carried out by a team of Glasgow University students trained
and supervised by him. Malcolm Dickson programmed the CATI
(Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) system which they used.
We must also thank the 2203 members of the public, 788 elected
local councillors and 903 appointed members of local TEC/LECs or
DHA/HBs (local enterprise and health boards) who gave up their time
to participate in our long and searching interviews.
ix
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Introduction and Overview
This is a book about attitudes towards local governance – the attitudes
of political theorists, of practitioners and of the general public. The
book focuses on Britain but it is widely recognized that the contem-
porary debate about local governance in Britain is only a part, though
a very important part, of a worldwide debate about local governance.
The issues that concern us are not limited to contemporary Britain.
Local governance
And it is a book about local governance rather than local government tra-
ditionally understood. The system of elected local councils running a
wide range of services that lasted, in Britain, from the 1930s to the
1980s is only one method of local governance. By local governance we
mean the commissioning, organization and control of services such as
health, education, policing, infrastructure and economic development
within localities. There were alternatives to the so-called ‘all-purpose’
elected councils before the 1930s and there are alternatives now.
Under the Conservative governments of 1979–97 Britain became the
world’s ‘brand leader of local government’, ‘introducing a whole raft of
new bodies at local level, mainly special purpose bodies, all appointed,
whilst removing functions from elected local governments at the same
time’.1 We pay particular attention to the alternatives to traditional
local government that burgeoned during the Thatcherite years. We
look at the attitudes of academic theorists and the general public
towards local governance by appointed bodies, by consumer or pro-
ducer self-management, and by private companies operating within a
market, as well as their attitudes towards local governance by elected
all-purpose councils. More than that, we investigate the view from the
2 Models of Local Governance
inside: the attitudes of elected local councillors from the traditional

system of elected local democracy, and the attitudes of board members
in the new rival quangocracy of appointed boards.
Chapter 1 reviews the extraordinary period of change during the
years of Conservative national government and provides a context for
the analysis presented in the remainder of the book. The shift from
local government to local governance is first examined in terms of
institutional changes and developments. Elected local authorities were
joined by a range of quangos, appointed bodies and partnership organ-
izations in the work of providing local services, decisions and strategic
visions. The new emphasis on ‘governance’ also brought into focus a
range of new actors from the business world, from the voluntary sector
and more broadly from among active citizens. These actors took promi-
nent roles alongside the elected politicians and the permanent officials
from traditional elected local authorities.
The new emphasis on ‘governance’ sparked much debate and indeed
controversy in the local government world. There were questions
raised about the accountability and probity of the new institutions of
local governance. In a broad sense it appeared that the system was frag-
mented and lacked overall coherence. It also lacked a fundamental
legitimacy. Yet at the same time the standing and status of elected
local authorities was at a low ebb. Low turnout in elections, near invis-
ible political leadership and public disenchantment made claims for
the democratic credentials of elected local authorities more difficult to
sustain during the 1980s and 1990s than before. In short from the per-
spective of many academics, specialist journalists and informed com-
mentators the Conservatives had presided over a period of change in
local governance which saw the creation or extension of a local
quango world that lacked legitimacy and a decline in the status and
standing of the established institutions of elected local government.
Prescriptions of how to address this crisis in local democracy have
not been slow in coming forward. Indeed some ideas for radical change
in the way that local politics works and operates have been taken up
by the New Labour government elected in May 1997, notably the idea
of introducing directly elected mayors.
Measuring attitudes towards local governance
But the main thrust of this book is not to prescribe, nor to provide a
detailed account of the trials and tribulations of local governance
under the Conservatives or for that matter under New Labour. Rather
our aim is to test the reactions of the public and practitioners inside
the system to the new world of local governance that has been created
over the last two decades. More than that we relate their views on local
governance to the major themes in the debate on local governance
stimulated by political theorists and informed observers. There is not
one model of local governance but rather a variety of models.
Throughout the book we refer to a broad distinction between localist,
individualist, mobilization and centralist models of local governance.
(Indeed in Chapter 8 each of these models is comprehensively tested
against public opinion.) Our aim then is to test the reactions of public
and practitioners to the world of local governance that emerged in the
1980s and 1990s and provide an understanding of how these two
bodies of opinion would like to see a system of local governance con-
structed. What, from their point of view, is the ideal model of local
governance?
Chapter 2 gives a brief description of our methodology. We used a
multi-level survey to investigate public and elite attitudes towards local
governance. It comprised 2203 interviews with the general public, 788
with elected councillors and 903 with appointed members of boards
charged with local business development and local health care –
TEC/LECs (Training and Enterprise Councils in England and Wales,
Local Enterprise Companies in Scotland) and DHA/HBs (District Health
Authorities in England and Wales, Health Boards in Scotland). Rather
than spreading our interviews with appointed elites across too wide
and disparate a range, we chose to look only at members of TEC/LECs
and DHA/HBs. These organizations constituted particularly well-
organized and powerful representatives of the local quango state. And
restricting our attention to these two provided enough interviews
within each to allow us to analyse opinion within specific kinds of
quango, and contrast opinion between them. The contrast proves unex-
pectedly illuminating.
It is difficult to deny that understanding the views of the public and
those that work inside the local governance system should be one
factor informing public policy discussion and decision. Yet investigat-
ing people’s views about issues such as local governance is problematic.
For most members of the public – and indeed for many members of the
local governance elite (board members and elected councillors) –
general questions about the performance of the system or thoughts
about how it could be reconstructed are not to the forefront of their
daily lives. The interviewing system we used helped to address the
difficulties raised by the relatively low salience of the issues that
concerned our respondents. CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone

Interviewing) allows the researcher to vary wordings, putting variants
of the same questions or testing out different scenarios using split and
randomized samples. The flexibility and variety thereby introduced
enables us, for example, to gain greater depth and understanding of
the respondents’ replies, check when a particular wording changes the
responses unduly, and gauge whether opinion is strongly or weakly
held.
Local identity
The main body of our findings starts with a look at the general public’s
attitudes. Chapter 3 investigates the extent, depth and nature of the
public’s perceived and felt community of place.2 We found a strong and
widespread psychological ‘sense of belonging’ to localities of different
kinds. But this sense of belonging peaked with respect to ‘Britain’. It
was lower for regions (Scotland excepted), lower still for the local dis-
trict or home neighbourhood, lower still for the workplace, and very
low indeed for ‘Europe’. Nonetheless, among the public as a whole,
local identification with region and district was far stronger than
identification with any class, religion or political party. People felt a
particularly acute sense of pride in the achievements of local people
and shame at their misdemeanours.
But this psychological identification with locality lacked one essen-
tial character of citizenship: it was simply not exclusive. Only a small
minority felt that access to local services or participation in local elec-
tions should be restricted to those who had lived or paid taxes locally
for at least two years – itself a ridiculously low threshold for entry into
a genuinely meaningful ‘local citizenship’. Despite their own strong
sense of local identification, the vast majority felt that local govern-
ment should be the property of currently local residents, no matter how
recently arrived nor how shallow their local roots.
Citizenship is nothing if not a privilege. It is a meaningless concept
if it includes everybody and excludes nobody. And a local citizenship
that applies to anyone who happens to be in the locality on the day is
not in any real sense a citizenship. Nor is a local community that auto-
matically includes everyone who happens to be in the locality on the
day, in any real sense a community. The vast majority of the public
therefore base their attitude towards access to local elections and ser-
vices on some wider and non-local conception of citizenship and com-
munity, probably focused on Britain, and perhaps wider still.
The role of local governance
Chapter 4 deals with the general public’s attitudes towards the role of
local governance, its aims and objectives. Should it provide only a
minimal range of services? Should it provide local or national stan-
dards of service? Should it let the market provide? Should it attempt to
mobilize local people or particular ‘disadvantaged’ groups, or leave
them to get on with their own lives? Should the conflict between local
and individual autonomy be reconciled by individuals moving to a dif-
ferent locality more in keeping with their ideal of local governance (a
test of the so-called ‘Tiebout hypothesis’, see p. 74)?
We found a wide diversity of views on these issues. There was evi-
dence that they reflected, in part, the general political ideology of left
versus right, big government versus small government. Such left–right
ideology had a strong influence on attitudes towards the extent of
public services but less upon attitudes towards issues that involved
local autonomy.
Attitudes towards local autonomy were themselves strikingly para-
doxical. There was overwhelming public support both for ‘national
standards’ and for local councils’ freedom to provide ‘whatever
standard of services their local community wants and is willing to
pay for’. Two-thirds of the public simultaneously supported both.
Relatively few – only a quarter – supported local discretion without
national standards, and even less supported national standards
without local discretion.
The image of traditional local government
Critics of traditional local governance by elected councils had claimed

that councils were in fact neither representative, nor efficient, nor even
honest. Chapter 5 investigates the general public’s image of locally
elected councils – both in absolute and comparative terms. The public
was ambivalent about how well councils represented local people’s
views, but overwhelmingly positive about the good intentions of local
councillors. However, more than four in ten felt their local council did
not care about their views. Councils were seen as too much influenced
by central government and local bureaucrats. Conversely they were
seen as insufficiently influenced by local voters, by those who paid the
most local taxes, by racial or ethnic minorities or by women’s groups.
On balance, despite all the tabloid scandals that have afflicted local
authorities, the public thought their own local council was less corrupt
than private business, and less wasteful than central government,

though less efficient than private business. Although they rated elected
councillors just as good at organizing things as appointed DHA/HB
members, they rated councillors lower than appointed TEC/LEC board
members in terms of organizing ability. And they were less satisfied
with the services provided by local councils than with those provided
by local doctors, electricity suppliers or tradesmen. But they trusted
elected councillors slightly more than appointed board members, and
far more than they trusted Parliament or central government.
Moreover the public saw local government as capable of achieving
locally defined goals at least to the same degree as central government
was capable of achieving nationally defined goals.
The structure and institutions of local governance
In Chapter 6 we investigate the general public’s attitudes towards the

structure and institutions of local governance, and recent or proposed
reforms to that structure. How local should it be? How autonomous
with respect to central government? And how directly under the
control of local voters? We found enormous (and perhaps unrealistic)
public support for local autonomy against central government. But we
also found enormous public support for direct public control of local
government itself by means of referenda and directly elected mayors.
Similarly there was overwhelming public rejection of the notion that
appointed boards should be left to run their own affairs without some
mechanism for democratic control, preferably local democratic control.
Two-thirds of the public thought appointed boards should be respons-
ible to locally elected councils rather than to central government,
though a majority said the powers of locally elected councils should be
limited to investigating the activities of appointed boards rather than
controlling them on a day-to-day basis.
A large majority said it did not matter who ran local services pro-
vided they were well run. But when asked about specific structures the
public rated locally elected councils as by far the best way to run local
services – far better than appointed boards, self-management by
service users or providers, or control by market forces. Even more
striking was the uniformity with which locally elected councils were
given the top rating by all sections of the public. Across the ideologi-
cal spectrum support varied sharply both for appointed boards and
for private companies operating in the market. But it never came any-
where near the level of support for elected local councils at any point
on the ideological (or party) spectrum. Similarly the strength or weak-

ness of local identification had only a very slight influence on support
for elected local councils. Local governance by means of local democ-
racy was by far the top choice even among extreme right wingers,
even among the strongest of Conservative Party supporters, even
among those who admitted they had not voted in the most recent
local election, and even among those with the weakest sense of local
identification.
The perspectives of rival elites
Chapter 7 focuses on the attitudes of rival local governance elites,

elected councillors and appointed board members, contrasting them
with each other and with the views of the general public. Elected coun-
cillors identified particularly strongly with their locality, and they were
particularly confident that services could be best run locally rather
than nationally. Naturally enough, they took a particularly favourable
view of elected local councils. Conversely they were more sceptical
than the public about referenda and overwhelmingly opposed to the
direct election of mayors. As the best way to provide local governance,
councillors rated locally elected councils even higher than did the
public, and they rated appointed boards or private companies even
lower than did the public. But they were about as ambivalent as the
public itself towards self-management by service users or providers.
None of this should come as a great surprise.
The views of appointed members of the quangocracy were less
expected, however. To a remarkable extent, the views of appointed
board members were similar to those of elected councillors. In particu-
lar, when asked to rate different institutions as the best way to provide
local governance, appointed board members gave by far the top ratings
to elected local councils. They were even more favourable than the
public towards elected local councils (though not as favourable as
councillors themselves). Appointed board members, unlike councillors,
rated appointed boards higher than self-management by service users
or providers, but they still placed appointed boards far behind elected
councils.
Moreover, there was little community of interest between those
members appointed to different boards. TEC/LEC board members took
a particularly negative view of DHA/HBs, and vice versa. And when
they took a particularly positive view of appointed board members, as
they did on the question of trustworthiness, they limited their positive
view to their own particular kind of board. Far more members of

TEC/LEC and DHA/HB boards alleged that members of the other board
‘did not care about the views of people like me’ than made the same
criticism of elected councils. And at the same time, appointed board
members joined elected councillors in a highly critical attitude towards
central government.
So although we might characterize appointed board members and
elected councillors as ‘rival local governance elites’ they had a surpris-
ing amount in common. Appointed board members were simply not
antagonistic to the concept, institutions or personnel of local democ-
racy even though they constituted a rival alternative to it.
Testing theoretical models against public opinion
In Chapter 8 we test four comprehensive theoretical models of local

governance against our survey findings:
• the traditional local democracy or localist model centred on all-

purpose elected local councils;
and three alternative models:
• the ‘new right’ or individualist model centred on markets serving indi-

viduals as customers;
• the ‘new left’ or mobilization model focused on human development
and the mobilization of disadvantaged people or disadvantaged
neighbourhoods;
• the centralist model (the inverse of a local autonomy model) which
stresses national identification, national standards and national
democracy.
Each of these four models bases prescriptions for forms and structures
of local governance on assumptions about the public’s identities,
aims and objectives, images of local government and institutional
preferences.
None of these models proves entirely consistent with our survey
findings but, on a crude count of consistencies and inconsistencies, the
local democracy and mobilization models fare best. The ‘new right’ individu-
alist model proves highly inconsistent with the reality of the public’s
identifications, aims and objectives, images and preferences. And the
often overlooked centralist model comes somewhere in the middle.
The foundations of support for local democracy
Finally, in Chapter 9 we address the question of why people support

local democracy. That they prefer it to all alternative structures of local
governance is not in doubt. But why? We use a series of multiple
regression analyses to weigh the relative importance of four factors that
might influence support for local democracy and its alternatives:
1. a psychological sense of local identity;

2. pragmatic localism – a belief in small-scale government;
3. left–right ideology;
4. a good or bad image of existing local councils.
The strongest defence of a democratic form of local governance

against all alternative (non-democratic or non-elective) local structures
is the general, pervasive assumption that elective democracy is the
right way to run any system of governance, be it central or local. But
beyond that, other factors also have some influence upon support for
local democracy or its alternatives.
But local democracy also has to defend itself against the claims of a
democratic central government. It has to defend a local form of gover-
nance against a national form. We investigate whether support for
local autonomy is primarily spatial and geographic, or primarily ideo-
logical and partisan. Do people support local autonomy because they
believe that small-scale government is best, or simply because they
oppose the party and ideology that (for the moment) happens to
control central government?
Ideology clearly plays two roles simultaneously. In itself it does indi-
cate a policy choice between public and private provision. But because
central government in Britain always represents a clear position on this
left–right spectrum, ideology also indicates whether people are ideo-
logically sympathetic or unsympathetic to central government. Very
few of us can fully separate our attitudes towards central government
as a central authority from our attitudes towards the party and ideology
that happen to control the centre at the moment.
A left-wing ideology (as an ideology in itself) as well as a good
image of local councils as representative, efficient and honest, both
provide a defence for local democracy against alternative local struc-
tures of local governance. By contrast, pragmatic localism (belief in
small-scale government), local identification and opposition senti-
ment (or an ideology opposite to that in control at the centre) all
provide a defence for local democracy against the rival claims of

central government.
Thus, at the time of our study, a left-wing ideology provided a strong
defence for local democracy against the rival claims of a right-wing
central government. But we suspect that a left-wing ideology would
not provide a strong defence for local democracy against the rival
claims of a left-wing central government. Full empirical confirmation
of that must wait until New Labour has been in power at the centre for
long enough to be identified with the centre, and to be faced with a
range of Conservative-dominated local councils. But there is already
some preliminary evidence that indicates a move in that direction: by
1998 Labour supporters no longer backed local autonomy to a greater
extent than Conservatives, with the result that overall support for local
autonomy had declined.3 In the longer term, it may be Conservatives
and right-wingers that boost support for local autonomy once again if
Labour continues to hold power at the centre.
More immediately, our evidence shows that neither local identification
nor pragmatic localism provided a defence for local democracy against
the rival claims of other specifically local alternatives such as locally
appointed boards, self-management by local service users and local pro-
ducers, or even the provision of services through the market by local
private companies.
Conceptually, local democracy has to defend itself on two very dif-
ferent fronts with two very different weapons. Since it is both local and
democratic, it is vulnerable to very different attacks from central gov-
ernment on the one hand and from the private sector on the other. It
survives, and may yet prosper, because there is a general presumption
in favour of local governance (whether democratic or not) albeit within
a framework of national minimum standards, and also a general pre-
sumption in favour of democratic governance (whether local or not). In
the public esteem this combination of general prejudices protects the
concept of local democracy remarkably well against all its own short-
comings. Any other system of local governance is viewed as second
best, a necessary evil perhaps to solve a short-term problem, but funda-
mentally incompatible with a culture that is both democratic and prag-
matically localist. If local governance through appointed boards,
market provision or self-management is to acquire legitimacy, it
desperately needs some means of sheltering under the democratic
umbrella of local democracy.
1
From Local Government to Local
Governance
To refer to a shift over the last two decades from local government to
local governance in Britain implies a recognition of two factors. First
there has been a shift in the institutional structure of governing with a
range of appointed bodies or ‘quangos’ gaining greater responsibility
and prominence. Second there has been a change in the character of
governing, a blurring of responsibilities, with appointed bodies and
partnership organizations working alongside elected local authorities.
Elected politicians and full-time local government bureaucrats have
found themselves joined by a range of other actors. And major roles
have developed for users, for interested citizens and for the private
sector in this complex interplay of local actors
To understand the world of local governance it is necessary to begin
with a review of institutional change over the last two decades. The
second part of this chapter then explores some of the key features of
the new system that resulted from these changes and the tensions asso-
ciated with it as a style of governing. The third section examines the
debate about the need to revive local democracy, a debate which was
stimulated by this shift from local government to governance. The
fourth section looks at New Labour’s approach to ‘reform beyond
reform’ in British local governance. And a final section summarizes
a number of normative models of how local governance might be
organized.
Two decades of institutional change
The institutional structure of local governance changed substantially

during the long period of national Conservative government between
1979 and 1997.1 The basic structure of local government shifted from a
11
largely two-tier to a unitary structure. Central control over local

finance became far tighter and more detailed. The functions and
responsibilities of elected local authorities were squeezed and restruc-
tured. Alongside elected councils there emerged new or reshaped
appointed bodies or quangos that came to play a prominent role in the
governance of localities. Finally reforms aimed at changing the way
services were delivered encouraged a more indirect arm’s length style
of management and introduced extensive internal differentiation.
The two-tier system of local authorities which had been established
during the local government reorganizations of the 1960s and 1970s
did not stand the test of time. In the 1980s and 1990s there was a
general shift towards a ‘unitary’ or single-tier system of local govern-
ment. It was argued that a single-tier system would minimize wasteful
bureaucracy and be easier for the public to understand. The process of
reform began in 1986 with the abolition of the Greater London
Council and the six English metropolitan county councils. This created
a unitary system of local government throughout the main urban
conurbations of England (though not of Scotland). However, not all
functions previously performed by these upper-tier authorities could be
undertaken by the lower-tier London boroughs and metropolitan dis-
tricts. So a number of joint boards and committees which grouped
authorities together in an ad hoc way had to be established for particu-
lar purposes.
The abolition of the metropolitan counties led to the creation of a
series of joint boards covering police, fire services, public transport and
waste disposal. These boards consisted of councillors appointed by the
constituent authorities but they had their own identity and legal
status. The abolition of the Greater London Council led to the creation
of a joint board for fire services. London Transport had already been
removed from the control of the Greater London Council prior to abo-
lition, and the (London) Metropolitan Police had always been directly
accountable to central government through the Home Secretary. In
other fields of London governance, including land-use planning and
roads, central government took significantly greater powers than else-
where. Under New Labour, the governance of London changed again
in May 2000 with not only an elected assembly but also a directly
elected mayor.
Institutional restructuring was extended further, to Scotland, Wales
and the non-metropolitan areas of England, in the early 1990s. In
Scotland and Wales central government took direct responsibility for
drawing up reform plans, ignoring public protests and creating ex-
From Local Government to Local Governance 13
clusively single-tier systems of local authorities. In England the reform

was put in the hands of a semi-independent Local Government
Commission. The government’s original purpose was widely believed
to be the establishment of a single tier of unitary authorities through-
out non-metropolitan England but a successful campaign against
change was fought by many county councils. The first round of the
Commission’s investigations eventually produced the abolition of four
upper-tier county councils and the establishment of 14 new unitary
shire councils. A second round led to the creation of more new unitary
authorities. In the end, the reforms of the early to mid-1990s produced
unitary local government in most of the major towns, cities and urban
areas in England, along with the whole of Scotland and Wales.
At the end of the Conservatives’ period in government the basic
structure of elected local authorities in Britain was therefore as outlined
in Table 1.1.
The unitary authorities remained responsible for a wide range of ser-
vices including education, social welfare, housing, environmental pro-
tection, planning and economic development. In the two-tier structure
the upper-tier county councils retained their position as the dominant
spenders taking responsibility for major services, while the lower-tier
districts retained housing and leisure services as their main functions.
However, the areas and populations covered by many upper-tier
county councils had been reduced since, in many counties, the major
county town or city gained unitary status.
During their period in office the Conservatives also introduced a
tighter and tighter financial system. The debacle of the Poll Tax added
to the problems of local finance. 2 It undermined the public’s willing-
ness to pay local taxes and, as part of a post-Poll Tax settlement,
Table 1.1 The structure of elected local government in Britain 1997/1998
Single-tier (unitary)
46 English unitary councils
36 English metropolitan districts
32 London boroughs (plus City of London Corporation)
22 Welsh councils
32 Scottish councils
Two-tier (functions
split between levels)
33 English county councils
238 English non-metropolitan authorities
national VAT was hiked 2.5 per cent to fund a further proportion of
local services from central resources. Excluding user charges, local tax-
ation (the Council Tax) accounted for at best only a quarter of total
local authority income by 1997. The remainder of local authority
income came from central government transfers and other nationally
distributed sources. Apart from the post-Poll Tax settlement, the crucial
shift occurred in 1990–91 when the government removed the control
of local ‘non-domestic’ or business rates from local authorities. In the
mid-1980s a combination of local domestic and business rates had
meant that local government raised over half its own income.
The heavy reliance on non-local revenue established in the early 1990s
created a substantial opportunity for central government to dictate the
level of local spending in aggregate terms. In addition it was able to
influence the spending decisions of individual authorities by using
annual Standard Spending Assessments (SSAs) to define what ‘needed’ to
be spent and by using ‘capping’ powers over local authority budgets to
ensure that they did not rise above government approved levels.
These draconian measures led to an increasing degree of central
control over local spending. Some local authorities had to make drastic
cuts. Others protected programmes through a variety of strategems
including what was called ‘creative accounting’. They became expert in
juggling the books so that the figures for spending matched govern-
ment targets but resources still continued to flow into local services.
Over time, however, the scope for creative accountancy was reduced
both by the introduction of new central controls and by the build-up
of postponed costs. Although local government was still responsible for
about a quarter of all public spending in 1997 it now operated under
very controlled conditions.
Elected local authorities were not only reorganized and restructured,
they were bypassed. There was a growth in the number of appointed
bodies or quangos at the local level. Training and Enterprise Councils
took over local authorities’ responsibilities in further education and train-
ing towards the end of the 1980s. Institutions of further education along
with sixth form colleges were constituted as corporate bodies in their own
right, following the previous removal of what were then local authority
controlled polytechnics and are now centrally controlled universities. In
specific areas, urban development corporations, housing action trusts,
housing associations and more broadly various partnership organizations
assumed, with the support of central government funds, responsibilities
for renewal and development. In Scotland, Local Enterprise Companies
had a broad role in training and regeneration. For other functions local
authorities were required to set up companies to take over responsibilities

in public transport, airports and waste disposal, sometimes as a step
towards privatization. In England and Wales water and sewage was
handed over to the control of private companies; in Scotland it was put
under the control of appointed boards.
Provisions for opting out of local council or local health authority
control led to the creation of grant-maintained schools and hospital
trusts as free-standing institutions. Free-standing police authorities
were established in 1995. The government’s original intention was to
change the composition of police authorities so that there would no
longer be a majority of councillors on them. As a result of intervention
by the House of Lords appointed councillors could get a bare majority
on most police authorities but the intended weakening of local author-
ity control nonetheless occurred.
At the end of these reforms, local quangos covered vital functional
areas. Some were appointed directly by central government. Others
were ostensibly ‘self-governing’ in that they were not directly
appointed by central government, but they were mainly funded by
central government and very strongly influenced by central govern-
ment policy. These appointed bodies operating at the local level were
responsible for a substantial amount of public spending. By the mid-
1990s the key bodies appointed and funded directly by central govern-
ment, together with self-governing bodies supervised and funded by
the central government, were responsible for over £40 billion of public
funds. That was a figure not far from the spending responsibilities of
elected local authorities. Table 1.2 presents some basic information on
the key agencies that were most prominent as part of this reformed
institutional framework for local governance.
A variety of factors explain why local quangos and non-elected
bodies gained an increased role under the Conservatives. Each quango
has its own history and particular reasons why it was established but it
is possible to see a number of shared elements in the story of the
growth of quangos.
One significant factor was undoubtedly the desire to bypass tradi-
tional local government. Distrust of local authorities was evident from
the early years of the Conservative government but it became more
pronounced as the Conservatives lost political control at the local
level. By the mid-1980s the Conservatives controlled fewer local coun-
cils than Labour. By the 1990s the Conservatives had been reduced to
running just under two dozen local authorities (about 5 per cent of the
total). Parties that control national government expect to lose seats at
Table 1.2 Key agencies in the Conservatives’ ‘local quango state’ (expenditure
in £bn)
Functional area Government appointed bodies Self-governing bodies
Education City Technology Colleges Grant Maintained
Higher Education Schools
Corporations (7.56)
Further Education
Corporations (3.2)
Housing Housing Action Housing Associations
Trusts (0.09) (1.5)
Urban Development Urban Development Training and Enterprise
and Training Corporations (0.5) Council (1.4)
Local Enterprise
Companies (0.5)
Health District Health
Authorities (12.9)b
Family Health Services
Authorities (6.8)
Health Trusts (6.0)1
Source: Adapted from G. Stoker, ‘Quangos and local democracy’, in M. Flinders and
M. Smith (eds), Quangos, Accountability and Reform (London: Macmillan, 1999). Some
of these agencies were abolished by the incoming New Labour government after 1997.
the local level. But for the Conservatives, local government, especially
in urban areas, become virtually a ‘no-go’ area. In such circumstances
bypassing elected local authorities might well have appeared particu-
larly attractive.
A second factor behind the growth of local quangos was the desire to
bring new participants into the process of local governance. It was
argued that the electoral system and its demands discouraged many
people with relevant skills and experience from being involved in local
governance. Bringing business skills, knowledge and interest to local
governance was a key theme for the Conservatives. But there was also a
recognition of the value of enabling others from outside the traditional
system such as service users, volunteers and active citizens to become
involved in local decision-making.
Finally there was a view that quangos would help to develop more
business-like management of public services in tune with the ideas and
arguments of the ‘New Public Management’. By developing more slim-
line and focused management teams to run organizations and by
encouraging competition between these organizations to attract users
and/or public funds it would be possible to stimulate efficiencies and

greater effectiveness through quasi-market incentives. Moreover
because it controlled the purse strings more directly the centre would
be able to dictate not only aggregate spending levels but also more
detailed priorities in these organizations.
To complete the picture of organizational change and continue the
theme of greater fragmentation and complexity in the system of local
governance it can be noted that alongside external differentiation
came internal division. In both local authorities and the major local
quangos a shift in the pattern of internal management was encouraged
by ‘New Public Management’ ideas and by Conservative legislation.3
‘New Public Management’ presented a complex set of ideas which
have evolved and developed around different themes. The version
most clearly embraced by the Conservatives provided a critique of
existing forms of service provision and a prescription for improvement
based on introducing market-like disciplines. Public service organiz-
ations, so the argument had it, were dominated by producer interests
(the bureaucrats and the various ranks of other employees). And the
power of the producer was not held in check by market incentives and
demands as it was in private sector organizations. As a result public
service organizations were alleged to be neither efficient in terms of
saving public money nor responsive to consumer needs. The solution
was to fragment ‘monopolistic’ public service structures and develop
quasi-market forces to control them. Key reforms included the intro-
duction of a purchaser–provider divide within organizations and the
development of performance targets and incentives. The aim was to
create an organizational ‘home’ for the client/consumer voice within
the system in order to challenge the power of producers. Consumers –
or more directly their surrogates – would have the power to purchase
the services they required and to measure performance.
A key reform was the introduction of compulsory competitive ten-
dering which started with a focus on the main ‘blue-collar’ services of
building, cleaning and refuse collection, though towards the end of the
Conservatives’ tenure the focus shifted towards ‘white-collar’ services
also. Tendering led to some services being undertaken by private sector
providers under time-limited contracts. And even though most work
remained ‘in-house’ it now had to operate on new terms.
The purchaser part of the organization developed a client role both
to specify the form of service required and to monitor the perform-
ance of the contractor. The contractor that took direct responsibility
for service delivery, even when it was an ‘in-house’ direct service
organization (DSO), had to operate within its own finance and

accounting provisions. Such DSOs also tended to demand a degree of
flexibility in the management of their personnel and in the develop-
ment of their own business plans. Moreover, rather than pay fixed or
long-established overheads for central services such as salary manage-
ment, financial information and computer support, many DSOs
negotiated service level agreements with the central departments
responsible for providing them.
Competitive tendering requirements applied both to local authorities
and to some appointed bodies. In education the introduction of
devolved management responsibilities for schools created a similar
pressure for more contract-oriented management. In social services a
separation was introduced between the assessment of needs and the
provision of services, which created a similar client–contractor dimen-
sion in their operations.
What resulted from the introduction of ‘New Public Management’
reforms was a more differentiated system of internal management.
Local authorities and to some extent other institutions in the world of
local governance found themselves divided into a series of separate
units with relationships conducted through contractual or semi-
contractual arrangements.
The idea of the shift from local government to governance is in part
captured by a recognition that institutions governing localities have
been reshaped during the long tenure of the Conservative national
government. Elected local authorities remain in place although since
1979 there has been a move towards single-tier rather two-tier local
government. Various appointed boards, partnership organizations and
local quangos have increased in prominence and they are responsible
for a level of spending that nearly matches that of elected local author-
ities. And within local service delivery organizations, more contract-
style management structures have encouraged a process of internal
differentiation.
Governance: a strange new world?
The switch to the new concept of ‘governance’ implied more than a

new set of institutional arrangements. It also implied a new set of prac-
tices which challenged traditional understandings of government and
public management and brought in their wake new tensions and new
difficulties. The Conservative reforms ushered in a strange new world
of local governance which raised a number of issues in the minds of
the public and policy-makers. The complexity and blurred responsibil-

ities of the system raised some doubts about its legitimacy. Questions
were raised about standards of probity in public affairs. There was some
concern that the system had lost a capacity for overall coherence and
steering. Finally there were issues of accountability.
The complexity of this new governance confirmed the divorce
between our formal constitutional understanding of governing
arrangements and the way they worked in practice.4 Throughout all of
the postwar period local authorities have never been the sole govern-
mental actors within localities. Health authorities, public utilities and
other agencies always had a substantial impact on service provision
and the physical shaping of localities. However, the increased intensity
and prominence given to non-elected agencies under the Conservative
governments of 1979–97 and the associated downgrading of the role of
elected local authorities created a system that lacked strong legitimacy.
The divorce between the normative codes used to explain and justify
government and the reality of the decision-making in the system
created tensions. As Guy Peters commented: ‘We must be concerned
with the extent to which complex structures linking the public and
private sectors … actually mask responsibility and add to the problems
of citizens in understanding and influencing the actions of their gov-
ernments.’5 The issue was more than there being a ‘cultural lag’ while
public attitudes caught up with the new reality of public services. The
public and more specifically the media lacked a legitimation frame-
work in which to place the emerging system of local governance.
The exercise of power needs to be legitimate. This argument is more
than a normative assertion. It rests also on the pragmatic grounds that to
be effective in the long run power-holders must be seen to be legitimate.
A legitimation deficit undermines public support and commitment to
programmes of change and ultimately undermines the ability of power-
holders to mobilize resources and promote cooperation and partnership.
Through their concern with performance, ‘governance-oriented’
reformers may have improved managerial efficiency but in the minds
of many members of the public and indeed some policy-makers there
was a blurring of overarching responsibility and clarity about who was
responsible for what. ‘Governance’ lacked the simple legitimizing
‘myths’ of the traditional system. It no longer seemed so self-evident
that it was ‘the council’ (town hall or county hall) that was responsi-
ble. The reforms may have created a system that was more difficult to
understand and as a result appeared more difficult to influence (or
perhaps more out of control).
Second there was a raft of concerns about the standards applied by

appointed agencies in the conduct of their business.6 It was claimed that
people were appointed to the boards of quangos not on the basis of
merit nor as a reflection of their expertise but because of their political
sympathies. In some instances, those who had failed to win public office
by election were appointed to public positions through the ‘back door’.
It was argued that the management and decision-making of many
quangos was shrouded in secrecy, that they lacked openness in the
conduct of their affairs when compared to elected local authorities. A
further criticism was that appropriate standards in declaring interests or
ensuring probity in the management of public finances had not always
been put into effect, or had not been properly observed. Certainly, the
traditional elected local authorities had not been immune from criticism
about the way they conducted their affairs. But the issue of probity in
public affairs become more prominent in the new era of ‘local gover-
nance’.7 And contemporary developments in central government re-
inforced the growing significance of probity in governance at all levels.
Third there was a view that although quangos might be effective in
their narrow area of operation, the existence of a diverse and complex
range of such agencies exacerbated the problem of corporate gover-
nance – the bringing of the parts together. Increasing differentiation,
along with the weakening of the relative position of local authorities,
constituted fragmentation within the overall system. Differentiation
has the strength of specialization and focus. Organizations have a clear
if bounded task and bring relevant expertise to that task. But a system
of governance has to have a capacity for integration as well as differen-
tiation. The relative weakening of the position of local authorities in
the system may have reduced the capacity for integration provided by
traditional multipurpose authorities even if they had never been the
‘all-purpose’ authorities that they were so often called.
Many of the new agencies of local governance were subject to direct
influence from central government through the appointment of their
controlling boards or by way of funding which came directly or indi-
rectly from the centre. Central government, however, could not readily
provide integrative mechanisms at the local level. The integrative
mechanisms of central government, which have themselves often been
criticized, focus on central government departments, on the Cabinet
and its committees, and on processes of consultation. And these do not
provide the necessary integrative mechanisms at the local level.
The fourth batch of criticisms focused on accountability. Quangos
were subject to strict financial and managerial accountability in many
instances but, it was argued, they lacked political accountability. The key
point is that these other forms of accountability cannot replace the need
for collective accountability for the policy and resource allocations of
these bodies. The requirements of that further and more general
accountability are not met by the framework of democratic control
through Parliament. The effective control that can be exercised over so
complex a machinery of bodies through this central route is inherently
limited. Moreover the issue is whether in any event public accountability
at national level is appropriate for appointed bodies at local level. If there
are local choices to be made by appointed bodies about priorities or the
setting of policy, even though these choices may take place within a
framework of national policy, the argument is that where there is local
choice there should be an opportunity for a local voice.
What price local democracy?
The emergence of this new concept of ‘governance’ led to increasing

concern about the quality of democracy at the local level. The account-
ability dilemma noted in the previous section was heightened by a
recognition that during the Conservative period of rule the political
legitimacy and relevance of elected local authorities seemed in decline.
Initial recognition that politics was changing at the local level was
reflected in the establishment of the Widdicombe Committee by the
Conservative government in the mid-1980s. 8 The evidence and
research presented to the Committee captured key elements of the
changing world even if the Committee’s report was rather narrow in its
focus and conservative in its recommendations. Even so the govern-
ment ignored much of its analysis and went ahead with some minor
tinkering reforms of local political practice in the Local Government
and Housing Act 1989.
The independent Commission for Local Democracy (CLD) pub-
lished a series of research reports which laid bare the problems of
existing local democracy and in its final report in 1995 it made
radical proposals for change. 9 The sense that something was funda-
mentally wrong with local democracy in practice was confirmed by
the report of the House of Lords Select Committee chaired by Lord
Hunt. 10 The Commission for Local Democracy and the Hunt
Committee shared some of the same analysis and a general vision of
the way forward, although their detailed prescriptions varied. The
problems of local democracy were not newly created by the
Conservatives during their period of national government, as both
the CLD and Hunt reports recognized, but a number of weaknesses

were exacerbated.
The most obvious weakness was low turnout in local elections.
Turnout figures varied considerably between and even within local
authorities but a turnout of around 40 per cent on average put Britain
at the bottom of the league in terms of European Union local govern-
ment systems. Turnout had never been particularly high and there
were signs of a slightly upward trend from the early 1970s for all
authorities except counties. But since a peak in the early 1990s the
trend has been downward again. Turnout at the 1998 local elections
was under 30 per cent and turnout in the 1999 elections no better.
Another set of concerns focused on who was attracted to stand as a
councillor. According to a 1993 survey nearly half of all councillors were
over 55 years old, about a third were retired and only a quarter were
women.11 There were reports of increasing difficulty in getting people to
stand for elections. The reasons for not standing provided by the over-
whelming majority of the public were related to the perceived low status
of councillors and the negative impact of the role on career and family.
The role of party politics in local government raises a complex set of
advantages and disadvantages. In any electoral system party politics
makes a valuable contribution in structuring choices for the public. It
also helps organize government by ensuring discipline and cohesion
among elected representatives. However, there are problems. The
influence of party too often takes place out of the public gaze and in
closed party group meetings. In more public settings it can encourage
an adversarial style in public debates. Party points are scored but the
public are turned off.
Above all there is a danger that accountability to the party can
become a substitute for a wider accountability to the public. Networks
of party activists are relatively thin and cut only a little way into their
communities. Research suggests that for most local parties their ‘world’
was relatively small and closed.12 Local party networks are dominated
by a relatively small number of activists. Typically in areas where one
party dominates local politics the key exchanges take place between 40
and 50 individuals, of whom perhaps around 20 might be considered
‘key influentials’.
A further difficulty is the existence of ‘one-party local states’ where one
party is able to rule virtually unchallenged. In 1997 a third of all councils
in Britain could be described as one-party monopolistic (70 per cent or
more seats held by one party) and nearly a quarter of councils could be
designated as one-party dominant (55–69 per cent of seats held by one
party). About 15 per cent of councils have some element of independent

influence. That leaves just less that a third of all councils with a compet-
itive two-party or multi-party system for the public.13
The relative absence of competitive party politics in so many local-
ities helps to create the perception on the part of the public and media
that local politics is an insular, petty, personalized, faction-ridden affair
peppered with too regular instances of small-scale corruption. At the
very least a healthy democracy demands a healthy opposition and the
current voting system does not guarantee opposition parties a share of
seats in proportion to their vote in many local authorities. So the
prospect of an effective opposition is undermined.
The influence of national factors and considerations on voting habits
– which even the most ardent localists admit is the dominant element
in determining local votes – makes the claim for legitimacy stemming
from election on the part of councillors appear even thinner.14
Further, the way of making decisions in councils – the committee
system – too often obscures where decisions are made and consumes a
vast amount of councillor and officer time for only limited benefits. It
also undermines the scope for visible and accountable local political
leadership. In most authorities private party groups provide the key
focus for decision-making. To some extent, council committees are
therefore a charade. Yet councillors – according to survey evidence –
spend about two-thirds of their time in these committees or preparing
for them. The officer structure also devotes a huge amount of time and
resources in this process. Time and capacity is taken away from the
potential role of councillors as community representatives or scruti-
neers of the policy and performance of the authority or other bodies.
For almost all authorities a political executive or leadership structure
can be detected by insiders. What is lacking is visibility and account-
ability to the public for that leadership role.
Finally the Conservatives found themselves criticized for creating a
system of governance that limited local discretion to an excessive
degree and put too much reliance on the role of the centre. Both the
Commission for Local Democracy and the Hunt Committee empha-
sized the need to restore greater discretion to local authorities. Key pro-
posals included:
• local authorities should have a general power of local competence;

• local authorities should be given a community leadership role, holding
other institutions in the world of governance to account and helping
to provide an overview of a community’s needs and priorities;
• there should be greater local control over spending decisions

through the end of capping and the enhancement of the local
revenue base.
In short, the Conservatives presided over a decline in the quality of
local democracy which led to a reform debate which emphasized two
goals: (a) reorganization of the institutions and dynamics of local
democracy itself, and (b) a shift in the balance of central–local relations
to restore a greater degree of local autonomy.
New Labour: reform beyond reform
Labour’s landslide election victory in 1997 brought a new agenda into

play for local government. Local government in 1997 was largely
Labour. Labour had outright control of about half of all authorities and
was involved in the control of nearly another quarter. Labour’s stran-
glehold has been eroded at the local level since 1997 but only to a
minor extent. It is likely to remain the dominant party at the local as
well as the national level for a number of years to come, both in terms
of its number of councillors and in terms of the number of authorities
under its control.
The strong presence of Labour at both national and local level has
given central–local relations a different tone. There is much talk of
partnership between central and local government. The local authority
associations in England, Scotland and Wales undoubtedly enjoy
increased access to ministers and some real influence over policy. Yet
tensions remain. In part that reflects the dominance of New Labour at
the centre and the substantial presence though not dominance of Old
Labour in some local authorities. More broadly the tensions revolve
around the demands made by the Blair government with respect to
local authorities. As a pamphlet published by the Prime Minister in
1998 put it: ‘The people’s needs require you to change … so that you
can play your part in helping to modernise Britain and, in partnership
with others, deliver the policies on which this government was
elected.’15
Local government is seen by New Labour as crucial to delivering its
key election promises in education, social services, housing and many
other areas. The modernization of local government is also seen as part
of a broader programme of renewal for the political institutions and
constitutional arrangements of Britain. Thus the politics of local gov-
ernment are important to New Labour. Local government as much as
national government provides a basis for the public to judge it. Failure
at either level is judged to be unacceptable.
New Labour’s agenda tackles head-on two issues that were ducked by
the Conservatives: (a) the political organization of local government;
and (b) its core role and purpose. The Prime Minister’s pamphlet indi-
cates that the two issues are linked: ‘At the heart of local government’s
new role is leadership – leadership that gives vision, partnership and
quality of life to cities, towns and villages all over Britain.’16 However,
there is seen to be a need for a considerable improvement in the quality
of elected local government if that leadership role is going to be viable.
Local government’s credentials to be community leaders are weak-

ened by its poor base of popular support … Councils need to avoid
getting trapped in the secret world of the caucus and the party
group. They should let people have their say … But the heart of the
problem is that local government needs recognised leaders if it is to
fulfil the community leadership role.17
At the centre of Labour’s agenda is a concern to restore public trust

and legitimacy to the political life of councils in order for them to take
on a community leadership role. In broad terms Labour has taken on
board many of the arguments of the Commission for Local Democracy
and to a lesser extent those of the Hunt Report.
The White Paper, Modernising Local Government: In Touch with the People,
provides the most comprehensive statement of New Labour’s agenda for
England and Wales.18 The heart of the reform package comes in four ele-
ments. First councils are expected to adopt new political structures.
Contrary to the fears of some, the approach is not too prescriptive. A
number of options are laid out – a directly elected mayor with a cabinet, a
cabinet with a leader and what in effect is a city manager system. The
White Paper makes it clear that ‘councils will choose which of these
models they prefer and the detail of how they wish to operate within the
broad definition of the model’. Equally, refusing to take forward change is
not an option. The White Paper suggests that central government will
take a reserve power to tackle councils that fail to develop any reform
plans or neglect to implement their reform proposals. In addition local
people are to be given the right to trigger a referendum on the directly
elected mayor option. Legislation to implement these reforms forms part
of the legislative programme for 1999/2000.
The second major element in the reform package is a set of measures
to improve local democracy. Again the emphasis is on enhancing the
accessibility and legitimacy of local government through ‘higher par-

ticipation in elections and close and regular contact between a council
and local people between elections’. Legislation is being introduced to
enable councils to experiment with electronic voting, polling stations,
postal voting and the timing of elections. Local authorities are going to
be placed under a new statutory duty to consult on best value perform-
ance reviews and plans and the broader community plan. Legislation
will also be introduced to confirm the power of councils to hold
referendums.
The third element in the reform package is the introduction of a
range of new disciplines to be imposed on local authorities. The White
Paper confirms that the surcharging (fining) of councillors will be abol-
ished. But a new ethical framework will be imposed, overseen by an
internal standards committee but backed up by an independent body
to investigate allegations that a council’s Code of Conduct has been
breached. Legislation establishing these procedures also forms part of a
package of measures for the 1999/2000 parliamentary session.
The most developed proposals in the White Paper relate to the dis-
ciplines associated with ‘Best Value’. Compulsory competitive tender-
ing is to be abolished. But in its place there are proposals for a
framework designed to encourage clarity about service standards,
targets for continuous improvement, greater involvement for service
users, and independent audit and inspection procedures. Central gov-
ernment is also to give itself powers to intervene in a ‘flexible and
constructive’ way if service and performance failure is persistent or
serious. Legislation containing these measures has already been
passed and local authorities will have to operate these ‘Best Value’
procedures by April 2000.
The final element in the reform package is a set of new powers and
responsibilities for local authorities. The White Paper proposes to
‘enshrine in law the role of the council as the elected leader of their
local community with a responsibility for the well-being and sustain-
able development of its area’. Along with this responsibility will come
a duty on the council to provide a community strategy for its area.
Councils are to be given a discretionary power to take steps to promote
the well-being of the area (a sort of general competence facility) and a
clear power to engage in partnership arrangements of various sorts,
including participation in companies. On the financial side the govern-
ment proposes a single capital pot, better asset management, the possi-
bility of a supplementary business rate, the abolition of crude and
universal capping and more stability in grant provision to councils.
New Labour has sustained a commitment to financial constraint

although there are signs of some relaxation. The announcements on
public spending made in July 1998 indicated substantially more money
for local government’s education and social services responsibilities but
limited growth in other areas. Capital spending is also likely to be
increased above levels achieved under the Conservatives. Yet there is a
strong element of caution in New Labour’s management of local
finances. Major levers remain in the hands of the centre although there
is considerable scope for local authorities to develop some modest
additional revenue streams and some imaginative partnership-based
capital projects and schemes to release resources through effective asset
management.
Labour has not abandoned the Conservatives’ belief in managerial-
ism and consumerism in a general sense, although its emphasis is
rather different. The ‘Best Value’ regime carries the potential of being a
flexible and effective tool for improvements in local service delivery.
There is also a strong theme in government circles on the virtue of
developing ‘joined up’ or ‘holistic’ approaches to tackling social and
economic problems.19 Local government with its range of responsibili-
ties and leadership role has a particular contribution to make in this
area.
New Labour has shown a strong interest in continuing the process of
change and reform for local government. It has, however, committed
itself to developing a different reform style, one that is more experi-
mental, involves more consultation and is less top-down. Yet in the
education, employment and welfare policy arenas legislation and min-
isterial interventions seem designed to ensure that local government
delivers the national objectives of the new government. In the words
of the rising cabinet star, Stephen Byers, local authorities ‘have to
prove they are part of the solution rather than part of the problem’.
There is a more general ministerial concern with achieving action and
an impatience with those that appear to be obstructing change.
The substantial shocks to the system of local government in Britain
under the Conservatives have led under New Labour to a reformulated
and challenging redefinition of local self-government. The value of
local government is not to be judged by the services it delivers (the
dominant paradigm of the 1970s) but by its capacity to lead a process
of social, economic and political development in local communities.
Local government is above all a political vehicle for communicating,
organizing and expressing the concerns, visions and problem-solving
capacity of local people.
What is far from clear is whether central government – under the

New Labour leadership – is prepared to will the means for local author-
ities to take on that community governance role. Local authorities may
be given a general power of local competence to engage in activities
that meet the needs of their community but they are not, for example,
going to be given much in the way of specific powers to call local
quangos to account. The emphasis is very much on building new part-
nerships. And local authorities are going to be subject to continued
strict financial discipline. The New Labour government might, in turn,
suggest that it is not clear to them that most local authorities have the
will, the capacity or the imagination to open themselves up in the way
that their community governance role demands. So the debate on local
self-government in Britain runs the risk of becoming stuck in a Catch-
22 situation: to perform local authorities need to be trusted, but to be
trusted they need to perform.
Normative models of local governance
The sense of change started by the Conservatives and continued under

New Labour implies an end to the traditional model of local govern-
ment. This has helped to create an understanding that there is not a
single model for local governance but rather a competition between a
range of models. Without claiming comprehensive coverage it is poss-
ible to identify four models (see Table 1.3).
The localist model is the one most associated with the traditional
defence of local government and is commonly expressed in the formal
outpourings of local government representative bodies and institu-
tions. In broad terms it draws on a ‘liberal pluralist’ perspective in
terms of political theory. For the localist the essential thing about local
governance is that it should be seen as the expression of local choice.20
The institutions of local government must be accountable to the local-
ity in order to ensure that they are responsive to local needs. They
must have sufficient autonomy to make decisions that reflect the
wishes of their local citizens rather than those of, for example, any
higher tier or level of government.
Localists give primacy to the ‘traditional’ representative institutions of
local government which in the British case are multi-purpose (often
incorrectly called ‘all-purpose’) elected local authorities. Local authorities
are there to lead on service delivery. Direct in-house provision is not
necessary for all services, all of the time, but most localists would argue
that without some ‘hands-on’ direct provision local authorities would
Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Newcastle, Australia - PalgraveConnect -
Table 1.3 Normative models of local governance
Dimensions
Key goals Attitude to Attitude to Key service- Key political
local autonomy public delivery mechanism
participation mechanism
Model
Localist Expression and Strongly in Supportive but Multi-functional Representative
meeting of local favour gives primacy to elected local politics through
communities’ elected authorities local elections
needs representatives
Individualist Ensuring Inclined to Favours Competitive Individual rights
individual choice favour but consumer range of service- as consumer
and recognizes need consultation but specific
2014-12-27
responsiveness in for upper-level not large-scale providers
respect of intervention to citizen
services protect participation
individuals
Mobilization Developing a Strongly in Strongly in Neighbourhood- Developmental
politics of favour as part of favour based and participatory
change to ensure process of decentralized politics
more effective change structures
influence of
disadvantaged
and excluded
Centralist To maintain Strongly opposed Limited value Agencies subject National
national to substantial government:
standards and the central control legislation,
primacy of guidance and
national controls
29
democracy
lack the capacity, sensitivity and understanding to perform their role of

meeting local needs. Some wider participation by the public is consid-
ered laudable and worthwhile but from a localist perspective priority is
given to the judgement of elected representatives. Councillors should
have the right to make the final decision because their electoral status
renders them accountable and because they have a perspective that is
broader than that offered by a single community association or lobby
group. They can balance and weigh competing demands from the com-
munity and come to an appropriate judgement about the way forward.
The individualist model is most clearly associated with ‘New Right’
political thought.21 Here the emphasis is not on facilitating collective
choice by the local community but rather on ensuring that the system
of local governance is designed in a way that ensures that individual
consumers obtain the right bundle of services to meet their personal
needs. The aim of the system should be to ensure that individuals get
the choice of service they want, related to a willingness to pay taxes or
charges. To meet the design challenge of creating government that is
responsive in that manner makes the advocates of this individualist
perspective inclined to favour very local institutions. Smaller-scale gov-
ernment where voter-consumers have an option of moving between
jurisdictions is more likely to create a variety of service–tax mixes and
facilitate choice. Smaller-scale government is also likely to be made
more subject to the demands and wishes of individual consumers. This
preference for small-scale government, however, is conditional on indi-
vidual choices being met and individual rights being respected.
The ‘individualist’ model favours competition between service
providers. By setting up a market-like model, it is argued, the forces of
consumer choice will ensure that producers are responsive and con-
cerned to provide services tailored to individual needs. Collective polit-
ical decision-making and large-scale participation is distrusted because
it favours organized and vocal minorities who bargain additional
resources and benefits for themselves out of the state at the expense of
taxpayers and the unorganized ‘silent’ majority. Political processes
should be kept to a minimum.
The key challenge is to enable individual consumers to protect their
rights and interests. Sophisticated systems of complaint and redress,
citizens’ charters which lay out expectations and rights in relation to
service delivery, the ‘right to buy’ council property, appeals to an
ombudsman and, more broadly, a capacity to use the law to claim your
rights are among the mechanisms to promote individual rights
favoured by the New Right.
The mobilization model draws on a left-wing perspective. There have

always been a variety of views on the left about local governance.
Many have favoured national government intervention and dom-
inance in order to overcome local inequalities and the limitations of
action at the local level.22 But a counter-argument and one associated
with the mobilization model is that any worthwhile left-wing politics
involves doing things with people rather than for them. The local level
provides an opportunity to organize the disadvantaged and mobilize
them so that an active political alliance is formed to challenge inequal-
ity and exclusion. Local governance provides the base for an effective
oppositional politics.23
As a form of political practice the mobilization model came to
prominence in Britain in the early 1980s as a range of left-wing Labour
councils – led by high-profile figures such as Ken Livingstone and
David Blunkett – developed a campaigning style of local politics both
as a challenge to the Thatcher government and as an attempt to re-
invigorate and renew left-wing political alliances at the local level.24 A
key element of the political process for the mobilization model is that
there is sufficient scope for local autonomy to allow a dynamic local
politics to develop which is involving and creates multiple opportuni-
ties for participation by the public. The key overarching challenge is
seen as using the local political arena to encourage a developmental
participatory politics in which the disadvantaged and excluded learn
and put into practice the arts of organization, campaigning and
mobilization.
In terms of service delivery there is a preference for a structure decen-
tralized right down to the neighbourhood level. First, breaking down
bureaucracies makes them more susceptible to the influence of the tra-
ditionally excluded. Neighbourhood offices provide accessible service
delivery outlets that are more likely to be responsive to the demands of
disadvantaged local communities. Moreover decentralized structures
may provide a focus and resource for the various disadvantaged com-
munities within any local authority area.
The final model of local governance is not one that favours a strong
local politics. The centralist model only rarely finds explicit expression in
the world of political theory but in the world of political practice, espe-
cially in Britain, it has a sustained presence.25 The model rests on a funda-
mental preference for the primacy of national democracy. The key
challenge is to ensure that all citizens receive a similar access to quality
services and that national standards are raised and maintained. As such,
local autonomy is opposed and local participation is not highly valued.
The key issue in service delivery is that local agencies of service pro-
vision are subject to central control and direction in order to ensure
that national objectives are achieved and nationally set performance
targets are met. The overarching democratic priority rests with the
superior national parliament and government. It has a responsibility to
use legislation, guidance and controls to ensure that the national will
of the population is successfully imposed. Local agencies have a role
and can provide a valuable service. However, their key task is to
support the achievement of national objectives and standards.
Conclusion
The shift from ‘local government’ to ‘local governance’ has brought

into play new institutions, a range of local appointed governors operat-
ing alongside elected colleagues, and a variety of new practices and
ways of working. Since 1979 a range of reforms have been introduced
that most observers argue have led to profound changes. But what do
the public and those who are in charge of the new system of local gov-
ernance make of it? What are their views about how our local gover-
nance system could be reconstructed for the better? These are the
issues that dominate the remainder of the book.
2
A Multi-Level Survey
Arguments for and against the traditional model of local governance, for
and against the innovations of the 1979–97 Conservative governments
or for and against New Labour’s reforms all raise questions about
identification with locality, the proper purposes and objectives of a
system of local governance, perceptions of the performance of different
institutions and preferred prescriptions for institutional structures.
The test of public opinion
These questions can be investigated in many ways – for example, by

looking for internal contradictions in the logic of theories of local gov-
ernance1 or by empirical studies of how the old and the new systems
worked in practice.2
But they should also be tested against public opinion. Of course the test
of public opinion is only one element of any well-rounded assessment of
alternative models. Margaret Thatcher often took the view that she
should act first and win the support of public opinion afterwards. Public
support for traditional systems may reflect nothing more than a conserv-
ative (with a small ‘c’) reluctance to contemplate change. The public may
come to like a radical new system only after its virtues have been demon-
strated in practice. But, as the public reaction to the Poll Tax showed,
public opposition may also reflect a ‘settled will’ of the people, a genuine
position on the substance of the issue in question. In a democracy we
should at least take note of public opinion about the structure of govern-
ment. Public acceptability lies at the moral heart of democratic legit-
imacy. And in purely practical terms, public acceptability makes a system
much easier to run. Moreover, the public’s collective judgement may be
better than that of a handful of enthusiastic ideologues in a ‘think tank’.3
33
Public opinion is relevant in two ways to the arguments about local

governance that we presented in the previous chapter. First, and most
obviously, the public has its own preferences about the aims, structure
and institutions of local governance, and these may conflict with the
prescriptions of rival theoretical models. Does the public feel, with John
Stuart Mill, that elected local government should contribute to
national democracy by training people in democratic methods or by
dispersing power throughout the land? Does it accord legitimacy to the
decisions of locally elected authorities? And, if so, is that primarily
because these authorities are local, or because they are elected? What
rights should be granted to the minority within a locally elected
authority? What is the public’s attitude to market provision of local
services? Or to user charges? Or to user or provider control of local ser-
vices? How does the public weight the competing claims of local
autonomy and national standards?
But there is a second way in which public opinion is important.
Prescriptive models of local governance are usually based in part on
assumptions about the public’s perceptions and perspectives as much as
on their institutional preferences. Thus, for example, it matters
whether people really are willing to move house just in order to live
under a preferred local service/tax regime as some public choice theor-
ists suggest. And it matters whether they really do feel a strong sense of
local identity as some of the defenders of traditional local government
suggest. It matters whether the public really does regard the traditional
locally elected authorities as representative. Or as corrupt. And it
matters whether the public really does regard the new appointed
boards as more or less representative, more or less corrupt than the
elected councils. Or more efficient than elected councils. There is no
point in designing a system to fit assumed local identities that do not
really exist, nor to meet an assumed public discontent that does not
really exist. In so far as prescriptive models are designed to fit the con-
tours of public perspectives on local governance, it is important to
know what those perspectives are.
Levels of opinion: the general public and rival local

governance elites
But in addition to outlining the views of the general public, we will

contrast their views with the views of those who participate in the
process of local governance at a higher level, the local governance elite.
More than that, we will contrast the views of rival local governance
A Multi-Level Survey 35
elites, the old and the new, the elected and the appointed, local
authority councillors and quango board members.
Both elected councillors and appointed board members are part of
the local governance elite. As such they could be expected to differ
from the general public. They have far more experience of the prob-
lems and processes of local governance than the ordinary citizen. They
should have far more interest in local governance, and far more infor-
mation about it, than the ordinary citizen. We anticipate some evi-
dence of a ‘governing perspective’ among the elites, whether elected or
appointed.
But we also anticipate differences between these elites. They are, at
least potentially, rival elites within the overall structure of local gover-
nance. They owe their place to different processes of selection. And
Jones, Stewart and Regan argue that
election and appointment affect behaviour at the level of the

authority itself. Election creates an active relationship between the
councillor and his locality: appointment on the other hand creates
no such relationship … The elected member may or may not differ
from the appointed member in ability, in experience or in back-
ground. The critical difference lies in the [mere] fact of election.4
In their view, appointed local governance elites should differ significantly

from elected elites simply because their role and their office is different,
irrespective of their personal background or original opinions.
So how do rival local governance elites differ from each other? How
do appointed board members differ from elected councillors on their
commitment to the locality, on their views about the proper objectives
for local governance, and on the best institutional structures and
mechanisms available to achieve those objectives?
It would be surprising if appointed board members did not have an
unusually positive insider’s view of appointed boards. But whether they
have an unusually negative attitude towards elected councils is a more
open question. Appointed board members may see their boards as a supe-
rior replacement for elected councils, the way of the future. That was cer-
tainly how the Thatcherites viewed them. But, on the other hand, board
members may see their boards more as a useful adjunct to elected coun-
cils, useful only in limited areas where there is more need for specialist
technocratic expertise than for democratic representation.
And members of different types of appointed board may also differ
significantly from each other on some issues at least. In particular,
board members may see their own particular kind of board as ‘excep-
tional’, and take a positive view of it, without feeling any wider com-
mitment to the general principle of appointed boards. Indeed they
may be quite critical of other types of appointed boards.
The survey
In 1994–95, towards the end the Conservatives’ radical restructuring of

local governance, we conducted a wide ranging survey of public atti-
tudes. The timing is important. By that time the issues in the move
from local government to local governance were becoming more famil-
iar to the general public. Many aspects of public attitudes towards
questions of local governance were well informed by the mid-1990s
and our survey is likely to provide insight into informed and stable
public attitudes to fundamental questions.
But in one respect, any survey of public attitudes towards local gov-
ernance is likely to reflect attitudes that are changeable, though
changeable in very predictable ways. In the mid-1990s, after almost
two decades of Conservative central government, the public found it
difficult to distinguish clearly between ‘central government’ and the
‘Conservative Party’. As we shall show, this had some important impli-
cations for attitudes towards local autonomy. If New Labour succeeds
in its ambition to win a second (or even a third) term, then ‘central
government’ will once again come to be identified with a particular
party, though with a different one. In that case we hypothesize that
some of the partisan patterns of opinion that emerge so clearly in this
survey will remain the same in character and intensity, but will reverse in
sign.
We looked at four different elements of public opinion: the general
public plus three different kinds of local governance elite. We inter-
viewed 2203 members of the public, 788 elected local councillors and
903 appointed members of local quango boards. The target populations
of the general public and elected councillors presented no conceptual
problems though there were, of course, some practical problems
involved in drawing a sample and persuading selected individuals to
give us an interview.
In the case of local quangos, however, we faced a dilemma caused by
the number and variety of such organizations. 5 We felt it was impor-
tant to avoid a heterogeneous, fragmented and ill-defined sample of
too many non-elected quangos. So we focused on only two: Training
and Enterprise Councils (TECs) and District Health Authorities (DHAs),
both of which operated in England and Wales, together with the
Scottish Local Enterprise Companies (LECs) and Scottish Health Boards

(HBs), which were their near-equivalents in Scotland. TEC/LECs and
DHA/HBs represented the two most extensive, well-defined, visible and
accessible alternatives to local governance by locally elected councils.
Following the 1989/90 reforms TEC/LECs were charged with fostering
local economic development and with assessing and meeting skills and
training requirements within their local areas. DHA/HBs became pur-
chasers of health care services, responsible for assessing health care
needs within their area and meeting these needs by purchasing services
from competing providers such as Hospital Trusts.
These were very important local public services and even before the
1989/90 reforms, the existence of appointed quangos in training and
health was highly controversial. Jones and Stewart, for example,
argued that ‘in the NHS the rationale for the existing appointed
health authorities [DHAs] is feeble. They contribute little to manage-
ment, have no legitimate basis for representation and confuse
accountability.’6 So elected local authorities ‘should be given respon-
sibility for the local government of health, taking over the responsi-
bilities of DHAs’. At the same time they also argued that ‘the training
functions of the Manpower Services Commission [later exercised by
TEC/LECs] should be transferred to local authorities’ and that even
the remaining functions of the MSC should ‘be considered for
transfer to local authorities’. 7
Our focus on only two types of quango was intended to provide
enough interviews with members of each type for us to say something
about opinion within each specific type and thus to contrast board-
room opinion between the two types of quango. We excluded execu-
tive members of quango boards from our survey, since they were
essentially employees, equivalent to civil servants or council officials
rather than elected councillors. Our target population of appointed
quango board members was therefore the non-executive members
appointed to TEC/LEC or DHA/HB boards.
There were few prescriptions regarding the selection of TEC/LEC
board members, though two-thirds of seats had to go to the private
sector. Members had to be chosen, and subsequently had to act, as indi-
viduals, not as representatives of their respective organizations or com-
panies. TEC/LECs were private companies, so responsibility for board
formation was left in the hands of the private sector and remained
largely unstructured. Typically a core private sector group was drawn
from local private sector networks. This dominant core group then
selected individuals from organizations such as local authorities, volun-
tary groups and trade unions to fill the remaining third of seats on the
board. Boards were not required to reflect the composition of local

communities. They were proudly and unashamedly business-centred
and business-oriented.
Non-executive members of DHA/HB boards were expected to bring an
independent view to the work of the board and a broader perspective
than might be available from the executive members but they were
also seen as crucial in the development of a more business-like
approach to running the boards. Each District Health Authority com-
prised a chairman appointed by the Secretary of State, up to five execu-
tive members and five non-executive members appointed by the
Regional Health Authority. The District Health Authority was account-
able to the Regional Health Authority, which in turn was accountable
to the Secretary of State. Non-executive members were required to:
(a) live, work in or have connections with the area encompassed by
their authority; (b) include individuals linked to community
groups; (c) have backgrounds in the business sector, voluntary sector,
community organizations, local authorities or the NHS (but excluding
current employees of the authority).
Scottish Health Boards differed somewhat in composition and struc-
ture from DHAs. They had a maximum of 12 members including the
chairman. The Secretary of State for Scotland appointed the chairman,
and also aimed to appoint six non-executives, on the advice of the
chairman though after consultation with elected local authorities, uni-
versities and professional organizations. These appointments were
strongly criticized, especially in Scotland, where the the Secretary of
State for Scotland and his party had a very weak democratic mandate
based upon only 11 out of 72 Scottish MPs and 22 per cent of the
Scottish vote at the 1992 General Election. The system of appointment
in Scotland has since been modified to meet that criticism, and the
Secretary of State for Scotland now has a less direct role in these
appointments than at the time of our survey. But our survey reflects
the opinions of board members appointed in the first ‘white heat’ of
the Conservatives’ commitment to appointed rather than elected local
governance.
In the event, our strategy of selecting all our appointed board
members from just two kinds of quango did provide large enough
samples – 569 members of TEC/LEC boards and 334 members of
DHA/HB boards – to provide reliable evidence about the views of these
two types of board members. That meant we could compare and con-
trast the views of members appointed to different boards.
Moreover, we worded our questionnaire to ask questions specifically
about these two kinds of quango. So we can reliably contrast the views
of quango board members not just towards elected councils and

appointed boards in general, but also distinguish their views about
their own type of quango (TEC/LEC or DHA/HB) from their views
about the other kind of quango. As we shall see in later chapters, how
board members on these two different types of quango viewed each
other proves almost as interesting and enlightening as the way both
groups of appointed board members viewed elected councils.
Sampling
All interviews were conducted by telephone from Glasgow University.
Over 90 per cent of adults in Britain were accessible by phone at the
time.8 For our sample of the general public we drew a random sample
of listed telephone numbers from BT directories throughout Britain,
and then made a random selection of those present at the selected
number. While that strategy did not give access to the increasing
number of ex-directory numbers, it allowed us to mail advance letters
of introduction to each selected household a few days before phoning
for an interview. People are naturally reluctant to submit to a long and
searching interview without advance warning. 9 We estimate these
letters of introduction reduced the refusal rate by almost a third. The
sample was weighted to bring it into line with the 1991 Census and
1995 Labour Force Survey on age, gender, housing tenure, education,
economic activity and region.
For our sample of councillors we drew a random sample of names
from the 1995 Municipal Yearbook.
There were 82 Training and Enterprise Councils in England and Wales
and 22 Local Enterprise Companies in Scotland. Only one TEC, Sheffield,
failed to provide a list of board members and contact details when we
approached them directly. Since there was evidence of a high turnover of
board members we interviewed some recent past members as well as
those who currently held seats. The 1994 Health Services Yearbook pro-
vided a list of the non-executive board members for all DHA/HBs and we
supplemented this by approaching each board to confirm membership
and get contact details. During the survey, DHAs were undergoing a reor-
ganization which encouraged the merger of DHAs and Family Health
Service Authorities (FHSAs). In addition, there were mergers between
DHAs. This complicated the sampling process. But in the end, 90 author-
ities provided us with the details we requested while only 11 refused,
though several failed to reply by the end of the interviewing period,
mostly because of the upheaval caused by reorganization.
In order to minimize the transient effects of particular events on
public opinion, interviews with the general public were conducted
over an eight-month period from November 1994 to June 1995, and

interviews with TEC/LEC and DHA/HB board members over the six
months from February to July 1995. However, it was impracticable to
attempt contact with councillors prior to the May 1995 local elections,
as most were unavailable due to campaigning. As a result, interviews
with councillors were conducted over a much shorter period than the
other samples: in June and July 1995. The sequence of interviews with
members of each sample was randomized. Thus, whatever the cut-off
point at which we stopped interviewing, those interviewed were an
approximately random subset of our full sampling frame.
The unusual political significance of ‘don’t knows’ and refusals

Patterns of ‘don’t knows’ and refusals in surveys are usually only of
methodological interest. But on this occasion they have some political
significance.
Although our questionnaire routinely included a ‘don’t know’
answer category, respondents were never prompted for this during the
interview. Our intention was to counteract the tendency for survey
respondents to opt out of thinking about challenging questions by
retreating into the ‘don’t know’ category. This is a considerable
problem in postal or other self-completion surveys which inevitably
have to make the ‘don’t know’ option visible. Our design allowed us to
accept genuine ‘don’t knows’ while avoiding this opt-out tendency.
‘Don’t know’ responses were neither discouraged nor encouraged.
As might be expected, this approach produced relatively low levels of
‘don’t know’ responses. The incidence of ‘don’t knows’ was greater
amongst the general public than in the elite samples but, even so,
there were only ten questions where the level of ‘don’t know’
responses exceeded 15 per cent among the general public. Seven of
these ten were questions about TEC/LECs, as were five of the six ques-
tions that exceeded the 15 per cent ‘don’t know’ threshold in the
councillors’ sample and all four that exceeded the threshold in the
DHA/HB members’ sample.
Conversely, the only question which exceeded this threshold in the
TEC/LEC sample was a question about DHA/HBs.
Quango boards therefore had a relatively low profile. They were
relatively invisible, not just to the public at large but also to local
governance elites. And this relatively private governance of public
institutions itself raises questions of democratic accountability.
The overall response rate was 52 per cent in our sample of the
general public. Naturally, it was much higher among elites of all kinds.
But it varied significantly between elites. It ran at 88 per cent in our
sample of councillors, and 91 per cent in our sample of DHA/HB

members, but only 73 per cent among TEC/LEC members – which
seems to confirm the allegation that the business-oriented TEC/LECs
were particularly secretive.
Since we had the business address of each TEC/LEC board member
we could identify with a fair degree of accuracy the sector in which
each member was employed. The response rate varied according to the
sector. Among TEC/LEC board members employed in the public sector
it ran at 88 per cent, and among those TEC/LEC board members who
were themselves elected councillors it reached a truly remarkable
99 per cent. But conversely, among TEC/LEC board members employed
in the private sector it dropped to 69 per cent. So it was specifically
the dominant element of businessmen on TEC/LEC boards that was
so unusually secretive.
Since two-thirds of TEC/LEC board members came from the private
sector this variation in response rates among TEC/LEC members hardly
biased the TEC/LEC sample as a whole, and it is not of any great
methodological importance. But it is of some political significance. It
seems to indicate something about the distinctive culture of the busi-
nessmen (as compared to academics and politicians) who predomi-
nated on the TEC/LECs. And it suggests that the relative invisibility of
TEC/LECs to the public was not entirely the fault of the public.
How to interpret findings based on randomized question wordings

We should say something about our system of interviewing by CATI
(Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing). Each interviewer worked
with a desktop computer. The questionnaire appeared, question by
question, on the computer screen. But many of our questions came
with two or more variants of question wording. And during an inter-
view, the computer would randomly select one form of words to put
up on the screen, silently recording which form of question wording
was used on that occasion, along with the respondent’s answer.
Provided we interpret the answers properly, this can be a revealing
way to ask questions. We can get much nearer to a conversational dia-
logue than in conventional surveys. First we can investigate whether
opinions were lightly held, whether they are easily influenced by ques-
tion wording (especially simple inversions of question wording) or
prone to amendment when challenged by argument.
We also used varied computer-controlled ‘scenarios’ (hypothetical situ-
ations in which the respondent was asked to say what should be done in
particular circumstances) to determine what people really meant by local
citizenship, how exclusive it was, and how it related to national citizen-
ship. Randomly varying question wordings across subsamples in this way

allowed us to pack more questions into a thirty-minute questionnaire
than would otherwise be possible if everyone was asked every question. It
also allowed us to investigate closely related topics while avoiding con-
tamination effects (where answers given to one question affect those
given to a similar but subtly different question).
Useful though it is, our use of the CATI method produces results that
can be confusing if they are wrongly interpreted. Let us take a concrete
example. One question read:
Local councils like the council in [council district] generally take decisions
that [represent / do not represent] the views of local people. Do you agree
or disagree?
In this example, the actual district name was automatically inserted

instead of council district. In addition, a randomly selected half sample
was asked to agree that the local council did represent local views, while
the other half were asked to agree that it did not represent local views.
This is indicated in the text by putting both forms of words in square
brackets, separated by a slash. If there had been three forms of words in
the square brackets, divided by slashes, it would indicate that each
version was put to a randomly selected one-third of respondents. But
no respondent was ever asked to choose between the alternatives laid
out within the brackets. Each respondent was only asked one version
of the question.
If people had no strong views but just tended to be generally agree-
able, we might find that two-thirds would agree to the [represent / do
not represent] proposition no matter which way round it was put. In
fact that did happen when this particular question was put to our
sample of the general public, though not when it was put to our
samples of local governance elites. That indicates that the general
public did not have clear and firm views on this question, but that
local governance elites had more well-defined views on it.
Wherever the percentages agreeing to such directly contradictory
propositions together exceed 100 per cent, it indicates a lack of clearly
formed opinions among the public, not an error in our tabulated per-
centages. Where our findings are based upon agreement with alterna-
tive propositions put to random subsamples rather than on a choice
between alternatives offered to all respondents, we indicate it by means
of an asterisk in our tables as a warning against misinterpretation. And
where this method produces results that indicate only weakly held
views we draw attention to that fact in the text.
Out CATI method of randomly varying question wordings is not

equivalent to the more traditional method of using split-half samples.
In the traditional method there are only two half-samples, A and B,
each with its own questionnaire (though both questionnaires may
share a common core of questions). In consequence when a question Q
occurs in two versions, one is assigned to questionnaire A, the other to
questionnaire B. However, version A of question Q occurs in the
context of questionnaire A, which differs in many respects from the
context of questionnaire B, and the context may affect the answers. In
our CATI method, however, versions A and B of question Q are
assigned randomly to interviews, irrespective of how different versions
of other questions are assigned. Thus versions A and B of question Q
occur in the context of interviews which, on average, do not differ at
all from each other. The wording of other questions certainly varies a
great deal among all the interviews that include version A of question
Q, but it varies in the same way among all the interviews that include
version B of question Q.
The significance of this somewhat complex point is that we can
attribute the difference between answers to versions A and B of ques-
tion Q entirely to the difference in the wording of versions A and B of
question Q itself. In the more traditional method of split-half samples,
the difference in answers to versions A and B of question Q may not be
caused by the difference in wording of this question itself so much as
by the different context in which it was asked. Thus the validity of
comparisons between answers to versions A and B of question Q is
much greater in our CATI method than in traditional split sample
surveys.
Finally, although this text makes frequent use of the terms ‘district’
and ‘region’ even in descriptions of question wording, these terms
seldom occurred in that form in the CATI interviews. At the start of
each interview we asked ‘which part of Britain do you live in?’ and
offered ten options: ‘Scotland, Wales, London, the South East (of
England excluding London), South West (of England), the Midlands,
East Anglia, the North East (of England), the North West (of England),
and Yorkshire/Humberside.’ Thereafter the computer automatically
replaced the word ‘region’ where appropriate with the actual region
indicated by the respondent at the start. Next we asked: ‘What is the
name of your local council, that is your district or borough council?’
And thereafter the computer automatically replaced the word ‘district’
where appropriate with the actual district name that the respondent
had given at the start. Only those very few respondents who did not
know the region or district where they lived were asked about ‘your
region’ or ‘your district’ rather than these specific named regions or

districts.
Apart from anything else, this approach avoided the problem of irri-
tating Scottish and Welsh respondents by repeatedly describing
Scotland and Wales as ‘regions’. For them, our questions about regions
simply asked about ‘Scotland’ or about ‘Wales’. But perhaps more
significantly it meant that our questions focused each respondent’s
mind onto their own specific district or region, not onto some vague
notion of districts and regions. The distinction is important. Americans
reputedly trust their senator but distrust the Senate. Newspaper readers,
in the many countries where we have posed the question, tell us that
they trust the daily newspaper that they buy much more than they
trust ‘the press’ in general. So it is important to bear in mind that
when we asked in this survey whether respondents thought local coun-
cils ‘represent the views of local people’, or ‘are generally more or less
corrupt than private businesses’, our CATI system focused their minds
onto ‘Harrogate’, ‘Milton Keynes’, ‘Newbury’, ‘Oxford’, ‘St Albans’ or
wherever they lived rather than onto some unspecified district council.
And when we asked how strongly respondents ‘felt a sense of belong-
ing’ to their district or region, our CATI system posed the question in
terms of ‘Harrogate’ or ‘Yorkshire/Humberside’ rather than some
unspecified district or region. Images and identifications in particular
were keyed to actual councils and actual places. These are, we believe,
the images and identifications that matter most for a study of the prin-
ciples of local governance. An image of the ‘London loony left’
(whether well-founded or not) might once have had an impact on
party choice in elections far beyond London, and in national elections
as well as in local elections. But this is not a study of electoral behav-
iour and it is the public’s current image of their own local council that
is more relevant to theories of local governance.
3
The Limits of Local Identity
Alternative models of local governance make different assumptions
about whether the relationship between citizens and their locality is
affective, instrumental or irrelevant. Were people emotionally committed
to their locality and willing to contribute to it, or did they expect
benefits from it, or did they think in purely individualistic and/or
national terms and therefore not in terms of locality at all? In this
chapter we examine the evidence on public commitment to localities,
especially to the localities defined by the structure of elected local gov-
ernance, though we also look at the degree of public commitment to
wider regions.
Conflicting assumptions about the significance of locality underpin
alternative theories of local governance. Even if people are not strongly
rooted in their localities they may still need local services, but their
attitude to those services will either be that of individual consumers or
of citizens of the (national) state. Their attitude will not be that of
members of a local community and the concept of local citizenship
will be empty or irrelevant. Clarke and Stewart argue, however, that
‘the primary role’ of local authorities is ‘local government and not
local administration [and] that role must have its basis in citizenship’.1
And in their view, ‘the structure of local government should be based,
not on the alleged efficiencies of administration, but on the perceived
and felt community of place [our emphasis].’2
There are some reasons why psychological commitment to localities
should be strong compared to other commitments. Locality structures
personal experience and face-to-face contacts. To those who live in the
Jesmond ward of Newcastle upon Tyne, Jesmond – and perhaps
Newcastle – is a daily reality while Europe is an abstraction.
45
But there are also very good reasons why psychological commit-
ments to localities should be weak compared to other commitments.
The smaller the locality the more likely people are to leave it, either
temporarily or permanently. Most residents of Jesmond probably leave
that neighbourhood every week to work, to go shopping, to visit
friends or to go to the cinema. They are likely to leave Newcastle some-
what less frequently, though the huge Metro Centre shopping and
entertainment complex lies outside Newcastle, just across the Tyne, in
Gateshead. Conversely, many residents of Newcastle would have lived
outside Newcastle at some time in their lives. By contrast, relatively
few would have lived for long outside Britain, and few would have
moved from one religious faith to another. So a local community – as
defined by local government boundaries – is likely to be less stable, as
well as being less bounded, than the national community or a religious
community.
Moreover, British local authority boundaries have been revised quite
frequently in recent decades, with major reforms in London during the
1960s, throughout the rest of the country in the 1970s, in metropoli-
tan England in the 1980s and throughout the rest of the country again
in the 1990s.3 So even if people stayed rooted to one place, local
government boundaries would frequently have shifted past them.
Objective links to locality
For analytic purposes, we divided Britain into ten regions: Scotland,

Wales, London, the South East, South West, North East and North
West of England, the Midlands, East Anglia and Yorkshire/Humberside.
In our survey, 92 per cent of the public said they had been born in
Britain, but only 67 per cent had been born in the region where they
now lived and only 36 per cent in the local council district where they
now lived.
On the other hand, 80 per cent had lived for more than 20 years
in their region and 60 per cent had lived that long in their district;
47 per cent said all their relatives lived in the region though only
19 per cent said all their relatives lived in their district; and 59 per
cent said all their friends lived in the region though only 34 per cent
said all their friends lived in their district. Thus objective links to the
region were 31 per cent stronger than links to the district when mea-
sured in terms of birthplace, 28 per cent stronger when measured in
terms of relatives, and 25 per cent stronger when measured in terms
of friends. For a large majority of the public, the local council
The Limits of Local Identity 47
Table 3.1 Objective links to locality
% %
Born in Britain 92
Born in region 67 Born in district? 36
Lived in region for Lived in district for

20 years or more 80 20 years or more 60
Relatives in region Relatives in district

none 11 none 27
under half 23 under half 36
over half 19 over half 17
all 47 all 19
Friends in region: Friends in district:
none 2 none 5
under half 12 under half 29
over half 27 over half 32
all 59 all 34
All shopping and All shopping and leisure
leisure within region 82 within district 50
Workplace located:
within district 38
outside district 27
both 3
no job 31
Note : For simplicity, throughout this book we have routinely excluded ‘don’t know’
answers before calculating percentages. Thus, for example,the figure of 82 per cent (of
those who answered the question) saying that they restrict all their shopping and leisure
to within the region implies that 18 per cent (of those who answered the question) said
they did not restrict such activities to within the region. Very occasionally the number of
‘don’t know / can’t say’ is sufficiently large to merit comment as a significant finding in
itself.
district was simply too small to mark the boundary of their connec-
tions to family and friends.
Work, leisure and shopping were somewhat more local than family
and friends: half the people in our survey did not make regular use of
shopping or leisure facilities outside the district. And, among those
who had a job, almost three-fifths worked within their local council
district. Many had no job of course. So at most, less than a third of the
public had jobs outside their local district.
Table 3.2 Objective links to locality strengthen over time
Number of years lived in the local council district
0–4 5–9 10–19 20–29 30–39 40–49 50+

% % % % % % %
All friends in region 42 47 50 65 65 66 68
All friends in district 11 18 24 40 41 43 51
Work in district 47 42 59 56 63 69 80
(% of those in work)
All shopping/leisure 39 46 53 45 49 51 62
within district
Born in region 45 50 57 64 80 83 85
Born in district 10 8 14 30 49 62 71
All relatives in region 30 34 41 49 57 54 58
All relatives in district 4 6 7 21 30 31 33
The longer people had lived in the locality the more roots they had put
down there. Or perhaps it was the extent of their local connections that
tied them to the locality. Either way, length of residence in the locality
proved to be a key variable. If we divide people into seven categories
according to their length of residence in the local council district, the per
centage with all their friends living in the district rose steadily from
11 per cent to 51 per cent as length of residence increased (and the per-
centage with all their friends living in the region rose from 42 per cent to
68 per cent). People seemed to acquire local friends as time passed. In
addition, the percentage whose job lay within their local district rose
from 47 per cent to 80 per cent as their length of residence increased.
Similarly, the percentages having all their relatives in the region or
district also rose steadily with the number of years spent living in the
locality. The percentage with all their relatives in the district rose
steadily from 4 per cent to 33 per cent and the percentage with all
their relatives in the region from 30 per cent to 58 per cent. Only the
use of shopping and leisure facilities failed to conform so clearly to this
pattern of increasingly local orientations as time spent in the locality
increased.
What kinds of people were the most locally oriented? A good indica-
tor is the percentage who had lived for over 20 years in the district. As
we have seen, the longer people had lived in an area, the more roots
they had there. So what affected long-term residence?
Figure 3.1 Objective links to locality.
70
60
All shopping/leisure in district
50
40
Per cent
30
20
All friends in district All relatives in district
10
0
0–4 yrs 5–9 yrs 10–19 yrs 20–29 yrs 30–39 yrs 40–49 yrs 50+ yrs
Years lived in district
Table 3.3 Social bias in objective links to locality
Lived in district Lived in region

for 20 years for 20 years
% %
Under 35 yrs old 42 67

35–54 yrs old 58 82
55 and over 76 88
Middle-class self-image 50 73
Working-class self-image 67 84
Self-employed 56 79
Management 52 77
Professional 57 77
Non-manual worker 60 82
Manual worker 76 89
Renting privately 43 58
House owner 59 81
Renting from the council 79 88
No school certificates 74 89
School certificates but no degree 56 79
University degree 39 63
Obviously age itself made a difference. The old (over 55 years) were
34 per cent more likely than the young (18–35 years) to have lived in
the local district for over 20 years. Other social patterns were less
obvious. The self-described ‘working class’ were 17 per cent more likely
than the self-described ‘middle class’ to be long-term residents.
Compared to people with managerial jobs, manual workers were 24 per
cent more likely to be long-term residents. Council tenants were the
most likely to be long-term residents and those in the private rented
sector the least. More striking still, compared to those with university
degrees, people without educational qualifications were 35 per cent
more likely to be long-term residents of the district, and 26 per cent
more likely to be long-term residents of the region. So there was a
strong class and educational bias, as well as the obvious age bias, in
patterns of long-term local residence.
In addition, there were regional biases. Judged by long-term resi-
dence in the region, those in Scotland were the most likely to be long-
term residents, closely followed by people in the north of England.
Conversely people in London and the South West (but not the South
East) of England were the least likely to be long-term residents. But
judged by a still more local criterion, long-term residence in the local
council district, people in all the northern regions of England and in
Wales were more likely to be long-term residents than those in
Scotland though, once again, the people of London and the South
West of England were the least. Scottish residents tended to move
around within Scotland and, indeed, beyond it, but relatively few came
into Scotland from outside.
Table 3.4 Regional bias in objective links to locality
Lived in district Lived in region

for 20 years for 20 years
% %
NE England 73 88
NW England 69 85
Yorkshire/Humberside 69 84
Wales 68 83
Scotland 61 90
Midlands 59 78
East Anglia 57 79
SE England 55 80
SW England 52 64
London 40 66
Note: Sorted by percentage of long-term residents in local district.
Subjective links to locality
Local interest and awareness

We asked respondents to rate their interest in various issues by giving a
‘mark out of ten’ for their degree of interest, drawing attention to a
mark of ‘five out of ten’ as the dividing point between being ‘very
interested’ and ‘not very interested’. For analytical purposes we sub-
tract five from the score, so that the dividing point becomes zero, and
the scale runs from minus five (extremely uninterested) up to plus five
(extremely interested). Using this scale we can compare public interest
in:
• ‘national issues and what parliament and government does about

them’;
• ‘local issues and what your local council does about them’;
• ‘European issues and what the European Community does about
them’.
On average the public rated their interest in local and national issues
about the same – at close to +2 on the ±5 point scale. But they rated their
interest in European issues at close to the mid-point, zero. By that stan-
dard, people were as interested in local as in national affairs, and far more
interested in local than European affairs. Three-fifths also claimed that, in
local elections, they voted more on local issues than on national issues.
On the other hand, twice as many admitted they had not voted in the
last local elections as in the last parliamentary General Election.4
Table 3.5 Interest in local issues
Mean score
on ± 5 point scale
National issues and what parliament and govt do 2.0

Local issues and what local council does 1.9
European issues and what European Community does 0.4
%
In local elections, vote on:
national issues 34
local issues 57
Claimed they voted in the last parliamentary election 87
Claimed they voted in the last local elections 74
Almost half read a local evening paper regularly and four-fifths

claimed to follow local news on radio or television regularly. Only a
minority, but in absolute terms a very substantial minority of 24 per
cent, claimed to have attended a public meeting on a local issue
‘within the last few years’ and 33 per cent said they had attended a
parents’ meeting at a local school.
The extent of their knowledge about local governance was limited,
however. Fully 92 per cent knew the name of their local district
council, but only 26 per cent knew even approximately how much of
its revenue came from the local council tax. We offered a choice of
‘around a quarter or less, around a half, or around three-quarters or
more’. (The correct answer at the time was ‘a quarter or less’.) We used
our CATI system to permute the order of the options in this question
but it had little effect on the answers. Most of the public thought their
local council tax was more significant than in fact it was.
As a further check on the extent of public information we asked
people to tell us whether various local services were ‘controlled mainly
by your local council; mainly by private companies; or mainly by com-
mittees appointed by government?’ Correctly, very few thought local
Table 3.6 Local information
Regularly follow local news on radio or TV 78

Regularly read local weekly paper 70
Regularly read local evening paper 44
Attended parents’ meeting at school in last few years 33
Attended public meeting on local issue in last few years 24
Know district name 92
Know council tax funds only quarter of LG spending 26
Attribute control of the following services mainly to local council:
schools 78
policing 68
refuse collection 63
help for local businesses 48
water and sewage 37
hospitals 31
unemployment benefits 29
electricity 9
Note: Entries for perceived control of services sorted in descending order.
councils controlled electricity. And a majority thought that local coun-

cils controlled schools, refuse collection and the police – for which
there was some, though not complete, justification. But between a
quarter and a third incorrectly held their local councils responsible for
hospitals, water and sewage, and unemployment benefits. And of those
who expressed a view, almost half held their local councils responsible
for help to local businesses – though on this point an unusually high
percentage (30 per cent) of the public spontaneously declared that they
simply did not know who was responsible. Although local authorities
have had some economic development powers since the late 1980s, a
‘general competence’ for local affairs has never been part of the British
system of local governance. Our evidence suggests a specific and con-
scious lack of knowledge about responsibilities for local economic
development. But more broadly it suggests a consistent tendency for
the public to attribute greater responsibilities to elected councils than
they actually possessed – a tendency, far from complete but visible
nonetheless, towards holding elected councils ‘generally accountable’
for services within the locality.
Once again, long-term residence in the district proved a key explana-
tory variable. Dividing people into seven categories by length of residence
in the district showed that reading a local evening paper rose steadily
from 37 per cent to 49 per cent as length of residence increased.
Following local news on radio and television rose from 71 per cent to
84 per cent. Knowledge of the district council name rose from 80 per cent
to 96 per cent. And reported (albeit over-reported) voting in local elec-
tions rose from 56 per cent to 84 per cent. Most striking of all, the ratio of
claimed voting on local rather than national issues in local elections rose
from approximately 1 : 1 up to 3 : 1 as length of residence increased, from
an equal stress on local and national issues to three times as much stress
on local as on national issues.
Multiple identities
In his discussion of Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, Hobsbawm
argued that ‘the modern nation, either as a state or as a body of people
aspiring to form such a state, differs in size, scale and nature from the
actual communities with which human beings have identified over
most of history.’5 For a comparative measure of the degree of
identification with different scales of community we asked people
about identifications with a dozen different reference groups or areas.
Hobsbawm himself contrasted spatial identifications with ‘supra-local
forms of popular identification’ such as Catholicism. We did the same.
Table 3.7 Local knowledge strengthens over time
Number of years lived in the local council district
0–4 5–9 10–19 20–29 30–39 40–49 50+

% % % % % % %
Regularly follow local 71 77 71 75 81 86 84
news on radio or TV
Regularly read local 58 68 70 75 69 75 71
weekly paper
Regularly read local 37 39 41 45 49 43 49
evening paper
Know district council 80 90 92 92 94 96 96
name
Claimed they voted in 56 68 69 76 79 80 84
the last local elections
Local voting choice 46 43 33 39 31 29 23
influenced mainly by
national issues
Local voting choice 44 49 59 52 62 63 68
influenced mainly by
local issues
But we asked in particular about identification with a range of seven

spatial entities:
• Europe;
• Britain;
• the region where the respondent lived;
• their local (council) district;
• the neighbourhood where they lived;
• the neighbourhood where they worked (which we shall call the
‘workplace’ to distinguish it from the ‘neighbourhood’ of residence);
• the place where they were born.
We asked respondents to rate ‘how strongly you feel a sense of

belonging’ to these areas using a ‘mark out of ten’ in each case. We
focused attention on ‘five out of ten’ as the dividing point between a
‘weak’ and a ‘strong’ sense of belonging, and for analytic purposes
we have subtracted five from these ‘marks out of ten’ scores. Zero
then becomes the dividing point. Negative scores indicate weak
identifications and positive scores strong identifications. The scale

ranges from plus five to minus five.
Following Hobsbawm we also asked respondents to rate, ‘on the
same scale’, their sense of belonging to:
• ‘a class such as the working class or the middle class’;
• ‘your circle of friends’;
• ‘your family’;
• ‘a religion of any kind’;
• ‘a political party of any kind’.
Identification with family came top with an average score of almost

4 (against a maximum of 5). The respondent’s ‘circle of friends’ scored
close to 3. Class scored a dismal 1.0, and both party and religion got
slightly negative scores. That merely calibrates our scale. Our principal
concern was: where did the various spatial referents fit on this scale?
Identification with Britain came top. It was followed, in order, by
identification with the region, the home neighbourhood, the district,
the birthplace and, finally, the workplace of the respondent. At 3.0,
identification with Britain scored slightly higher than identification
with friends, though substantially lower than with family. Region
came close behind at 2.7. The district, at 2.0, was some way behind
Table 3.8 Identification: a sense of belonging
Mean score on
± 5 point scale
Strength of feeling of belonging to:

family 3.9
Britain 3.0
circle of friends 2.8
region 2.7
home neighbourhood 2.3
district 2.0
birthplace 1.8
a social class 1.0
work neighbourhood 0.5
Europe –0.1
a religion –0.2
a political party –0.4
Note: All scores measured on a scale from minus 5 to plus 5.
Britain but slightly ahead of birthplace at 1.8. Workplace was far

behind that, at 0.4. And Europe came close to zero.
So, contrary to Hobsbawm’s speculation, our findings suggest that
identification with smaller areas was not consistently stronger than
with larger areas. Indeed, identification increased as the area widened
within the British state, though it collapsed as the area was extended
beyond Britain to include Europe. Yet we should not swing too far to
the opposite extreme. Although the strength of local identification did
not exceed the level and intensity of national identification, regional
identification rivalled national identification very closely. And
identification with neighbourhood and district was also moderately
strong – less strong than national identification, but certainly stronger
than class, religious or party-political identification.
Moreover, identifications with wider or narrower geographic areas
were not mutually exclusive. Indeed the correlations between
identifications with all of the seven geographic areas mentioned in our
questions were positive without exception, though some were strong
and others very weak. There was a particularly strong set of positive
correlations between the various subnational identifications – between
regional, district and neighbourhood identifications. There were partic-
ularly weak, almost negligible, correlations between subnational
identifications and a supra-national identification with Europe.
But there was a moderately positive correlation of 0.21 between
identifications with Britain and Europe, and a stronger positive correla-
tion of around 0.30 between identification with Britain and the locali-
ties – region, district and neighbourhood – within Britain. We did not
force people to make unwelcome and unnatural choices between these
Table 3.9 Correlations between identifications (¥100)
Identification Europe Britain Region District Neighbourhood Work- Birth-

with: place place
Europe 100
Britain 21 100
Region 7 31 100
District 7 26 64 100
Neighbourhood 4 30 52 64 100
Workplace 5 19 33 36 45 100
Birthplace 4 15 28 28 26 23 100
Family 5 22 26 20 18 16 23
Friends 10 14 27 21 24 17 17
different breadths of space, and many clearly did not choose to do so

voluntarily.
A factor analysis of all 12 identifications produced three factors. The
first, which was centred on identification with the district, grouped
together identifications with the district, the neighbourhood, the
region and the workplace, and could be described as a localism factor.
The second, which centred on identification with the family, grouped
together identifications with family, friends and, much more loosely,
class. It might be interpreted as a personal relationships factor. The third,
which centred on identification with Europe, grouped together
identifications with Europe, political parties and religion, and could be
viewed as a supra-local factor.
Only two of the original 12 identifications could not be classified
unambiguously under one or other of these factor groupings.
Identification with birthplace was almost as strongly (or as weakly!)
linked to the localism as to the personal relationships factor. And
identification with Britain was weakly linked to the localism factor
though more strongly to the supra-local factor.
Table 3.10 Local connections and local identities
Identification Identification Identification

with region with district with Britain
mean score mean score mean score
Lived in region
(district) for:
50 years or more 3.7 (3.7) 2.9 (3.4) 3.5 (3.5)
40–49 years 3.3 (3.5) 2.6 (3.1) 3.0 (3.3)
30–39 years 2.8 (3.1) 2.1 (2.6) 2.5 (3.0)
20–29 years 2.4 (2.6) 1.5 (1.7) 2.7 (2.9)
10–19 years 1.7 (2.3) 1.1 (1.5) 3.0 (2.8)
5–9 years 1.2 (2.0) 0.4 (1.0) 2.7 (2.8)
0–4 years –0.1 (1.5) –0.3 (0.1) 2.6 (2.5)
Lived for 20
years or more:
in district 3.1 2.6 3.1
in region but not 2.9 1.4 2.6
in district
neither 1.2 0.6 2.8
under 35 yrs old 2.2 1.2 2.2
35–54 yrs old 2.7 2.0 2.9
55 and over 3.2 2.6 3.6
Figure 3.2 Strength of local identities.
4
Mean scores on ± 5 point scale
3.5
3
With Britain
2.5
2
With region
1.5
1
With district
0.5
0
0–4 yrs 5–9 yrs 10–19 yrs 20–29yrs 30–39 yrs 40–49 yrs 50+ yrs
Years lived in district
Who identified most with the locality? It was useful to contrast the
patterns of identification with state, region and district. The old
identified more strongly than the young with all three. Partly as a result
of that, those who had lived longer in the region or district also
identified more with Britain as well as with the region or district itself,
though only a little more. Suppose we contrast those who had lived in
the district for under five years (‘recent arrivals’) with those who had
lived in it for over 50 years (‘very long-term residents’). ‘Very long-term
residents’ differed from the ‘recent arrivals’ by 3.3 points (on the
±5 point scale) in terms of identification with their district, but by only
2.2 points in terms of identification with their region, and by only
1.0 points in terms of identification with Britain. The effect was not
limited to the newest arrivals nor to the longest residents. Figure 3.2
shows that the length of residence in a particular locality generally had
its most powerful influence upon identification with that very particular
locality, with the district rather than with the region or with Britain.
Analysis of the data from two Local Government Commissions in
the early 1990s found a similar pattern of attachments. The researchers
found that length of residence in a particular local area was the pre-
dominant factor in driving attachment not only at that level, but at
higher levels also. They speculated that what they might be measuring
was a sense of ‘being settled’.6
Multiple regression analysis confirmed that age itself had no influence
upon identification with region or district once the length of local resi-
dence had been taken into account. We used stepwise multiple regres-
sion to predict the strength of identification with five areas – Britain, the
region, the district, the neighbourhood and the workplace. As predictors
we took age in years, plus 13 measures of objective local connections:
whether people were born in Britain, in the region or in the district; the
number of years lived in the region and district; the proportions of rela-
tives and friends who lived in the region and district (on four-point
scales); whether the respondent’s workplace was outside the district; and
whether they paid regular attention to local evening papers, local weekly
papers or local evening news on radio and television.
Six of these had no impact, once other influences were taken into
account: attention to local news media, the proportion of relatives in
the locality and whether people had been born in the district. Only age
and being born in Britain – and age more than British birth – affected
the strength of identification with Britain. Indeed, since so many had
been born in Britain (92 per cent), birthplace could hardly explain
much of the variation between people in the strength of their
identification with Britain or anything else. But identification with
Britain increased sharply with age.
Being born in the region, having a high proportion of friends in the
region and being a long-term resident in the region all increased the
strength of identification with the region. But by far the strongest of these
influences was simply long-term residence in the region.
Having a high proportion of friends in the district and being a long-
term resident in the district (or even in the region) increased the
strength of identification with the district. But the strongest of these
influences was long-term residence in the district itself, even when
long-term residence in the region was taken into account.
Age, having a high proportion of friends in the district and being a
long-term resident in the district all contributed towards the strength
of identification with the neighbourhood. Although age itself had no effect
upon identification with either the region or the district, it had as
much effect as long-term residence on identification with the neigh-
bourhood. Older people had a noticeably stronger identification with
the very limited space of their very local neighbourhood.
Finally, our multiple regression analysis suggested that identification
with the workplace was highly dependent upon the location of the
workplace and, in fact, derivative from identification with the place of

residence. Identification with the workplace was influenced both by
long-term residence in the region and by its precise location. But by far
the strongest influence on identification with the workplace was its
location within the district of residence: people identified with their
workplace if it was close to where they lived and therefore if they
already identified with that same place for other reasons. It was
significant that the location of the workplace, inside or outside the dis-
trict of residence, had a very strong influence upon identification with
the workplace, but no influence upon identification with the place of
residence – clear evidence that it was residence, not workplace, that
determined local identification.
The self-described working class were more likely to identify
strongly with the region and the district while the self-described
middle class were slightly more likely to identify strongly with
Britain. Those who rented their house from a private landlord were
much less likely than council tenants to identify strongly with the
region (by a 1.3 point margin) and very much less likely to identify
strongly with the district (by a 2.0 point margin) – although they
were only slightly less likely to identify strongly with Britain (by a
0.6 point margin). And compared to university graduates, the educa-
tionally unqualified identified much more strongly with the region
(by a 1.5 point margin) and with the district (by a 1.6 point margin)
but only a little more strongly with Britain (by a 0.6 point margin).
Both education, and the mobility implied by renting from the
private housing sector, encouraged a more cosmopolitan and less
parochial perspective but more in terms of eroding localism than in
terms of eroding state nationalism.
Adherents of the Church of England identified especially strongly
with Britain (mean score 3.5), while adherents of the Church of
Scotland identified especially strongly with their region, Scotland
(mean score 3.7 – though that was lower than for the Scottish sample
as a whole: within Scotland, Church of Scotland adherents actually
identified a little less than others with Scotland, and a little more with
Britain). The irreligious identified relatively weakly with the district
(mean score 1.3), region (mean score 2.2) or Britain (mean score 2.3).
But perhaps just as significant as the social and political factors that
influenced local identifications were the social factors that did not.
Gender had no detectable influence: women were scarcely any more
parochially oriented than men. Those who lived in rural areas were
scarcely any more parochially oriented than those who lived in big
Table 3.11 Social patterns of local identity
Identification Identification Identification

with region with district with Britain
Middle-class ID 2.4 1.7 3.1
Working-class ID 3.0 2.3 2.9
Self-employed 2.7 1.7 3.0
Management 2.5 1.9 3.2
Professional 2.5 1.8 3.0
Non-manual 2.8 2.1 2.9
Manual 3.2 2.5 3.0
Own house 2.7 2.0 3.0
Private rent 1.9 0.7 2.3
Council rent 3.2 2.7 2.9
No school certificates 3.3 2.6 3.2
No degree 2.6 1.9 2.9
University degree 1.8 1.0 2.6
towns and cities. Those who worked for local government (except for
school teachers), or had family or friends employed by local govern-
ment, did not identify with the district any more strongly than others.
The strength of local identification hardly differed between those
who felt they ‘knew enough’ to use their local election votes wisely or
to assess whether the local council was taking the right decisions and
those who did not. Nor between those who made much use of local
government services and those who did not. Nor between those who
felt their region or district was relatively well or badly off. Nor between
those who lived in politically competitive and politically ‘safe’ districts.
Nor between those who placed themselves at different points on the
left/right ideological spectrum (except for those on the extreme left).
Nor between those with Conservative, Labour or Liberal voting prefer-
ences – though, unsurprisingly, Scottish and Welsh nationalists were
more locally oriented.
Those who lived in districts that were nearly always controlled by
Labour councils tended to identify more with the locality and less with
Britain than those who lived in normally Conservative districts,
however. Within both parties’ citadels, individual Conservative voters
identified with Britain much more strongly than individual Labour
voters. But individual Conservative voters were only more likely than
individual Labour voters to identify strongly with their district if they
lived in a local Conservative stronghold. And conversely, individual
Labour voters were especially likely to identify much less than Con-
servative voters with their district if they lived in a local Conservative
stronghold.
Those who had considered moving to another district with better
local services or lower local taxes but had not actually done so – and
who therefore still lived in a district they had considered leaving – had
a particularly weak identification with that district.
The pattern of spatial identifications varied dramatically across the
different regions of Britain. Identification with the district ranged only
between 2.1 and 2.4 across all the northern regions of England, the
Midlands, Wales and Scotland. But it sank lower in southern England
and dropped to a mere 1.2 in London. Similarly, identification with
Britain ranged only between 3.1 and 3.5 across the whole of England
except for London where it dropped to 2.6. But it dropped to 2.0 in
Wales and to a dismal 1.4 in Scotland. Conversely identification with
the region peaked at 3.9 in Scotland (where, of course, the word ‘region’
in our question was replaced by ‘Scotland’). But it was also high
throughout northern England and Wales where it ranged only between
3.1 and 3.4. By contrast, it was low throughout the Midlands and the
south, including London, where it ranged between 1.9 and 2.3.
Table 3.12 Local identity and political incompatibility
Identification with Identification Identification

region with district with Britain
District always Cons: 2.3 1.7 3.2

and Cons pref. 2.7 2.3 3.8
and Lab pref. 2.1 1.4 3.0
District always Lab: 3.2 2.3 2.8
and Cons pref. 3.4 2.7 3.6
and Lab pref. 3.1 2.5 2.7
Geographic exit
done 3.1 2.2 2.9
considered 2.5 1.0 2.6
not even considered 2.7 2.1 3.0
Thus an overall tendency for identification to be strongest with

Britain and weakest with the district applied throughout the Midlands
and south of England including London. But this simple pattern did
not extend to the north of England, Wales or Scotland. Across the
whole of the north of England, including Yorkshire/Humberside,
identification with the region rivalled that with Britain, though
identification with the district remained weaker. In Wales, and more
strikingly in Scotland, there was a third pattern: identification with the
‘region’ (‘Wales’ or ‘Scotland’ in this case) was strongest, identification
with Britain was weakest and identification with the district was inter-
mediate.
Several recent surveys have shown that a majority in Scotland
choose to identify with Scotland rather than Britain when asked to
choose between them.7 That could be the result of either an unusually
strong identification with the ‘region’ (‘Scotland’), or an unusually
weak identification with Britain. Our survey suggests that it was the
result of both. But in Wales, by contrast, identification with the
‘region’ (‘Wales’) was no stronger than in the north of England,
though identification with Britain was weaker.
Despite the SNP’s attempt to link Scottish and European
identifications together by articulating the slogan ‘Scotland in Europe’
– implying that Scotland should cut free from Britain but draw closer
to the rest of Europe rather than adopt a policy of national isolation –
Table 3.13 Regional patterns of local identity
Identification Identification Identification Identification

with region with district with Britain with Europe
mean score mean score mean score mean score
Scotland 3.9 2.3 1.4 –0.2

NW England 3.4 2.4 3.3 –0.3
Yorkshire/
Humberside 3.3 2.2 3.5 –0.1
Wales 3.2 2.3 2.0 –0.3
NE England 3.1 2.3 3.1 –0.3
Midlands 2.3 2.1 3.3 0.1
SW England 2.3 1.8 3.2 0.1
SE England 2.2 1.7 3.3 –0.2
East Anglia 2.0 1.5 3.3 –0.2
London 1.9 1.2 2.6 0.5
Note: Sorted by strength of identification with the region.
Figure 3.3 Regional patterns of identities.
4.5
4
With region
Mean scores on ± 5 point scale
3.5
3 With Britain
2.5
2
With district
1.5
1
0.5
0
–0.5 With Europe
–1
ia
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gl
gl
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gl
gl
nd
um
En
En
En
En
An
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nd
la
la
W
/H
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Lo
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SW
id
SE
Sc
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N
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Yo
identification with Europe was no higher in Scotland than elsewhere.

In our survey, it was those who lived in London that had the most
European identities – driven as much we suspect by cosmopolitanism
as by anti-British nationalism, though we also found identification
with Britain to be weaker in London than in any area apart from
Scotland and Wales.
Within every region, identification with Britain correlated positively
with regional identification. The correlation was much weaker in
Scotland than anywhere else. Nonetheless, even within Scotland, the
strength of identification with Scotland correlated weakly but still pos-
itively with both British and European identification. So our evidence
does not support the romantic notion that strong Scottish identifiers
might be either peculiarly pro-European or anti-British.8 However, less
dramatically, it does reveal the lack of a strong correlation between
‘regional’ and British identities within Scotland.
Pride, responsibility and exclusion
Using randomly selected split-half samples, we asked whether people felt

proud or ashamed when they heard of something good or bad that had
Table 3.14 Local pride and responsibility
% % %
Pride/shame *Pride *Shame
*Feel [pride / shame] when something
[good / bad] was done by people:
from district 60 70 50
from region 55 67 43
from rest of Britain 49 59 38
%
More responsibility
*District people have more

responsibility for welfare of others
in district (than for those who live
in the rest of the region) 61
*Region people have more responsibility
for welfare of others in region (than for
those who live in the rest of Britain) 47
Note:* These two versions of the questions were put to randomly selected split-half
samples. Figures are the percentages who answered with an unqualified ‘yes’.
been done by someone from their district, from their region or from the
rest of Britain. Half were asked about pride when hearing about ‘some-
thing good’, half about shame when hearing about ‘something bad’ –
which avoided any pressure to take equal responsibility for the ‘good’
and the ‘bad’. The public was always about 10 per cent more willing to
feel pride in others’ achievements than to feel shame for their misdeeds.
But what was most significant in this context was that the public was
most inclined to feel either pride or shame when hearing about someone
from the district, and least inclined to feel these emotions when hearing
about people from outside the region. Emotional involvement seemed to
increase as the scale of the locality decreased.
People felt a special responsibility for their local areas and that sense
of responsibility clearly strengthened as the area diminished. Only
47 per cent agreed that people who lived in their region had more
responsibility for the welfare of others in that region than for the welfare
of others in Britain as a whole. But 61 per cent agreed that people who
lived in their district had more responsibility for the welfare of others in
that district than for the welfare of others in their region as a whole.
Thus, although identification with Britain was generally stronger

than identification with the region or district, responsibility for
welfare, like pride and shame, seemed to increase as the scale of the
locality decreased.
Despite that, pride and responsibility correlated with local
identification quite markedly. Feelings of pride (or shame) about
people from their own district correlated at 0.24 with district
identification. And pride (or shame) about people from their own
region correlated at 0.27 with regional identification though pride (or
shame) about other British people correlated at only 0.13 with the
strength of British identification.
Similarly regional identification correlated at 0.18 with feelings of
special responsibility for people in the region (contrasted with those in
the rest of Britain), though local district identification correlated much
less well with feelings of special responsibility for people in the district
(contrasted with those in the region).
All five of these measures of emotional or rational responsibility cor-
related better with the strength of local identity than with the mere
length of local residence, however.
Yet the dominance of a British perspective was revealed when it
came to erecting barriers against people from outside their region or
district. We asked whether people from the rest of Britain should be
excluded from voting in local elections if they had not [lived/paid taxes]
for two years within the relevant [district/region]. We put each variant
of the question to randomly selected subsamples, but it made little dif-
ference whether we asked about mere residence or about taxpaying,
nor whether we asked about the region or the district. Only 23 per cent
of the public were willing to take an exclusive approach to the local
Table 3.15 Correlations with pride and responsibility
Pride/shame about people from: Responsible for welfare of:

Britain region district region district
versus versus
Britain region
correlation correlation correlation correlation correlation
Identification:
with Britain 13 7 10 –2 0
with region 11 27 22 18 3
with district 10 20 24 12 8
franchise. If we had set the term at over two years – at say five or ten
years – we presume the public would have taken an even less exclusive
and even more inclusive stance with regard to the local franchise.
Secondly, we asked about barring access to local schools and hospi-
tals until incomers had lived or paid taxes locally for at least two years.
(Again we varied the question wording between region or district and
between residence and taxpaying, putting each variant of the question
to randomly selected subsamples.) This second approach to the issue of
local exclusion won even less public support: a mere 18 per cent.
Overwhelmingly the public took the view that local services should be
accessible to the national citizenry.
And in so far as they differed at all on this issue, their attitudes
towards local exclusiveness correlated better with mere length of local
residence than with the strength of local identity. The weakness of the
correlation between local exclusiveness and local identification merits
some emphasis. Even among those who fell into the top quintile in
terms of the strength of their identification with the local district, the
numbers who took an exclusive attitude on the right to vote in local
elections only reached 27 per cent. And in that top quintile the
numbers who took an exclusive attitude on rights of free access to local
schools and hospitals only reached 19 per cent. There was a detectable
correlation with local identification but it was so weak as to be barely
detectable – statistically significant (in our large sample) but certainly
not politically significant.
Table 3.16 Exclusion
Only if they have [lived/paid taxes] for at least 2 years in [region/district] should
people from other parts of Britain who come to live in [region/district] …
be able to vote get free access to local
at local elections schools and hospitals
% %
23 18
If identification with district falls
into the…
lowest quintile (score < 0) 19 12
second (score 0) 18 18
mid quintile (score 1, 2) 26 19
fourth (score 3, 4) 22 19
highest quintile (score 5) 27 19
Note: Figures are the percentages who positively agree.
Conclusion: multiple identities and inclusive citizenship
The concept of local democracy would imply that the locality, or more
broadly the ‘territory’, has some significant meaning for people. The
phenomenon of globalization and the development of a more geo-
graphically mobile society have led some to question whether a basis
for local democracy remains. Was there enough sense of attachment to
sustain local politics? Our findings suggest the need to recognize a
complex response to that apparently simple question.
Identification with the family was considerably stronger than the
other identifications we investigated, but it was far from an exclusive
identification. It did not prohibit strong identifications with wider
communities. Indeed, identification with family on the one hand cor-
related quite strongly with identification with Britain, region, district
and birthplace on the other. People identified as strongly with their
home neighbourhood as with the district, but much more strongly
with the district than, for example, with a social class. Identification
with Britain was clearly stronger than with local districts but not much
stronger than with regions except in the south of England. In the
north of England identification with Britain was about the same as
with the region. And in Scotland and Wales, identification with Britain
was much weaker than with the region, and even somewhat weaker
than with the district.
So local identification at various levels was certainly strong enough
to suggest that people should not be regarded merely as individualistic
consumers of local services. They did have a psychological basis for a
concept of local citizenship but, very significantly, it was an inclusive
rather than an exclusive concept. Only a small minority of the public
would deny recent incomers access to local public services or the right
to participate in local decision-making.
And yet it may be difficult to give real content to the notion of cit-
izenship without distinguishing between citizens and non-citizens. A
federal system like the United States permits the possibility of a
sharply defined local citizenship, at least at the level of the different
states within the Union. State universities in the USA, for example,
have different scales of fees for ‘in-state’ and ‘out-of-state’ students.
Conversely they often make no distinction between a student arriv-
ing from another state of the USA and a student arriving from Europe
or Asia. That is very definitely not the way the British public views
access to local authority funded services. Yet, even in Britain, it may
be unreasonable to expect the residents of a locality to pay additional
taxes for a significantly higher level of investment in local services if

those services are then going to be accessible to those who have not
made the tax investment. Conceivably this problem might not arise
if the additional local taxes were for immediate operating costs rather
than investment since the extra taxes, in that case, would correspond
to immediate and transient extra benefits. But otherwise, mobility
would destroy the connection between extra local taxes and extra
local services.
Since mobility between regions was so much less than between dis-
tricts, truly local policies might be sustainable without explicitly exclu-
sionary provisions if the locality were a region rather than a district.
But a non-exclusive perspective inevitably pushes the boundaries of
real local autonomy outwards, well beyond district boundaries and at
least as far as regional boundaries.
Our findings about objective links to locality are important. Fully
90 per cent had lived for over ten years in their region and almost
80 per cent in their district. But only two-thirds were still living in the
region where they had been born and only one-third in the district
where they were born. Two-thirds had friends outside the district, four-
fifths had relatives outside and almost half regularly travelled outside
the district for leisure or shopping. People’s lives were not, in general,
constrained within local council districts. What happened in one dis-
trict, what facilities were provided in one district, affected many people
beyond its boundaries to a degree that was much less true for regions
and is, of course, still less true for states.
Mobility mattered. Recent arrivals in a region identified far more
strongly with Britain than with the region. But by the time they had
spent over 20 years in the region they identified with region and state
about equally. And by the time they had spent over 30 years in the
region they identified more strongly with the region than with Britain.
Identification with the local council district was generally weaker than
with the region or with Britain, but by the time people had spent
30 years in a district, their identification with the district was almost as
strong as with Britain.
Rather less than half the public (41 per cent) had spent 30 years
living in their district, though rather more than half (62 per cent) had
spent 30 years living in their region. Conversely about half the public
had spent less than this length of time living in their localities and
were, in consequence, relatively weakly committed to them. If the frac-
turing of personal relationships and increasing job mobility leads to
increasing geographic mobility we can expect the strength of local
identifications to decline as people cross boundaries. But only in so far

as they cross boundaries: if they move across district boundaries more
frequently but remain within regional boundaries we can expect a
further strengthening of regional identifications relative to district or
neighbourhood identifications. Those theories of local governance
which stress the importance of very local communities were based
upon the visions of an age that has passed, if it ever existed, and which
is unlikely to return. The impact of mobility suggests that the future of
local identification might be increasingly regional.
4
The Role of Local Governance
Different aims and objectives have been proposed for local governance,
objectives that range all the way from developing the personality of
the individual and mobilizing the apathetic through to the cheap or
efficient provision of services to those that want to buy them. ‘New
Right’ theorists see local governance primarily as a provider of those
few services that cannot be provided, or at least that cannot be pro-
vided more efficiently, by private companies operating in the market.
Theorists on the left take a more positive and expansive view of public
services. To them, public services are not a necessary evil, to be only
grudgingly accepted, but an opportunity to provide a wide range of
high quality services that will enhance the lives of citizens. But even
those who look favourably upon public services may disagree about
whether they should be national or local. And they may disagree on
whether public services should apply national standards even if deliv-
ered by local agencies, or whether they should vary from place to place
according to the wishes of local people and the willingness of local
people to pay for them. Ultimately these three viewpoints encapsulate
different notions of citizenship – local citizenship, national citizenship
or very little citizenship of any kind at all. Different theorists therefore
emphasize different objectives for local governance. Some of these dif-
ferences are no more than a difference of emphasis. But others are dif-
ferences between incompatible objectives.
What do the public think about such abstract matters? Are there
clear majorities in favour of some objectives and against others? And, if
there are clear majorities, are they logically coherent or self-contradic-
tory? Are there public majorities for incompatible objectives? In this
chapter we ask what the public think the role of local government
should be. What level of services should be provided? What is their
71
attitude to national standards? Does the public think that local govern-
ment has a role beyond service delivery? And do these questions
matter enough for people make a tax–service calculation when choos-
ing where to live?
Minimalism
We asked four questions to gauge the extent of local public services

supported by the public. There was 90 per cent support for the proposi-
tion that ‘local services which are only used by those in special need,
like the sick or the poor, should be provided by local councils, and at
least partly paid for by taxes’. And 82 per cent of the public agreed that
‘local services that everyone needs, such as refuse collection and basic
police services, should be provided without charge by local councils,
and paid for by taxes’. But only 71 per cent agreed that ‘local councils
should provide special services for those who are willing to pay extra
for them – like special security patrols for shops and businesses’. And
only 67 per cent agreed that ‘local councils should provide special
grants and subsidies for things that councillors feel make the area a
better place even if only a few people actually use them – things like
theatres, concert halls or sports centres’. Although these are fairly
general, abstract propositions we attempted to make them more con-
crete and intelligible by giving examples of the kinds of services
involved. And on the question of subsidies for facilities that would
only be used by a minority we took care to specify examples that might
appeal to both young and old, to intellectuals and non-intellectuals.
Our figures show that people took a generally expansive view of the
proper objectives of local government, since support ranged upwards
from a minimum of 67 per cent. Nonetheless people drew some dis-
tinction between services for the needy minority, those for everyone
and those for non-needy minorities.
Table 4.1 Minimalism
Provide services for special needs 90

Provide universal services 82
Provide extra services for cash 71
Grants and subsidies for theatres, concert halls, sports centres 67
The Role of Local Governance 73
National or local standards?
The public clearly supported national standards as a minimum but not

as a maximum, as a floor but not as a ceiling. An overwhelming major-
ity (92 per cent) of the public agreed that ‘local councils should be free
to provide whatever standard of services their local community wants
and is willing to pay for’. And when faced with a straight choice
between alternatives, a similar majority (91 per cent) of the public took
the view that local government should provide ‘as few or as many ser-
vices as the local community decide’, rejecting the alternative that it
should provide ‘only those services that central government decides’.
These responses indicate overwhelming rejection of the idea that
central government should place limits on local services.
The phrasing of both these questions seems to imply local autonomy
irrespective of whether that autonomy led to a broad or a narrow range
of local services. But we also found a large majority (74 per cent) for
the proposition that ‘Parliament should decide national standards for
public services and require local councils to meet those standards
everywhere.’ Moreover, 78 per cent agreed that local councils should
‘stay out of national politics’ which, in combination with the support
for Parliament to set mandatory standards for local government,
implies a clear hierarchy of authority. Attitudes towards local auton-
omy and national standards were thus either incoherent or complex.
A look at the combinations of answers to questions about national
standards and local autonomy may help resolve the mystery. A large
majority (66 per cent) of the public seemed to support centrally
imposed minimum national standards combined with local autonomy
Table 4.2 National standards?
Local govt should provide ‘as few or as many services as the

local community decide’ (not ‘only those services that central
government decides’) 91
*Local councils should be free to provide whatever standard
of services their local community wants and is willing to pay for 92
*Parliament should decide national standards for public
services and require local councils to meet those standards
everywhere 74
Local councils should stay out of national politics 78
Note: * These two questions were put to randomly selected split-half samples.
Table 4.3 Combining attitudes to local autonomy and national standards
Should Parliament set national

standards?
No Yes Total
% % %
Local govt should provide:
‘as few or as many services as the local
community decide’ 25 66 91
‘only those services that central
government decides’ 1 8 9
Total 26 74 100
to push standards up beyond the minimum – a floor without a ceiling.

Only a minority (25 per cent) supported complete local autonomy
without a floor level of national standards. Only 8 per cent wanted
central government to set both minimum and maximum standards for
local services, supporting both floor level ‘national standards’ and a
ceiling limiting local services to ‘only those that central government
decides’. And a negligible number of respondents opted for a centrally
imposed ceiling without a centrally imposed floor on local services.
The Tiebout thesis
In a celebrated article, Charles Tiebout suggested that personal and col-

lective autonomy could be reconciled by making local districts so small
that people who disliked the mix of services and taxes provided in one
locality could easily migrate to another which offered a different mix.1
Some researchers have reported that ‘households in London claim to
take into account tax–service factors when deciding to relocate’. 2 In
our survey we asked not just about whether the tax–services mix might
affect the choice of location when people were in the process of
moving, but whether it might itself prompt their decision to relocate.
And we asked the question throughout Britain, not just in the rather
special housing environment of London. We asked: ‘Have you ever
considered moving house to another local council because local [ser-
vices were better / council tax was lower] there? And have you actually
moved for that reason?’
Overall we found that most had not even considered relocating for
these reasons, though rather more had considered relocating to get
Table 4.4 The Tiebout relocation thesis
Considered relocation to council with better services or lower taxes?

Not even considered Considered but not Actually relocated
actually relocated
All respondents
* ‘for better service’ 93 6 1
* ‘for lower taxes’ 97 3 1
London only
* ‘for better service’ 83 14 3
* ‘for lower taxes’ 95 3 2
Note: * Questions about ‘better services’ and ‘lower taxes’ were put to randomly selected
split-half samples.
better services (7 per cent) than to get lower taxes (3 per cent). Only
one per cent had actually relocated for these reasons. However, our
survey did confirm, as Dowding and others have suggested, that such
behaviour was more frequent in London. In our survey, 17 per cent in
London said they had considered relocating to get better services and
5 per cent to get lower taxes, though less than 3 per cent said they had
actually relocated for either reason.
Local interests
At the time of our survey, twenty years had passed since the British
had last elected a government that extolled the virtues of economic
intervention. On the other hand, the Conservative government had
tried to foster positive attitudes towards the role of business in local
politics. We asked whether ‘local government should actively encour-
age local business in order to create jobs and improve the local
economy’ or ‘leave economic development to [central government/
market forces]?’ It made no difference at all whether we balanced local
government economic initiatives against central government or
against the market: 88 per cent said local government should take
economic initiatives. The public remained instinctively interventionist
in local terms.
At the same time this high level of support for local economic
initiatives implied a majority neither for a ‘zero-sum’ competition with
other areas for economic development, nor for ‘feather-bedding’ local
business. We asked whether ‘when a local council buys in services from
Table 4.5 Local interests and development
Local government should encourage economic development,
not leave it to [central govt/market] 88
*not leave to central govt 88
*not leave to market 88
Exercise local preference in purchasing 52
Note: * Questions about whether to leave local economic development to ‘central govt’ or
‘the market’ were put to randomly selected split-half samples.
a private company, should it give a preference to local businesses even

if they charge a little more than others because that will boost local
employment; or should it always choose the company that offers best
value for money because that will keep local taxes down’? That ques-
tion split public opinion down the middle: 52 per cent backed discrim-
inatory local preference, 48 per cent opposed it. Certainly, it is true
that our question reminded people of the inevitable costs of exercising
discriminatory local preferences. Nonetheless it is striking that support
for discriminatory local preference was so much less than for the
general principle of encouraging local business. The public was evenly
divided about disregarding the market when focused on purchasing,
despite its overwhelming refusal to leave local economic development
to market forces.
A mission to mobilize?
Both liberals and left-wing radicals have argued that local government
should develop more than the local economy, certainly more than
local businesses. Following J. S. Mill, philosophical liberals have argued
that an important function of local government is to develop individ-
ual capabilities and personalities through active participation in gov-
ernment ‘on a human scale’. So we asked whether ‘local government
should help people to develop their capabilities and personalities by
encouraging them to participate [in elections and political campaigns/
directly in the management of the services they themselves use]; or
leave individuals to develop their own capabilities and personalities?’
Despite this hint at a ‘big brother’ state interfering with people’s
‘own’ development there was substantial, even though minority,
Table 4.6 Develop personality?
Local government should help develop people’s capabilities and

personalities by participation
*in elections and political campaigns 42
*in the self-management of services 52
Note: * Questions about whether to develop capabilities through participation in elections

or in self-management were put to randomly selected split-half samples.
support for local government acting to help develop individuals’ capa-

bilities and personalities. Significantly, however, there was more
support for personal development through direct participation in self-
management schemes than through elections and political campaigns:
52 per cent compared to 42 per cent.
In similar vein, we asked whether ‘local government should set up
special committees to provide moral [but not/and] financial support to
[women’s groups/racial and ethnic groups/gays and lesbians]’? About
half the public, on average, said local government should set up such
committees. It made no difference at all whether we specifically
included or excluded ‘financial’ as well as moral support. However, the
target group did make a difference. There was 62 per cent support for
ethnic committees, and 55 per cent for women’s committees, but only
35 per cent for gay and lesbian committees. Overall, however, the level
Table 4.7 Set up support committees for ‘minorities’?
Local government should set up support committees…

*to give moral but not financial support 51
*to give moral and financial support 51
*for racial and ethnic groups 62
*for women’s groups 55
*for gays and lesbians 35
Note: * Questions about whether or not to offer financial support were put to randomly
selected split-half samples, and questions about committees for ethnic groups, women or
gays were put to randomly selected split-third samples. The two random selections
were independent: so, for example, approximately half the interviews about committees for
ethnic minorities specifically included financial support and half specifically excluded it.
Table 4.8 Encourage demands for services?
%
Local government should…
* ‘provide as few services as possible, allowing people to
provide for themselves’ 16
* ‘encourage those in need to demand more services’ 78
of public support for these committees designed to encourage ‘minori-

ties’ of various kinds ran at much the same level as support for devel-
oping individual capabilities and personalities.
By contrast there was much greater support for empowering those
who specifically required local government services – indeed, a surpris-
ingly high level of support. When asked whether local government
should ‘provide as few services as possible, allowing people to provide
for themselves’ 84 per cent of the public rejected the proposition. More
radically, 78 per cent agreed with the proposition that ‘local govern-
ment should encourage those in need to demand more services’.
Elsewhere we asked whether, ‘when making their decisions, local
councils should pay most attention to the views and interests of those
who [pay most council tax / have expert knowledge / need council jobs
/ rely most on council services]’? Only 22 per cent agreed that councils
should pay most attention to those who ‘pay most council tax’. But 52
per cent agreed they should pay most attention to those who ‘need
council jobs’, 84 per cent to ‘experts’ and 90 per cent to those who
‘rely most on council services’. (Since each respondent was asked only
one variant of this question, it really measures the numbers who
thought it important – rather than literally ‘most’ important – to pay
Table 4.9 Pay most attention to whom?
Councils should pay most attention to those who…

*rely most on council services 90
*have expert knowledge 84
*need council jobs 52
*pay most council tax 22
Note: * These four questions were put to randomly selected split-quarter samples.
attention to each of these groups.) The relative enthusiasm for paying

attention to the needy rather than to taxpayers is consistent with our
finding that a large majority of the public wanted councils to ‘encour-
age those in need to demand more services’.
So while people were divided on the paternalistic mission of local
government to develop individual personalities or encourage so-called
social ‘minorities’, a very large majority felt that local government had
a mission to pay attention to those who relied most on council services
and to encourage them to demand even more services.
What influenced ideas about the proper objectives of local

governance?
Social background
Attitudes towards minimalism were hardly affected by social back-
ground. Working-class identifiers, for example, were very slightly
more favourable than middle-class identifiers towards universal ser-
vices and services for the needy but, at the same time, very slightly
less favourable than middle-class identifiers towards ‘quality of life’
subsidies for theatres, concert halls or sports centres. The surprise is
not that we found such plausible patterns but that they were so
weak. Education made somewhat more of a difference. Compared to
those with only school-level qualifications, university graduates
hardly differed in their support for universal services or services for
the needy. But graduates were relatively antagonistic towards the
provision of special chargeable services for shops and businesses and
relatively favourable towards ‘quality of life’ subsidies for sports and
the arts.
Working-class identification correlated most strongly with support
for paying attention to those who needed local government jobs (r =
0.21) or services (r = 0.12), and with encouraging those in need to
demand more services (r = 0.18). Older respondents were somewhat
more inclined to agree that councils should pay most attention to local
taxpayers, provide as few services as possible and stay out of national
politics. Women hardly differed from men. The highly educated were
less inclined than others to agree that councils should pay most atten-
tion to any particular reference group though their reluctance was
most evident with respect to those who needed council jobs and least
evident with respect to ‘experts’.
Across the regions, the most striking pattern was a tendency for
people in Scotland, Wales and all the northern regions of England to
be a few per cent less inclined than those in the south of England to
say that their local councils should stay out of national politics.
But this question of council involvement in national politics apart,
social patterns of opinion do not seem very distinctively ‘local’. In
character, they are the kinds of pattern we might expect with any ques-
tions about public services and taxation, national or local, though they
are perhaps rather weaker than we might expect if asked in the context
of national politics.
Local identity and ideology

This conclusion that attitudes towards the objectives of local gover-
nance were not greatly influenced by purely ‘local’ considerations is
confirmed by a comparison between the influence of local identity and
left–right ideology. Attitudes towards the objectives of local gover-
nance hardly correlated at all with the length of time people had lived
in a district, or with the strength of their identification with the local
district. They correlated more strongly and more extensively with
measures of left–right ideology or political partisanship.
Dividing our sample of the public roughly into quintiles on the basis
of their strength of identification with their local district shows very
little systematic variation in attitudes towards the objectives of local
government between those who identified strongly and weakly with
the locality – with two partial exceptions. Strong local identifiers
stressed the need for local councils to pay attention both to local
council-tax payers and to those who needed council jobs – which is a
truly local, non-ideological tendency. But the strongest local identifiers
were only 6 per cent more favourable to local autonomy and 5 per cent
less favourable to national standards than the weakest local identifiers.
That does not mean that support for local autonomy was weak: quite
the contrary. The correlation with local identity was weak because even
those who had recently arrived in the district, or only weakly identified
with it, expressed very strong support for local autonomy in setting
local council services. It was not the case that local identity failed to
generate support for local autonomy and local council services. Rather,
a strong local identity was not a necessary precondition for such support
– a fact that is obscured by correlation analysis but emerges clearly
when we look at the absolute levels of support for local autonomy and
local services.
By contrast ideology or partisanship affected attitudes to many objec-
tives of local governance, often quite strongly. Comparing Tables 4.10
and 4.11 shows that the extremes of local identification only produced a
Table 4.10 Objectives of local governance by identification with district
Strength of identification with district:

<0 0 1,2 3,4 5
% % % % %
Provide services for needy 89 91 87 91 90
Provide universal services 81 79 82 85 84
Provide extra services for cash 64 73 68 73 73
Subsidies for theatres, sports centres, etc. 66 69 69 65 69
Provide whatever services local people
want 91 92 91 93 90
Whatever standards locality will pay for 88 89 94 94 94
Parliament to set national standards 77 82 69 76 72
Encourage local economic development 84 86 87 90 89
Exercise local preference in purchasing
(versus best value) 50 52 54 49 55
Pay most attention to those who pay most
most council tax 14 24 24 20 28
Pay most attention to those who have
expert knowledge 82 78 87 82 87
Pay most attention to those who need
council jobs 39 45 52 56 59
Pay most attention to those who rely
most on council services 85 87 87 96 92
Provide as few services as possible 15 16 18 15 18
Encourage demand 74 76 79 79 81
Set up support committees 49 51 53 49 53
Develop individuals through
participation 50 48 48 47 43
Stay out of national politics 75 78 80 77 78
Note: The cut points on the local identity scale divide the public into five roughly equally
sized groups.
greater than 10 per cent effect upon attitudes in two rows, while the
extremes of ideology did so in eight rows. Compared to those who placed
themselves on the left, self-described right-wingers were 14 per cent more
favourable to councils providing extra payable services for business
although slightly less favourable towards the provision of other kinds of
local services. They were 22 per cent less favourable to discriminatory
local preference (versus ‘value for money’). Conversely, right-wingers
were 22 per cent more inclined to say councils should provide as few
Table 4.11 Objectives of local governance by ideological self-image
Left C-L Centre C-R Right

% % % % %
Provide services for needy 92 91 90 88 87
Provide universal services 82 87 81 81 79
Provide extra services for cash 61 69 78 75 75
Subsidies for theatres, sports
centres, etc. 70 66 72 61 65
Provide whatever services local
people want 94 93 91 89 88
Whatever standards locality will
pay for 90 95 97 90 93
Parliament to set national standards 73 74 79 77 74
Encourage local economic
development 88 90 88 87 84
Exercise local preference in
purchasing (versus best value) 64 55 50 47 42
Pay most attention to those who
pay most council tax 18 16 30 26 22
have expert knowledge 78 73 86 86 93
need council jobs 51 54 50 49 50
rely most on council services 91 90 90 93 79
Provide as few services as possible 10 8 17 19 32
Encourage demand 81 83 81 74 69
Set up support committees 53 56 54 46 39
Develop individuals through
participation 53 49 44 45 46
Stay out of national politics 66 78 81 81 82
Note: Left includes ‘strongly’ left; right includes ‘strongly’ right. The cut points on the
ideological self-image scale divide the public into five roughly equally sized groups.
services as possible. They were 14 per cent less favourable to setting up

support committees for ‘minorities’ and 12 per cent less favourable to
encouraging the needy to demand more services. They were 15 per cent
more favourable to paying most attention to ‘experts’ and 12 per cent less
favourable to paying most attention to those who relied on council
Figure 4.1 Focus on those who need council jobs.
Figure 4.2 Provide as few services as possible.
services. And right-wingers were 16 per cent more inclined to say local
councils should stay out of national politics.
Significantly, however, while a right-wing ideology reduced support

for extensive free-at-the-point-of-use services, it did not have any effect
upon support for local autonomy or national standards. And con-
versely, although a left-wing ideology increased support for paying
attention to those who relied on local services, it did not increase
support for paying attention to those who needed council jobs.
In summary, therefore, ideology affected support for extensive free
public services and the encouragement of demand for them but it did
not affect attitudes to local autonomy. Local identification had little or
no effect upon attitudes towards the extent of public services. But local
identification did slightly increase the already very high level of
support for local autonomy, and slightly reduce support for national
standards. And local identification had rather more effect upon
increasing support for more attention to be paid to local council-tax
payers, local council employees and the users of local services.
5
The Image of Traditional Local
Government
Support for different institutional arrangements may not be entirely
based upon different conceptions of local citizenship. It may also
depend upon images of the rival institutions that deliver local gover-
nance. It matters whether particular institutions are more or less
responsive than others, more or less efficient and more or less corrupt.
Other things being equal, pragmatic citizens should prefer a system
that is responsive, efficient and honest to one that is unresponsive,
inefficient and dishonest – though they might differ on how much
weight they would give to honesty as against efficiency, for example. If
it were generally agreed that the traditional system of all-purpose
elected councils was responsive, efficient and honest, then the case for
change would be weakened: ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ as Americans
say. Conversely, if it were generally agreed that the traditional system
was unresponsive, inefficient and dishonest, then the case for change
would be that much more persuasive.
In practice, the question is not whether a system is or is not respons-
ive, efficient and honest in the absolute, but whether it is more respons-
ive, more efficient and more honest than other available alternatives.
When the major local governance reforms of the 1980s and 1990s were
introduced the answer to these comparative questions could only be
speculative. Political theorists, like the public, had experience only of
the all-purpose elected councils. Now, however, comparative questions
are less speculative, since we have some, albeit limited, experience of
alternatives.
In this chapter we look at public images and perceptions of alterna-
tive systems of local governance. Although we focus more upon per-
ceptions of the traditional elected local councils than the newer,
85
appointed rivals, and although the public may still have relatively little
experience of those rivals, we also pose some comparative questions.
Representation and responsiveness
Democracy requires representative and responsive governance. That is
not to say that these are always desirable in terms of efficiency or ‘good
government’, however defined. But it is to say that they are always
desirable in terms of democratic government.1
Overall, the public’s perception of the responsiveness of any form of
local governance was no more than lukewarm. We asked whether
people felt that their local council ‘generally took decisions that repre-
sented the views of local people’. Among the public, opinion was
neither clear-cut nor firmly held: 60 per cent agreed with the proposi-
tion that their local council’s decisions were representative, but 66 per
cent were willing to agree to the opposite proposition, that their deci-
sions were not representative. (As usual we put these alternative propo-
sitions to randomly selected half-samples.)
The public was 20 per cent more willing to agree that their council
relied more on the views of ‘experts rather than their voters’ than to
agree with the opposite proposition. But only a minority, though a
substantial one (41 per cent), agreed that their local council ‘doesn’t
care about the views of people like me’. Significantly less, about 25 per
cent, felt that the people they met in everyday life generally disre-
garded or failed to take account of their views and opinions. So this
was to some extent a statement about the unresponsiveness of their
local council rather than a mere admission that their own views gener-
ally carried no weight.
But judged by a similarly worded question, slightly more of the
public (47 per cent) thought that the appointed boards of enterprise
companies and health authorities did not care about their views. So
on a comparative basis, elected councils scored slightly better than
these appointed boards in terms of perceived responsiveness. Yet it is
surprising perhaps that an elected authority scored so little better
than these appointed boards. And indeed, the ‘local police force’
scored better than all three on responsiveness, despite being con-
trolled more by appointed representatives of various kinds.
Moreover, as we shall see in the next chapter, nearly three-quarters
of the public viewed local community groups as better than elected
councillors at representing them.
The Image of Traditional Local Government 87
Table 5.1 Representation and responsiveness
Local councils like the council in [council]…

*generally take decisions that represent the views of local people 60
*do not represent the views of local people 66
*rely on the views of experts rather than their voters 74
*do what is popular with the voters rather than rely on the views of
experts 54
People I meet in everyday life generally…
*take account of my views and opinions 68
*disregard my views and opinions 17
The local council doesn’t care about the views of people like me 41
The local health authority doesn’t care about the views of people
like me 46
The local enterprise company doesn’t care about the views of people
like me 48
The local police force doesn’t care about the views of people like me 26
Note: * These two versions of the question were put to randomly selected split-half samples
Interests
Special interests
So, if the public were no more than lukewarm about the extent to
which elected councils reflected and responded to their own views, did
they think councils were over-responsive to special interests of any
kind? We asked whether local councils were dominated by business
interests or, alternatively, whether they failed to take them sufficiently
into account, whether the council weighted its service provision
towards poorer or richer areas, and whether the council was too willing
to accept or reject the dictates of central government. Among the
public, opinion seemed fairly evenly divided on all these questions –
though that may have reflected indecision and vagueness rather than a
sharp division of opinion within the public.
When we framed the question in a different way we got a much
clearer result. We asked whether nine groups had ‘too much or too
little influence over decisions about local services’. In each case about a
quarter of the public, without any prompting, said the degree of
influence was about right, but most people took a view, and their views
varied sharply across the nine groups.
Table 5.2 Council bias

*are dominated by business interests 62
*do not take enough account of business interests 51
Local councils like the council in [council] provide better services…
*in poor areas where people need them most 44
*in rich areas where people need them least 46
Local councils like the council in [council] are too willing….
*to reject instructions from central government 48
*to accept instructions from central government 59
Note: * These two versions of the question were put to randomly selected split-half
samples.
On balance, the public did not think that either their elected local
councillors or local businessmen had much too much or too little
influence. But by a margin of over 30 per cent they thought local
taxpayers, and racial or ethnic groups, had too little. And by margins
of up to twice that much the public claimed that local voters, ordinary
council workers and women’s groups had too little influence.
Conversely, by a margin of 35 per cent they felt that senior local gov-
ernment officials (local government bureaucrats rather than politi-
cians) had too much influence. And by a margin of 54 per cent they
felt that central government had too much.
Indeed there was a striking contrast between the public’s assertion by
a margin of 54 per cent that central government had too much
influence over decisions about local services, and their assertion by a
similar margin of 60 per cent that local voters had too little. It seems
that the fairly even balance of public opinion on whether their local
council was too willing to accept or reject instructions from central
government reflected wearied resignation, or the desire to avoid inter-
institutional conflict, rather than agreement that the balance of power
between local and central government was about right.
Self-interest
Tabloid journalists and political opponents of local government politi-
cians (sometimes within the same party) frequently accuse them of
‘junketing’ – using their office for personal gain, usually very small per-
sonal gains but offensive to local taxpayers nonetheless. And even
when local councillors are not accused of financial corruption they

may be accused of excessive self-importance. We asked questions
designed to elicit such feelings among the public.
First we asked randomly selected half-samples of the public whether
the phrases ‘they have the good of the community at heart’ and ‘they
are in it for personal gain’ matched their image of elected local council-
lors and appointed board members. Almost twice as many had an
image of councillors acting ‘for the good of the community’ (79 per
cent) as for ‘personal gain’ (42 per cent). Similarly, almost twice as
many had an image of councillors driven by ‘a sense of duty to their
fellow citizens’ (80 per cent) as by a desire for personal prestige (44 per
cent). Public attitudes towards appointed board members of TEC/LECs
or DHA/HBs were similar: again twice as many took the favourable as
the unfavourable view – on the pursuit of both personal gain and
personal prestige.
Certainly we could get a substantial minority to agree to critical com-
ments about the self-seeking of elected councillors and appointed board
members, but it was far easier to get them to agree to positive state-
ments. And, significantly, the balance of these positive and negative
Table 5.3 Too much or too little influence?
% ‘too much’
minus % ‘too little’
Groups which have too much or too little influence

over what local services are provided by public bodies:
central government 54
senior local government officials 35
elected councillors 3
local businessmen –10
racial and ethnic groups –30
those who pay most in local taxes –32
women’s groups –49
those who vote in local elections –60
ordinary council workers –63
Note: Although the question only asked whether each group had ‘too much or too little
influence’, large numbers of respondents spontaneously replied ‘neither too much nor too
little – about right’, or words to that effect. Excluding the question about central govern-
ment on which opinion was more one-sided, the numbers replying ‘neither’ ranged from
21 per cent to 32 per cent. Consequently, in this table, we have not treated this response
as a ‘don’t know’ to be excluded from our calculation of percentages. Instead we report the
difference between the ‘too much’ and ‘too little’ percentages, calculated as a percentage
of all three responses – ‘too much’, ‘too little’ and ‘neither’.
Table 5.4 Self-interest
Local councillors…
*have the good of the community at heart 79
*are in it for personal gain 42
*have a sense of duty towards their fellow citizens 80
*just want people to look up to them 44
People appointed to DHA/HBs…
People appointed to TEC/LECs…
Note: * The two versions of each question were put to randomly selected split-half
samples.
statements about self-seeking provided almost no basis in public

opinion for discriminating between different systems of local
governance.
Corruption
The word ‘corruption’ implies rather more than junketing or self-
seeking. We asked people whether they thought local councils were
more or less corrupt than private businesses. We could get 35 per cent
to agree that local councils were ‘more corrupt’, but 51 per cent to
agree that they were ‘less corrupt’. On balance therefore, public
opinion seemed to favour local councils over private business and
councillors over private businessmen, though not by a very large
margin.
Effectiveness
Efficiency and waste

Some right-wing theorists and politicians allege that public authorities
in general, and local councils in particular, are prone to waste taxpayers’
Table 5.5 Corruption
Local councils like the council in [council] are generally…
* more corrupt than private businesses 35
* less corrupt than private businesses 51
Note:* The two versions of this question were put to randomly selected-split half samples.
money by over-providing unwanted or unnecessary services or by oper-

ating inefficiently, using old-fashioned methods and weak labour disci-
pline. We found 61 per cent of the public agreed that their local council
‘wasted a good deal of taxpayers’ money’. However, when we asked
exactly the same question about Parliament and central government, a
massive 91 per cent agreed. Compared to central government, therefore,
the local council had a relatively frugal image.
We investigated attitudes towards the allegation of over-provision
directly by putting the proposition that local councils ‘raise high local
taxes to provide unnecessary services’ to half the sample. At the same
time we investigated perceptions of under-provision by putting the
opposite proposition that local councils ‘fail to provide services up to
proper national standards because they are unwilling to raise local
taxes’ to the other half of the sample. Although 47 per cent agreed
there was over-provision, 41 per cent agreed there was under-provision.
So on balance, there was no clear public view that councils either over-
provided or under-provided services.
That leaves the allegation of inefficient organization. Only 22 per cent
were willing to agree that local councils were ‘more efficient than
private businesses’ while 66 per cent were willing to agree that councils
were ‘less efficient’. So the margin by which the public concluded that
councils were less efficient than private business was almost three
times as large as the margin by which the public concluded that coun-
cils were less corrupt than private business. The public’s image of
council inefficiency was much stronger than their image of council
probity.
However, the public’s very sharp image of ‘private businesses’
being more efficient than councils did not extend to appointed
boards, even though these were meant to introduce the methods
and personnel of private business into local governance. By a margin
Table 5.6 Efficiency
Parliament and the government waste a good deal of taxpayers’ money 92
The council in [council] waste a good deal of taxpayers’ money 61
*raise high local taxes to provide unnecessary services 47
*fail to provide services up to proper national standards because they
are unwilling to raise local taxes 41
*are generally more efficient than private businesses 22
*are generally less efficient than private businesses 66
Local councillors…
*are good at organizing things 57
*are not very good at organizing things 45
People appointed to DHA/HBs…
People appointed to TEC/LECs…
Note: * The two versions of each question were put to randomly selected split-half samples.
of 31 per cent the public thought appointed board members of

TEC/LECs were ‘good at organizing things’ rather than ‘not very
good’. But with the same question wording, a margin of 12 per cent
of the public agreed that local councillors were also ‘good at organiz-
ing things’ rather than ‘not very good’. And that was a better margin
than in the public’s assessment of the organizing ability of DHA/HB
boards (only a 5 per cent margin). Thus, while the public were very
clear that councils were less efficient than private businesses, they
did not feel that the appointed board members who ran public ser-
vices through quangos were necessarily better organizers than
elected councillors.
Capability
But however well organized central and local government may be,
many desirable goals may still be beyond their capabilities. So we asked
whether central and local government could do ‘very little’ or ‘quite a
bit’ towards achieving each of nine goals, taking the percentage who
answered ‘quite a bit’ as an indicator of perceived capability.
Local councils scored surprisingly well in comparison with central
government. The top scores were 83 per cent for central government’s
ability to ‘improve health and social services’ and 87 per cent for local
councils’ ability to ‘improve their area as a place to live in’. The lowest
scores were 64 per cent for central government’s ability to ‘keep prices
down’ and 53 per cent for local councils’ ability to ‘improve employ-
ment prospects in their area’. The generally high scores for local gov-
ernment suggest that the community governance role for local
authorities is one that the public may find convincing.
Comparing public perceptions of central and local government capa-
bilities on similar goals, central government scored 18 per cent higher
on its ability to ‘improve health and social services’ and 13 per cent
higher on its ability to ‘improve employment prospects’. But central
government scored only 6 per cent higher on its ability to ‘cut crime’.
And local councils’ ability to ‘improve their area as a place to live’ was
rated 12 per cent higher than central government’s ability to ‘improve
the general standard of living’ – not an identical goal but one that
should be considered the ‘corresponding goal’ appropriate to a differ-
ent level of government. Overall therefore, people did not see local
councils as much less capable of achieving locally defined goals than
central government was of achieving nationally defined goals.
Table 5.7 Capability
British governments can do ‘quite a bit’ to…

improve health and social services 83
improve the general standard of living 75
cut crime 69
reduce unemployment 66
keep prices down 64
Average for British governments 71
Local councils can do ‘quite a bit’ to…
improve their area as a place to live 87
improve heath and social services in their area 65
cut crime in their area 63
improve employment prospects in their area 53
Average for local councils 67
Effective channels of protest

Related to perceptions of capability in terms of goals are public percep-
tions of local and central government – and other institutions – as
effective channels for public discontent. We asked people to ‘suppose
that [the government/your local council/your local enterprise
company/your district health authority/your local police authority]
proposed to do something you thought was really unjust or harmful
[and would/but would not] directly affect you’.
Then we asked respondents to give us ‘a mark out of ten’ to indicate
‘how effective’ they thought’ it would be ‘to [protest/complain]…
• to your MP?
• to your local councillor?
• to [the offices of the appropriate government department/the dis-
trict council/your local enterprise company/your district health
authority/the police themselves]? (depending on the institution
proposing the unjust or harmful action)
• to newspapers, radio or television?’
Subtracting five from these marks provides a scale of perceived effec-

tiveness that runs from minus five to plus five, with zero as a neutral
point which we can regard as ‘neither very effective nor ineffective’.
This was a complex question. As usual, alternatives within square
brackets were applied to randomly selected subsamples. The question
involved three different and simultaneous randomizations. To simplify
the analysis, let us ignore the distinctions between ‘protest’ and ‘com-
plain’ and between whether the action ‘would’ or ‘would not’ directly
affect the respondent. Effectively we are then averaging out the
answers across those variants of the question. And, for the moment, let
Table 5.8 Generally effective as channels of protest
Mean score
on ± 5 scale
How effective would it be to [protest/complain] to…

newspapers, radio or television 1.1
your local councillor 0.3
your MP 0.1
relevant institution proposing the unjust or harmful action 0.0
us also ignore the distinctions between which of the five institutions

was proposing the ‘unjust or harmful’ action.
On the ±5-point scale, the public rated the effectiveness of com-
plaints or protests to the mass media as most effective, complaints or
protests to councillors as much less effective and to MPs or the institu-
tion proposing the unjust or harmful action as even less effective.
Irrespective of the institution proposing the action, complaints to
the mass media were rated most effective, and its rating hardly varied.
MPs came second, but a poor second, for effective protests or com-
plaints about central government actions. But local councillors came
second to the media in all other situations, and they came a very
respectable second for effective protests or complaints about local
council actions – more effective than MPs were for complaints about
central government.
Protests and complaints directly addressed to the specific institution
which was proposing the ‘unjust or harmful’ action – ‘the offices of the
appropriate government department’, ‘the district council’, ‘your local
enterprise company’, ‘your district health authority’, or ‘the police
themselves’ – were rated most effective when they involved the local
council, least effective when they involved a department of central
government, and intermediate when they involved quangos such as
TEC/LECs or DHA/HBs. But they were never rated as highly as protests
or complaints to elected councillors, even when the council itself was
not directly involved.
But although protests or complaints through the mass media were
considered the most effective they were difficult to achieve and the
public used them relatively infrequently.2 People were most likely to
have complained to their local councillor, their district council or
their MP.3 They were less likely to have complained to the offices of
a central government department or to the police. They were even
less likely to have complained to the mass media or their district
health authority. And they were very unlikely indeed to have com-
plained to the relatively new and relatively obscure TEC/LECs. When
they voted with their feet, therefore, they opted for elected council-
lors and MPs as their main channels of protest and least of all for
appointed boards.
Satisfaction and trust
Using similar ±5-point scales we measured the public’s satisfaction

with the overall service and value for money provided by local
Table 5.9 Specifically effective as channels of protest
Mean score on ± 5 scale
*How effective would it be to [protest/complain]
about actions of the government to…
your MP 0.0
your local councillor –0.2
offices of the appropriate government department –0.6

about actions of your local council to…
the district council 0.4
your MP 0.4

about actions of your local TEC/LEC to…
your MP 0.0
your local enterprise company –0.3

about actions of your local DHA/HB to…
your MP 0.1
your district health authority 0.0

about actions of your local police authority to…
the police themselves 0.1
your MP 0.1
Note: * These five versions of the questions were put to randomly selected sub-samples.
councils, and compared it with the public’s satisfaction with other

providers of local services.
The public rated satisfaction with local councils rather lower than
their satisfaction with local tradesmen they had employed to do house-
hold repairs (if any) or their local (now privatized) electricity supplier,
Table 5.10 Actually used as channels of protest
Ever [protested/complained] in person, or by phone or letter to…
your local councillor 36
*the district council 32
your MP 31
*offices of the appropriate government department 24
*the police themselves 22
newspapers, radio or television 17
*your district health authority 15
*your local enterprise company 4
Note: * These five versions of the question were put to randomly selected sub-samples.
and much lower than their satisfaction with their (DHA/HB-provided)

local doctor – though that probably reflects the public’s notorious,
almost superstitious, faith in their doctors.
We also asked people to provide, on the same scale, a measure of
their trust in elected councils and appointed boards ‘to do what is right
for their areas’, and their trust in ‘parliament and the government to
do what is right for Britain’. Compared to these other public service
providers, it was local councils that scored highest on trust, somewhat
higher than the appointed boards and far higher than central
government.
Influences on images
Images of local governance did not vary greatly across different social
groups. Class, for example, had very little effect upon images except for
a slight tendency for middle-class identifiers to defend both local and
national government against crude charges that they wasted taxpayers’
money. Women were somewhat more likely than men to allege that
the council wasted taxpayers’ money. And unsurprisingly, women were
somewhat more likely than men to say that ‘women’s groups’ had too
little influence upon decisions about local public services. But apart
from that their image of local governance hardly differed from that of
men. The highly educated were distinguished most by their actual
complaints to MPs and the mass media, but not by any special expecta-
tion that they would be effective.
Table 5.11 Satisfaction and trust
Mean score on
± 5 scale
Satisfaction with the overall service and value for
money you receive from…
local doctor 3.0
electricity supplier 2.0
tradesmen who have done household repairs for you
(if any) 1.8
local council 1.3
How much can you trust, to do what is right for their
areas…
people elected to local councils 0.8
people appointed to DHA/HBs 0.6
businessmen appointed to TEC/LECs 0.4
How much can you trust Parliament and government
to do what is right for Britain –0.7
Age had more effect on images of local governance than any other
social variable. Older people were especially critical of the supposed
excess influence of ethnic groups, women’s groups, council employees
and even local voters. They were particularly satisfied with the services
provided by their local council – but also with every other provider of
services about whom we asked. They were particularly convinced that
the local council and local health authority cared about their views.
They were particularly likely to have contacted a local councillor,
though not an MP or the press. And they were particularly likely to
trust elected councillors – though also more likely than younger people
to trust health board members, Parliament and the government.
People with a relatively right-wing self-image, or Conservative rather
than Labour preferences, tended to defend the motivations and respons-
iveness of appointed boards, defend the influence of local businessmen
over public services, and criticize the undue influence of ethnic groups or
women’s groups. Right-wingers were also unusually ready to defend the
quality of service given by any provider other than the local council.
People with a strong sense of identification with their district were
particularly willing to defend the quality of council services, though
they also tended to defend the quality of local services provided by
others, if to a lesser extent.
The influence of social background, ideological self-image and local

identification can be summarized quite well by focusing on the correla-
tion between these factors and the level of trust expressed by the public
in elected councillors, appointed board members and central govern-
ment. Age correlated positively, though to varying degrees, with all of
these: older people were just generally trusting, though particularly with
respect to local councils. Middle-class identification only correlated
noticeably with trust in central government.
Most interesting are the correlations between trust on the one hand
and local identification or right-wing self-images on the other. Trust in
local councillors correlated fairly strongly with local identification but
hardly at all with left–right ideology. Conversely, trust in central
government correlated strongly with right-wing self-images but fairly
weakly with local identification. Trust in health boards correlated
equally well with both local and ideological identities. And trust in
TEC/LECs correlated more with ideology than with local identification.
Thus the balance of influence shifts steadily from local identification to
right-wing ideology as we move from councillors, through DHA/HBs
and TEC/LECs to central government.
Table 5.12 Correlations with social background, local identity or ideology
Middle-class Age Identification Right-wing-

identity with district self image
corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100
Trust to do what is
right for their areas…
people elected to local
councils – 19 22 –
people appointed to
DHA/HBs – 11 18 17
businessmen appointed
to TEC/LECs – – 14 22
Trust to do what is
right for Britain…
Parliament and
government 15 11 13 35
Notes:
1. Identification with district coded on 11-point scale from –5 to +5.
2. Right-wing self image coded on a 7-point scale: strongly left, left, centre-left, centre,
centre-right, right, strongly right.
3. Correlations less than 0.10 replaced by a dash.
Table 5.13 Levels of trust by social background, local identity or ideology
Trust elected Trust appointed Trust appointed Trust Parliament

councillors DHA/HB board TEC/LEC board and government
members members
Mean score on Mean score on Mean score on Mean score on
± 5 scale ± 5 scale ± 5 scale ± 5 scale
Class self-image:
middle class 0.9 0.8 0.6 –0.2
working class 0.7 0.6 0.3 –0.9
Age:
young (18–34) 0.3 0.5 0.4 –0.9
middle-aged
(35–54) 0.7 0.4 0.4 –0.8
old (55 and over) 1.2 1.0 0.5 –0.4
Identification
with district:
lowest quintile
(score <0) 0.1 –0.1 –0.2 –1.4
second (score 0) 0.5 0.5 0.4 –0.8
mid-quintile
(score 1,2) 0.7 0.5 0.4 –0.6
fourth (score 3,4) 1.0 0.8 0.7 –0.4
highest quintile
(score 5) 1.2 0.9 0.6 –0.6
Ideological
self-image:
left 0.7 0.1 –0.3 –1.7
centre-left 1.0 0.6 0.5 –0.9
centre 0.7 0.8 0.6 –0.7
centre-right 0.8 1.0 0.9 –0.1
right 0.8 1.0 0.8 0.5
The same conclusions can be drawn from an inspection of the mean

scores for trust within different social and political categories (Table 5.13).
And if we divide the public at the median on both ideology and local
identification, we can see how levels of trust varied with combinations of
local and ideological identity (Table 5.14). By that test, trust in councillors
was influenced exclusively by local identity rather than by ideology while
trust in central government was influenced mainly by ideology. But trust
in appointed boards was influenced by both local identity and ideology.
Table 5.14 Trust by combinations of left–right ideology and local

identification
Low district identification High district identification

(up to 2) (3 or more)
Mean score on Mean score on
± 5 scale ± 5 scale
Trust elected local

councillors:
left or centre-left 0.4 1.2
right, centre-right or
centre 0.5 1.1
Trust DHA/HB or TEC/LEC

board members:
left or centre-left –0.1 0.5
centre 0.7 1.1
Trust Parliament and

government:
left or centre-left –1.6 –1.1
centre 0 0.3
Note: These divisions on ideology and local district identification divide the sample into
four approximately equal subsamples.
These patterns are illustrated in Figure 5.1. Those who identified

strongly with their district had a high level of trust in councillors. So the
rising bars for trust in councillors are higher at the back than at the front.
By contrast, right-wingers had a high level of trust in a central govern-
ment that was, at the time, a right-wing government. So the rising bars
for trust in the government and Parliament are very much higher on the
right than on the left, and only slightly higher at the back.
But both strong local identifiers and right-wingers had a relatively
high level of trust in local appointed boards, TEC/LECs and DHA/HBs.
So the rising bars for trust in appointed board members are higher both
at the back-left and at the front-right than they are at the front-left,
and by roughly the same amount – indicating roughly an equal impact
on trust in appointed boards from either localism or right-wing ideol-
ogy. And the bar at the back-right is considerably higher still, showing
the impact of the combination of localism and right-wing ideology.
Figure 5.1 Trust in councillors, board members and government.
Even though general levels of trust in local councillors did not seem
to be much influenced by ideology, it might be thought the interaction
between the public’s own ideology and their perception of their local
council’s ideology would have an impact. Left-wingers who lived in
areas controlled by a right-wing council, or right-wingers who lived in
areas controlled by a left-wing council, might be more inclined to dis-
trust councillors.(5.15)
In fact, left-wingers who lived in places which they said had nearly
always been controlled by a Conservative district council expressed
almost as much trust in councillors as other left-wingers who had lived
under near-permanent Labour councils. Right-wingers were somewhat
more sensitive to the partisanship of their council, however. Right-
wingers who lived under near-permanent Labour councils differed
from other right-wingers who had lived under near-permanent
Conservative councils by 0.4 on our scale of trust in councillors. So, for
Table 5.15 Trust in councillors by personal ideology and party control (mean
scores)
Party control of the local district council…

nearly always nearly always changed changed
Conservative Labour occasionally often
Personal self-image:
left or centre-left 0.7 0.8 1.1 1.1
centre 0.9 0.5 1.2 1.0
right-wingers, the long-term partisanship of the local council did make

some difference to their trust in local councillors.
But significantly, the highest levels of trust in local councillors
expressed by both left- and right-wingers occurred not under near-per-
manent Labour or Conservative councils, but in places where the party
control of the local district council had changed ‘occasionally’ or
‘often’ in the past.
Conclusion: low on efficiency but high on honesty and

trustworthiness
The public were no more than lukewarm about the responsiveness, as

they saw it, of local councils, but they thought appointed boards no
better in this respect. They criticized elected local councils for being
too subservient to central government and non-elected local bureau-
crats. But they felt most other local groups – including local business-
men, ethnic and gender groups, local taxpayers, local voters and local
council employees – had too little rather than too much influence over
decisions about local services.
On balance, the public saw local councillors as motivated by a desire
to serve their community rather than by a desire for personal gain or
prestige – as much as those appointed to DHA/HB boards and more so
than those appointed to TEC/LEC boards. Councils appeared rather less
corrupt than private businesses, though much less efficient. The public
thought appointed TEC/LEC board members particularly good at
organization though appointed DHA/HB board members seemed no
better at organizing things than councillors.
These images of council probity but business efficiency were consist-
ent with public levels of satisfaction and trust. The public was less
satisfied with the services provided by local councils than those pro-
vided by local doctors, electricity suppliers or tradesmen. But it trusted
elected councillors more than appointed board members and far more
than central government.
These levels of trust were influenced, in different ways, by ideological
and local identifications. Local identification dominated trust in
elected councillors while ideological identification dominated trust in
central government. What is particularly interesting is that both these
identifications – local and ideological – influenced trust in appointed
local governance boards. Right-wingers liked appointed boards, no
doubt in part because these boards were the creatures of a right-wing
Conservative government. But those with the strongest commitment
to their localities were also more willing to trust these appointed
boards, presumably because they saw them as more than mere crea-
tures of a right-wing central government – genuinely local even if also
ideologically driven. As we shall see in later chapters the attitudes and
opinions of the people appointed to these boards were in fact locally
oriented as well as ideologically driven. So there was some truth in this
aspect of public perceptions.
6
Institutional Preferences
In this chapter we look at public views about the best institutions and
mechanisms for delivering local services. Institutional preferences are
linked to views about the aims and objectives of local governance. But
institutional preferences are not dictated by views about objectives: the
connection is a matter of choice rather than strict logical necessity.
Support for no more than a minimal range of local public services does
not, in fact, determine views about whether these services should be
delivered by elected councils or by appointed boards. It is possible to
oppose local socialism or local social democracy without opposing local
political democracy. The connection between attitudes to purposes and
to institutions is detectable but remarkably weak. So before we investi-
gate that connection we shall focus our attention on the public’s insti-
tutional preferences for local governance as an important aspect of
public opinion in its own right.
Localism
How local?
The arguments for larger or smaller local authority areas are fairly well
known.1 Some services may benefit from economies of scale that
require a relatively large organization spanning a wide geographic area.
And questions of equity or national standards may also be easier to
address if the geographic scope of the organization is larger rather than
smaller. On the other hand, the essence of local governance is that it
should be local. Any argument for local governance at all inevitably
implies that it should be as local as is practically possible – arguments,
for example, that focus on the need for responsiveness, variety, repre-
sentation or local knowledge.
105
In principle the concept of subsidiarity solves the problem by assert-

ing that all government should operate on as local a scale as is possible
but cover as wide an area as is necessary. But this principle provides
little guidance in practice if a single institution is to be responsible for
providing a comprehensive range of different services, since the
balance between economies of scale and the need to accommodate
local circumstances may vary considerably from one service to another.
However, the principle of subsidiarity can be invoked to justify a more
complex system of governance involving various multi-purpose and
single-purpose authorities operating on different geographic scales –
neighbourhoods, council districts, the regions of Britain, Britain itself
or the European Union – appropriate to the services that they deliver.
We asked people whether they thought each of eight different ser-
vices was best provided by an authority operating on the scale of their
local council district, their region (one of the ten into which we
divided Britain) or Britain as a whole. Overall, averaging across these
eight services, the district was chosen by 44 per cent, Britain by 32 per
cent and the region by 24 per cent. But public awareness of the need
for different services to be organized in different ways was more strik-
ing than the fact that local districts came top on the average. The
average was a purely arithmetical construct, not a general choice for all
public services.
Table 6.1 Best size for different services?
Service would be best provided by a body responsible for

an area about the size of…
the district council the region Britain as a whole
% % %
Refuse collection 84 10 6
Leisure services 82 13 5
Schools/education 42 29 29
Roads 33 29 38
Police 32 28 41
Environment/pollution 30 21 49
Hospitals/ health 26 33 41
Economic development 20 29 51
Average 44 24 32
Note: Rows sorted by percentage naming district as the best scale for providing the service.
Institutional Preferences 107
Overwhelmingly the public said that refuse collection and leisure ser-
vices should operate on the scale of their district council. But it was
divided three ways on education, roads and the police, though tilting
towards the district on education and towards Britain on roads and
police. The public was also divided on services concerning the environ-
ment and pollution, hospitals and health, and economic development,
but more clearly inclined towards having these services organized and
controlled at a national rather than a local level. The public never
placed the region in top place for any of these services, though the
region came second to the district on refuse collection, leisure and edu-
cation, and second to Britain-wide organization on hospitals, health
and economic development.
Indeed, although the local district was the single most popular
choice (with an average of 44 per cent support) to run the eight ser-
vices specified in our questions, a majority chose a higher level of gov-
ernment of some kind. So on balance, averaging across these eight
services, people seemed to think their district was too small to run the
service. That conclusion was confirmed when we asked explicitly
whether the ‘[district] council area is too [big/small] for the provision
of local services like health, education and policing?’ In reply, 18 per
cent agreed that their district was ‘too big’ but 38 per cent agreed that
it was ‘too small’.
At the time of our survey local district councils existed. Some higher
tier local authorities also remained in England though the Greater
London Council and the English metropolitan councils had been abol-
ished a few years earlier and the Scottish regional councils were in the
process of abolition. However, with the single exception of the GLC,
abolished in 1985, elected authorities on the scale of our ten specified
regions had never existed in Britain. Scottish ‘regional’ authorities had
covered regions within Scotland, not Scotland as a whole. And English
counties, even the metropolitan counties prior to 1985, had been
Table 6.2 District council area is too big or too small?
*Too big 18
*Too small 38
samples.
much smaller than the ten regions into which we divided Britain – and
which we specified by name in our question about organizing services
at the level of the respondent’s region. Consequently our question
included references to the district and to Britain which already had
elected governments, and to the respondent’s region which, London
excepted, had never had an elected regional government. 2 Given the
hypothetical nature of regional government at the time, it is perhaps
significant that as many as 24 per cent on average opted for regional
control of local services.
Elsewhere in the interview we asked directly: ‘Would you support or
oppose giving greater powers of self-government to [region], by means
of an elected council or assembly for the whole of [region]?’ For each
respondent, our CATI system automatically inserted the actual name of
their particular region into the question. A clear majority supported
the idea of an elected council for their region as a whole.
Support for regional government varied. In our survey, as might be
expected, support was highest in Scotland (where ‘Scotland’ itself was
substituted for [region] in the question) by a margin of at least 11 per
cent compared to any other region. But support for elected regional
government ran as high in London and the north of England as in
Wales. Indeed, on our figures, it was higher in London than in Wales.
Table 6.3 Support elected regional governments?
Support (unconditionally) 56
Support, if locals want it 4
Oppose 40
Unconditionally support elected regional government within…

Scotland 76
London 65
NW England 64
Wales 61
Yorkshire/Humberside 59
NE England 55
East Anglia 52
Midlands 49
SW England 48
SE England 46
Note: Within region entries sorted by levels of support.
That reflects the pattern of local and regional identities that we found
in Chapter 3. Support for elected regional government was highest in
those regions where the strength of regional identity most exceeded the
strength of local district identity – in the north, and especially in
Scotland, because regional identity was so strong, and within London
because local (borough) identity was so weak.
The recent reorganization of local government raised questions
about who should fix local government boundaries. In England and
Wales, new boundaries were fixed by independent commissions after
public hearings (although Parliament had the final decision). But in
Scotland, new boundaries were drawn up in private by civil servants
from the Scottish Office working directly under the control of the
Secretary of State, and then imposed despite widespread allegations of
gerrymandering. We asked who should decide ‘the boundaries and
sizes of local councils like [district]?’ We offered respondents a choice
of ‘central government, a joint committee of neighbouring local coun-
cils, independent experts, or the local people in a referendum’. The
public’s top choice was a referendum (46 per cent) followed by a joint
committee of local councils (31 per cent). Central government, such as
the Secretary of State for Scotland, won very little public support (9 per
cent) and even ‘independent experts’ only got 15 per cent support.
Central versus local control

Paralleling the high levels of support for local autonomy that we found in
Chapter 4, there was widespread public support for local councils to have
the final say in disputes with central government if they had obtained a
clear electoral mandate locally. If a local council ‘got the support of local
people by winning a local [election/referendum] on an issue, but the
government is opposed to it’ an overwhelming majority (86 per cent) of
the public said that the local council ‘should have the final say’. It made
very little difference whether our question was phrased in terms of a
mandate obtained at a local election or by means of a local referendum.
Table 6.4 Who should fix local government boundaries?
Local people in a referendum 46

Joint committee of local councils 31
Independent experts 15
Central government 9
But public ambivalence towards local autonomy versus national

standards was reflected in answers to another question. We asked
respondents to ‘suppose that a local council wants to do something
which it is legally entitled to do and for which it has the support of a
majority of voters in its area, but a minority in the area are bitterly
opposed to it’. And in those circumstances we asked whether it would
be ‘right and proper for the minority to campaign against the deci-
sion at the next local elections’ or to ‘appeal to central government
to step in and overrule the local council’. In reply, 54 per cent said it
would be quite ‘right and proper’ for the local minority to ‘appeal to
central government to step in and overrule the local council’ which
implies support for political limitations on local autonomy – over
and above any legal limitations. Certainly, that was far less than the
83 per cent who thought it ‘right and proper’ for the local minority
simply to ‘campaign against the council decision at the next local
elections’. And accepting the minority’s right to appeal over the head
of their local council is not quite the same as asserting that central
government should actually overrule the local council, though it
would be a pointless exercise if central government were always to
reject such appeals. Nonetheless, even 54 per cent indicates a sub-
stantial degree of acceptance for practical limitations on the auton-
omy of local councils.
Moreover, the public saw central government as a useful mechanism
for ensuring ‘proper standards in local services such as health, educa-
tion or policing’. When asked to choose the best way of ensuring such
‘proper standards’, 39 per cent opted for (central) ‘government inspec-
tors’ and 29 per cent for using the ‘courts to claim compensation for
poor services’. Only 32 per cent opted to rely on voter power in local
elections.
Table 6.5 The final say: local or central government?
Local rather than central govt should have the final say…
*after a local election on the issue 88
*after a local referendum on the issue 83
samples.
Table 6.6 Proper rights for local minorities
If a local council wants to do something which it is legally entitled to

do and for which it has the support of a majority of voters in its area,
but a minority in the area are bitterly opposed to it, then it would be
right and proper for the minority to...
campaign against the council decision at the next local election 83
appeal to central government to overrule the local council 54
Democracy
Direct democracy
When asked, the public usually tend to support mechanisms of direct
democracy. We have already seen that a local referendum was the most
popular public choice of mechanism for fixing local government
boundaries. Similarly, when faced with the more general proposition
that ‘[national/local] political issues are too complex to be decided by
everyone voting in a referendum and should be left to [Parliament/the
local council] to decide’, 65 per cent disagreed. That indicates rather
firm public support for referenda despite our intentionally discourag-
ing question wording. But it was support for direct democracy at any
level rather than for specifically local referenda. In fact support for
referenda in national politics ran at 69 per cent while support for
referenda in local politics ran at only 61 per cent.
Another traditional mechanism of direct democracy, now part of
New Labour’s local government reform programme, is a directly
elected executive mayor. We found public support for that was even
higher. Although we avoided the somewhat ambiguous and Anglo-
centric term ‘mayor’ in our interviews, 78 per cent of the public
agreed that ‘the leader of the council should be directly elected by
Table 6.7 Best way to ensure proper standards in local services?
National government inspectors 39

Voter power in local elections 32
Individuals going to court and claiming compensation 29
Table 6.8 Populist attitudes / Support for direct democracy
Support referenda (by disagreeing with anti-referendum question)…

*in national politics 69
*in local politics 61
Council leader should be directly rather than indirectly elected 78
Council decisions would be improved by having…
*more councillors 26
*fewer councillors 58
Note: * The two versions of each question were put to randomly selected split-half samples.
voters to [represent/carry out the will of] the people as a whole, and
not be elected by councillors as at present’. Our wording posed a
clear choice between a directly or indirectly elected chief executive.
Support for directly elected council leaders was very high every-
where. It only varied by a few per cent across the regions of Britain.
Significantly, it was lowest in London at 72 per cent. That was still a
very high figure. But what distinguished Londoners from others in
our survey was their unusually high level of support for a London-
wide tier of regional government rather than unusually high support
for an elected mayor.
Along with public support for a greater role for themselves as voters,
there was public support for a reduction in the number of their elected
representatives. We suggested that ‘council decisions would be
improved by having [more/less] councillors on each council than at
present’. Only 26 per cent agreed that more councillors would improve
decisions, while 58 per cent agreed that fewer councillors would do so.
Monitoring quangos
Elected local councils won more support when contrasted with non-
elected bodies than when contrasted with the people themselves. We
reminded our respondents that ‘many local services are no longer pro-
vided by elected local councils but by specialist bodies like health
authorities (boards in Scotland), NHS trusts, Training and Enterprise
Councils (Local Enterprise Companies in Scotland), and school boards’.
Then we asked how these non-elected bodies should relate to central
and local government. We divided our respondents randomly into two
half-samples.
In one half-sample, we focused attention on the locus of accountabil-

ity for these non-elected bodies and asked whether ‘these non-elected
bodies should normally:
• be responsible to central government?
• be responsible to local councils?
• act like private companies and decide their own affairs?’
To prevent the sequencing of these three alternatives affecting the

results we used the facilities of our CATI program to permute the
sequence randomly. A very large majority of the public, 68 per cent,
said these non-elected bodies should be responsible to elected local
councils. A further 20 per cent said they should be responsible to
central government. And a mere 12 per cent that they should be left to
run their own affairs.
In the other half-sample, we focused attention on the degree of
accountability for these non-elected bodies and asked whether councils
should:
• ‘have powers to control these non-elected bodies?

• have powers to investigate these non-elected bodies, but not to
control them directly?
• leave these non-elected bodies to get on with managing their own
affairs?’
Once again, we used the facilities of our CATI program to permute the
sequencing of these alternatives randomly to avoid any tendency for
people to opt for the first or the last of a set of three somewhat wordy
alternatives. A clear majority (57 per cent) said local councils should
have powers of investigation but not of control. Another 26 per cent
went further and said councils should have powers of control. And only
18 per cent said councils should have no powers of oversight, leaving
these non-elected bodies to manage their own affairs.
Taken together, these two questions show, very clearly, the degree
and nature of public support for local council monitoring of appointed
quangos. Overwhelmingly the public felt that these quangos should be
monitored, and monitored by local rather than central government.
However, they did appear to feel that powers of investigation rather
than control would be sufficient to keep quangos in order. If glasnost
could destroy the Soviet Union it might be sufficient to control local
NHS trusts.
Table 6.9 Monitoring quango boards
Non-elected bodies like health authorities, NHS trusts, TEC/LECs
and school boards should…
be responsible to central government 20
be responsible to local councils 68
decide their own affairs, like private companies 12
Elected local councils should…
have powers to control these non-elected bodies 26
have power to investigate, but not control them 57
leave them to get on with managing their own affairs 18
Paying for services
In principle, a huge majority of the public backed the concept of tax-

based local services. Only 34 per cent would agree that ‘people should
only have to pay for local services they use personally’ while 83 per
cent agreed that ‘everyone should contribute through taxation to the
cost of local services whether they use them or not’. (We put each
question to a randomly selected half of the sample, and no one was
asked both questions.)
Elsewhere in the interview we asked: ‘which do you feel should be
the main way of paying for most local services – charging those who
use the service, local council taxes, or national subsidies paid from
national taxes like income tax and VAT?’ Only 24 per cent opted for
charging users. The most popular choice (43 per cent) was local taxa-
tion even though local taxation has traditionally contributed relatively
little towards the provision of most local services, and very little indeed
if we count hospitals and health care as ‘local services’.
Table 6.10 Pay for services?
*People should only have to pay for local services they use personally 34
*Everyone should contribute through taxation to the cost of
local services whether they use them or not 83
We went on to ask in detail about the funding of six specific services.

Averaging across all six services, the public placed much more weight
on national taxation but even less on service charges than when asked
generally about ‘most local services’. A very clear majority of the public
opted for local taxation as the main basis for funding swimming pools
and public libraries. More surprisingly perhaps, a majority, even if a
smaller one, opted for local taxation as the main basis for funding
‘local public transport’. Conversely, very large majorities opted for
national taxation as the main basis for funding schools, hospitals and
the police. As for user charges, very few opted for user charges as the
main basis for funding schools, hospitals and the police, though 14 per
cent would make libraries a chargeable service, and about 25 per cent
would make swimming pools and local transport mainly chargeable
services.
Rival institutions of local governance
A large majority of the public (70 per cent) agreed that ‘it really does
not matter whether local services are run by elected councils,
appointed boards, or private business as long as they keep the quality
up while keeping charges and taxes down.’ Among the public, purely
ideological commitment to particular forms of local service provision
seemed weak. In particular, this was reflected in a remarkably weak
Table 6.11 Best way to pay for different services?
User-charges Local taxes National subsidies

from national taxes
% % %
For ‘most local services’ 24 43 33
For specified services:

swimming pools 26 65 8
public libraries 14 67 19
local public transport 23 55 22
schools 3 24 73
police 2 22 77
hospitals 3 12 85
Average for specified services 12 41 47
Note: Rows sorted by per cent naming national subsidy as best for funding the service.
commitment to all-purpose authorities. Only 30 per cent felt it was

better to have ‘one body responsible for all local services in its area,
from refuse collection to health care’ rather than ‘specialist bodies
responsible for each separate service’. Elected local councils were often
described, after the 1929 reforms, as ‘all-purpose local authorities’
though the term was never quite accurate, and it became significantly
less so after the creation of a National Health Service in 1948.
Public rejection of truly ‘all-purpose’ local authorities certainly did
not imply opposition to elected councils, however. We asked people to
rate various ways of ‘organizing and controlling local services’ by
giving each a ‘mark out of ten’. Elected local councils scored far better
than any alternative. If we subtract five from each score, so that they
range from minus 5 to plus 5 with zero as the neutral point, elected
councils scored an average of plus 2.6.
‘Letting those who provide the service run it themselves – for
example, teachers running schools’ came next with an average score of
plus 0.7 but that was a long way behind the public’s rating for elected
councils. ‘Letting those who use the service run it themselves – for
example, parents running schools’, or putting services in the hands of
‘committees of [businessmen/experts] appointed by central government’
both scored close to zero, though quangos run by ‘businessmen’ scored
noticeably worse than those run by ‘experts’. And ‘leaving the provi-
sion of local services to private companies who charge for the use of the
service’ received the worst score of all, a significantly negative score of
minus 0.8.
Table 6.12 Best for organizing and controlling local services
Does not matter who runs local services if quality is right 70

All-purpose local authorities are better than specialist bodies 30
Mean score
on ± 5 scale
Best way to organise and control local services:
elected council 2.6
service-providers, e.g. teachers running schools 0.7
service-users, e.g. parents running schools 0.1
experts appointed by central govt –0.1
businessmen appointed by central govt –0.5
private companies charging for use of service –0.8
Note: Entries sorted by ratings for ‘best way to organize and control local services’.
Table 6.13 Voluntary and community groups
Local community groups represent ordinary people’s opinions
better than local councillors 72
Easier to get things done by joining local community groups than
by approaching local councillors directly 63
Best way to make sure people get the services they want is to let
them organize them through voluntary groups and associations 39
A substantial majority of the public agreed that ‘local community

groups represent ordinary people’s opinions better than local council-
lors’, and that it was ‘easier to get things done by joining local commu-
nity groups than by approaching local councillors directly’. But when
we went on to suggest that ‘the best way to make sure people get the
services they want is to let them organize them through voluntary
groups and associations’ only a minority, 39 per cent, agreed.
Community and voluntary groups therefore won high marks for repre-
sentation, pressure and lobbying but not as a general means of organiz-
ing and controlling local services, despite the success of housing
associations.
Correlations between scores given to rival institutions were particu-
larly high between ratings for appointed boards and private compa-
nies, and between control by users and providers. This seems to suggest
three dimensions of support: for elected councils, for boards and
Table 6.14 Correlations between ratings for rival institutions
Elected Appointed Private Service Service

councils boards companies users providers
Elected council 100 –22 –18 0 –8

Appointed boards 100 46 22 29
Private companies 100 21 18
Users 100 37
Providers 100
Note: Random half-samples were asked about ‘appointed committees of

[businessmen/experts]’. The pattern of correlations with these two kinds of boards did not
differ greatly though, as might be expected, public ratings of appointed boards of
‘businessmen’ correlated somewhat more strongly than ratings of appointed boards of
‘experts’ with public ratings for ‘private companies’.
private companies, and for participant control by users (e.g. parents) or

providers (e.g. teachers). People who gave relatively high ratings to
elected councils tended to give relatively low ratings to appointed
boards and private companies, yet neither relatively high nor low
ratings to control by users or providers. Thus there was a degree of
conflict or contradiction between support for elected councils and
appointed boards or private companies which was not so evident
between support for elected councils and participant control by users
or providers.
We tested the public’s ability to discriminate between different ser-
vices by asking who ‘should mainly control’ and who ‘does mainly
control’ each of eight different services – offering as alternatives:
Table 6.15 Control of different services?
Local council Private company Appointed boards

% % %
Who should control?

refuse collection 77 19 4
schools 55 3 42
help for local business 52 9 39
policing 46 1 53
water and sewage 45 21 34
hospitals 30 4 66
unemployment benefits 23 1 76
electricity 18 36 46
Average 43 12 45
Who actually does control?

refuse collection 63 35 1
schools 78 3 19
help for local business 48 12 40
policing 68 1 31
water and sewage 37 56 7
hospitals 31 10 59
unemployment benefits 29 1 70
electricity 9 81 10
Average 45 25 30
Notes:
1. Rows sorted by per cent saying control of the service should rest mainly with the local
council.
2. There were very few ‘don’t knows’ on every one of the ‘should control’ but larger
numbers of DKs on the ‘actually does control’ questions. These reached 10 per cent on
hospitals, 11 per cent on unemployment benefits and 30 per cent on ‘help for local
business’.
‘your local council, private companies, or committees appointed by

government’.
Overwhelmingly people said their local council should control refuse
collection, and a narrow majority also chose their local council for
schools and ‘help for local business’. Conversely, a large majority opted
for government-appointed committees to control hospitals and the dis-
tribution of unemployment benefits. On other services public opinion
was more divided. On policing, it divided between the local council
and government-appointed committees, though slightly more of the
public favoured the latter. And on public utilities – water, sewage and
electricity – the public split three ways between control by local gov-
ernment, by central government or by private companies, though it
put local councils top for water and sewage, and central government
top for electricity. Across the eight services the public divided almost
equally between local and central government control while only
12 per cent opted for private companies.
To some extent these choices simply reflected the actually existing
pattern of control, or public misperceptions about the actual pattern of
control. That much is obvious. What is more interesting is the extent
to which choices did not reflect either realities or misperceptions. Thus
81 per cent were aware that electricity was mainly controlled by private
companies but only 36 per cent approved. And 56 per cent were aware
that water was mainly controlled by private companies but only 21 per
cent approved. On the other hand, 78 per cent thought schools were
mainly controlled by local councils but only 55 per cent approved. On
average the rate of approval of local council control roughly equalled
the rate of perceptions of local council control. But compared to their
perceptions, people were on average 15 per cent more willing to accept
control by appointed committees and boards and 13 per cent less
willing to accept control by private companies – reflecting greater
public support for control by ‘experts’ than by ‘markets’.
Influences
Most attitudes towards the best scale of operation and control of local
services were relatively unaffected by social background, strength of
local identity, or political ideology. However, there was one exception:
the question of whether there should be an elected assembly for the
respondent’s region. Regional government was relatively unpopular
among older people, middle-class identifiers, those who placed them-
selves ‘on the right’ rather than ‘on the left’, and Conservative party
supporters. It was relatively popular among those who identified

strongly with their region. Both localism and left/right ideology there-
fore influenced opinion on elected regional assemblies, though party
had more influence than either.
Right-wingers and Conservative supporters were also the most likely
to say that central government should have the final say in any dispute
with a local council, even if the council had won an popular mandate
in a local election or local referendum. Similarly, right-wingers and
Conservative supporters were more likely than others to defend
appointed quango boards from interference by local councils. And if
quangos were to be responsible to elected government, right-wingers
preferred that it should be to central government.
Table 6.16 Correlations with opposition to elected local institutions
Middle-class Age Identification Right-wing Con v. Lab

identity with locality self-image party
preference
corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100
Oppose
regional
assembly 16 14 –13 15 20
Central
government to
have the final
say 11 – – 14 13
Appointed
bodies should
be left to run
their own
affairs – – – 15 18
Appointed
bodies should
be responsible
to central
government – – – 14 –
Notes:
1. Identification with locality (district or region) was coded on an 11-point scale from –5 to
+5. We have used identification with the district, except for the question about regional
assemblies, where the correlation was, reasonably enough, slightly higher with regional
identification
2. ‘Right-wing self-image’ was coded on a 7-point scale: strongly left, left, centre-left,
centre, centre-right, right, strongly right.
Support for referenda varied very little with social or political back-
ground, but opposition to the proposal for elected mayors was stronger
among the middle class and the highly educated, though it was largely
unaffected by local identification or left/right ideology.
Opposition to complete dependence upon usercharges for local ser-
vices came mainly from the old rather than, as might have been
expected, from self-proclaimed left-wingers. Age apart, the lack of cor-
relation reflected a very general view that local government services
should be funded mainly by local or national taxes.
Leaving private companies to provide local services was most
popular among right-wingers and Conservatives but it was unaffected
by other aspects of social and political background, including local
identity. Even the correlation between support for private companies
and ideology or party was only evident on half of the local services we
discussed in our interviews. Right-wingers were clearly more favourable
to private companies providing refuse disposal services, water and elec-
tricity, but only slightly more inclined than others to see a role for
private firms in hospitals, and still less so in schools, the police, unem-
ployment benefits or encouraging local businesses.
Right-wingers and Conservatives were particularly likely to agree that
the institutional form of local governance ‘did not matter’ as long as the
quality and cost of local services was right. The highly educated were
particularly likely to disagree. But perhaps it is worth noting that local
identification had little effect upon answers to this question and, in so
far as it had any at all, those who identified most strongly with the local-
ity were inclined to agree that institutional forms did not matter.
Table 6.17 Correlations with support for private firms running specific services
Right-wing self-image Cons v. Lab party preference

corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100
Should be run by private

companies:
water 20 18
electricity 19 19
refuse collection 16 17
hospitals 10 –
Notes:
1. Right-wing self image coded on a 7-point scale: strongly left, left, centre-left, centre,
centre-right, right, strongly right .
When asked to rate particular institutions as mechanisms for organiz-

ing and controlling local services, right-wingers and/or Conservatives
were more favourable than others towards private companies and
quango boards, especially if the quango boards were filled with ‘busi-
nessmen’ rather than ‘experts’. The highly educated were relatively
unfavourable towards private companies or quango boards, whether
filled by ‘businessmen’ or ‘experts’, and, at the same time, relatively
sceptical about the contribution of voluntary groups.
But perhaps our most intriguing finding is that those who had the
strongest sense of local identification were more favourable than others
to each and every institution of local governance – to appointed
boards, especially if filled with ‘experts’ rather than ‘businessmen’, to
service users and providers, and to private companies as well as to
elected councils. Indeed local identification had relatively little effect
upon support for elected local councils. It was age, not local identity,
that correlated most strongly with favourable ratings for elected local
councils. It seems that a strong sense of local identity made people
favourable towards local services and local governance of whatever
kind, while it was ideology that made them favour one kind of gover-
nance over another. Perhaps a strong personal sense of local identity
made it particularly easy for the public to believe in the local commit-
ment of those involved in local governance, irrespective of whether
they were elected councillors, appointed quango board members,
volunteers or employees.
Conclusion: a general preference for democratically elected

governance
Certainly, the public endorsed the view that it did not matter who pro-
vided local services so long as the quality and cost was right. But as a
general mechanism for organizing and controlling local services, the
public rated elected local councils very highly, certainly far higher than
any alternative we offered. Nothing else came close in the public’s esti-
mation. They had a mildly positive attitude towards self-management
by service users or providers. And a mildly but increasingly negative
attitude towards, respectively, appointed boards of ‘experts’, appointed
boards of ‘businessmen’ and private companies operating in the
market.
A table of mean scores for each alternative institution for local gover-
nance emphasizes the fact that elected local councils were universally
seen as the best way to organize local services. Every section of the
Table 6.18 Correlations with institutional ratings
Middle-class High Age Identification Right-wing Con v. Lab

identity education with district self-image party
preference
corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100 corr ¥ 100
Correlation with ‘organization does not matter’ – –17 – – 22 16

Voluntary groups best –12 –20 – – – –
Correlation with public ratings of following, as best
2014-12-27
way to organize and control local services…
elected council – – 20 9 – –
appointed businessmen – –16 – 14 25 21
appointed experts – –19 – 20 14 –
service users –11 – – 11 – –
service providers –10 – – 11 – –12
private companies/the market – –10 – 10 25 19
Notes:
1. Identification with district coded on 11-point scale from –5 to +5.
2. Right-wing self image coded on a 7-point scale: strongly left, left, centre-left, centre, centre-right, right, strongly right.
3. Correlations less than 0.10 replaced by a dash, except the correlation between local identification and council rating, which falls just short of
the threshold but is important theoretically.
123
Table 6.19 General presumptions in favour of democratic and locally

autonomous governance
Democratic local governance Autonomous local governance

Rating for an elected council Say that the local council,
as the best way not central government,
to run local services should have the ‘final say’
Mean score
on ± 5 scale %
Ideological self-image:
left 2.7 89
centre-left 2.7 90
centre 2.3 91
centre-right 2.7 85
right 2.5 73
Identification with
district:
lowest quintile
(score <0) 2.5 82
second (score 0) 2.4 85
mid quintile
(score 1,2) 2.4 84
fourth (score 3,4) 2.5 88
highest quintile
(score 5) 3.0 87
Years lived in district:
lowest quintile
(<9yrs) 2.5 86
second (9–19) 2.5 86
mid quintile
(20–29) 2.6 83
fourth (30–44) 2.4 87
highest quintile
(45 or more) 2.9 86
Participation in local
elections:
voted in last local
election 2.7 86
did not vote 2.3 85
public, whether on the left or on the right, whether they identified

strongly or weakly with the locality, whether they were recent incom-
ers or long-term residents, nonetheless rated elected local councils far
above any other institution of local governance. Support for elected
local councils failed to correlate with local identity or ideology because

even those with a weak sense of local identity or a right-wing ideology
still gave elected councils very high marks as a way of organizing and
controlling local services. Even those who did not participate in local
elections gave almost as high marks to elected councils as those who
did participate in them. Support for a democratic system of local gover-
nance, based on elections, was founded upon a pervasive public com-
mitment to democratic procedures and was unaffected by the strength
of local identification or ideology.
Figures 6.1 and 6.2 display the level of support for alternative struc-
tures of local governance at different strengths of local identification,
or different positions on the left–right scale. As Figure 6.1 shows, local
identification increased confidence in the good sense of local service
users, local service providers, local experts and even local businessmen.
Long-term residence had a similar effect. And as Figure 6.2 shows,
right-wing ideology increased the ratings given to private companies
and quangos run by ‘businessmen’. But these figures also show that at
every point on the local identity or ideological spectrum, elected coun-
cils were rated far above any alternative. The lines indicating support
for elected councils at different strengths of local identification, or dif-
ferent positions on the left–right scale, are almost horizontal and
always much higher than for any other means of local governance.
Figure 6.1 Impact of local identification on institutional ratings.

Mean scores for best way to run local services
3.5
3 Elected council
2.5
2
1.5
1 Providers
0.5 Users
Experts
0
–0.5 Businessmen
–1 The market
–1.5
–2
Lowest quintile Middle Highest quintile
Strenght of identification with the district
Figure 6.2 Impact of ideology on institutional ratings.

3
2.5
Elected council
2
1.5
1
Providers
0.5
0 Users
–0.5 Experts
–1 Businessmen
–1.5 The market
–2
Left Centre Right
Left–right ideology
Similarly, there was overwhelming support for an autonomous

system, as indicated by the numbers who said the local council, with
the backing of its electorate, should have the final say in a dispute with
central government. And that too did not depend much upon local
identification. Indeed, support for the principle of local autonomy was
hardly affected by the strength of psychological identification with the
local district in which the respondent lived, nor by whether people
were recent incomers or long-term residents, nor by whether they par-
ticipated in local elections. In Figure 6.3 the line indicating support for
local autonomy rises very little as local identification intensifies. But it
falls sharply at the right-wing end of the ideological spectrum, though
only from around 90 per cent on the left to 73 per cent on the right.
Support for autonomous local governance, like support for a democra-
tic form of local governance, was based on a general presumption, a
presumption in favour of local autonomy, that varied little and which
did not depend upon psychological commitment to the particular local
district in which people currently lived.
On average, the public thought their local district was a better size
than any other for the delivery of local services, but far from perfect
and inherently non- perfectable. They recognized that different
Table 6.20 Variable ratings for alternative structures of local governance
Appointed boards Self-management The Market

Appointed Appointed By service By service Private
‘businessmen’ ‘experts’ users providers companies
Mean score on Mean score on Mean score on Mean score on Mean score on
± 5 scale ± 5 scale ± 5 scale ± 5 scale ± 5 scale
left –1.4 –0.6 0 0.8 –1.6
centre-left –0.6 0 0.1 0.7 –1.1
centre –0.7 0.2 0 0.7 –0.8
centre-right –0.2 0.2 0.5 0.8 –0.5
right 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.5 0
2014-12-27
Identification with district:
lowest quintile (score < 0) –1.1 –1.0 –0.4 0.2 –1.4
second (score 0) –0.7 –0.3 0.1 0.6 –0.8
mid quintile (score 1,2) –0.5 –0.2 0 0.8 –0.8
fourth (score 3,4) –0.2 0.3 0.3 0.8 –0.6
highest quintile (score 5) –0.3 0.3 0.5 1.0 –0.8
Years lived in district:
lowest quintile (< 9yrs) –0.9 –0.4 0 0.6 –1.1
second (9–19) –0.3 –0.3 0.1 0.5 –0.8
mid quintile (20–29) –0.8 –0.2 0 0.8 –0.9
fourth (30–44) –0.4 0 0.3 0.9 –0.7
highest quintile (45 or more) –0.1 0.6 0.3 0.8 –0.6
Participation in local elections:
voted in last local election –0.5 –0.1 0.2 0.7 –0.9
did not vote –0.4 0.1 0.1 0.8 –0.7
127
Figure 6.3 Autonomous local governance.

% who say local council should have the ‘final say’
95
90 By identification with district
85
80
By right-wing
ideology
75
70
65
Ideology and local identification both arrayed along the horizontal axis
services might best be run on different scales, and by a mix of single-

purpose and multi-purpose authorities, including elected regional
assemblies. But they remained strongly committed to the elective prin-
ciple. As well as giving general support to local governance by elected
councils, they supported extensions of direct electoral participation by
means of referenda or direct election of local council leaders. They
wanted non-elected bodies such as appointed boards to be made
responsible to elected government at some level, and preferably to
elected local government. And they strongly supported the principle of
funding local services mainly through taxation rather than user
charges, though whether that should be national or local taxation
depended very much on the particular service in question.
Perhaps the public put too much faith in democratic control and
local autonomy. In a lecture to the Public Finance Foundation, William
Waldegrave tried to dismiss the significance of elections:
The key point in this argument is not whether those who run our
public services are elected, but whether they are producer-responsive
or consumer-responsive. Services are not necessarily made to
respond to the public simply by giving citizens a democratic voice,
and a distant and diffuse one at that, in their make up.3
There may be some truth in that argument. In particular circumstances

the public may not support a democratic form of local governance.
And their support for local autonomy is inconsistent with their
support for national standards. Nonetheless their first instinct is to opt
for the democratic and autonomous alternative.
7
Governing Perspectives
Elected councillors constitute the governing elite in the traditional
local governance system. How might their perspectives differ from
those of the public? It would be surprising if they did not have an
unusually positive insider’s view of elected local councils and their role
in local governance. But councillors are also party animals. Compared
to the public, councillors’ views might be influenced as much by their
greater loyalty to ideology and party as by their insider role within the
traditional system of local governance.
Appointed quango board members constitute an increasing part of
the governing elite within the new, mixed local governance system.
How might their perspectives differ not only from those of the public
but more especially from those of the traditional elite?
Appointed board members might be expected to differ from the public
simply because they, like elected councillors, are a local governance elite.
They might have a ‘governing perspective’ in some respects similar to
that of elected councillors.
But since elected councillors and appointed board members owe
their place to very different processes of selection they may be viewed
as (and possibly feel and behave as) rival elites within the overall struc-
ture of local governance. Do these rival elites have strongly negative
attitudes towards each other, or at least towards each other’s institu-
tions? Or does a commitment to the locality transcend the tension
between old and new systems of local governance? And if there is some
degree of mutual antagonism, is it symmetric or asymmetric? Does one
side feel more aggressive or resentful than the other?
Again, it would be surprising if appointed board members did not
have an unusually positive insider’s view of appointed boards, just as
elected councillors might have an unusually positive insider’s view of
130
Governing Perspectives 131
traditional local government councils. But whether quango board

members have a negative attitude towards elected councils is a more
open question. They might see their boards as a superior replacement
for elected councils, the way of the future. But, on the other hand,
they might see their boards more as a useful adjunct to elected coun-
cils, useful only in limited areas where there was more need for special-
ist or technocratic expertise than for democratic representation. And in
particular, board members might see their own particular board as
exceptional. In that case they might take a positive view of their own
particular kind of board without any wider commitment to the general
principle of local governance by appointed boards.
In this chapter we compare rival local governance elites with the
public and with each other. Within the elite we contrast elected coun-
cillors with appointed board members. And among board members we
contrast those appointed to training and enterprise boards (TEC/LECs)
with those appointed to health boards (DHA/HBs).
The local connection
Links to locality
Councillors were no more likely to have been born in the region or dis-
trict where they lived than the public generally. Yet, paradoxically,
they were far more likely than the public to be long-term residents of
the locality. The paradox is explained in part by the fact that council-
lors were, on average, much older than the public generally. But what-
ever the cause, the consequence was that councillors were 17 per cent
more likely than the public to have lived 20 years in the district.
Despite that, councillors were slightly less likely than the public to
have all of their friends or relatives located in the region or the district
where they lived. They were only slightly less likely than the public to
work outside the district and hardly differed from the public in terms
of confining their use of shopping and leisure facilities within the
region or district. So, across the full range of our objective measures of
links to the locality, we cannot describe councillors as unambiguously
more (or less) local than the public.
By contrast, appointed board members were significantly less likely
than either councillors or the public to have been born in the region or
the district where they now lived. And while councillors were 17 per
cent more likely than the public to have lived in the district for
20 years, DHA/HB board members were slightly less likely than the
public to have done so, and TEC/LEC board members 11 per cent less.
132
Table 7.1 Objective links to locality
Public Elected TEC/LEC DHA/HB

councillors boards boards
% % % %
Born…
in Britain? 92 91 92 92
in region? 67 61 49 52
in district? 36 31 20 19
Lived in region for 20 years or more 80 88 67 79
Lived in district for 20 years or more 60 77 49 58
2014-12-27
All relatives…
in region 47 42 30 34
in district 19 17 11 12
All friends…
in region 59 55 32 36
in district 34 27 14 16
Workplace located…
within district 38 40 57 48
outside district 27 22 37 30
Use shopping or leisure facilities entirely…
within region 82 79 65 71
within district 50 54 27 36
Table 7.2 Interest in local issues

Mean score Mean score Mean score Mean score
Local issues and what local council does 1.9 4.6 2.9 2.9
2014-12-27
National issues and what Parliament and govt do 2.0 3.9 3.6 3.6
European issues and what European Community does 0.4 2.3 2.1 1.8
Note: All scores measured on a scale from minus 5 to plus 5. Entries sorted by councillors’ levels of interest.
133
Table 7.3 Local information
134
% % % %
Read local evening paper, regularly 44 45 42 32
Follow local news on radio or TV, regularly 78 78 80 73
Read local weekly paper regularly 70 79 72 76
Attended public meeting on local issue 24 90 78 80
Attended parents’ meeting at school 33 62 49 40
Claimed they voted in last local elections 74 99 83 83
Claimed they voted in last parliamentary election 87 99 95 98
2014-12-27
In local elections, vote on…
local issues 57 71 64 64
national issues 34 14 27 24
Know district name 92 100 100 100
Know council tax funds only quarter of LG spending 26 62 63 59
Attribute control of the following services mainly to local
council:
refuse collection 62 82 80 70
schools 72 82 82 82
policing 64 50 65 82
help for local businesses 33 35 15 23
water and sewage 35 13 21 22
hospitals 28 5 10 3
unemployment benefits 26 5 6 6
electricity 9 1 1 1
Note: Entries for perceived control of services sorted in descending order of councillors’ perceptions.
Appointed board members were about 10 per cent less likely than
councillors to have all their relatives living in the region. They were
21 per cent less likely than councillors to have all their friends living in
the region. Conversely, only 36 per cent of DHA/HB board members,
and 27 per cent of TEC/LEC board members, compared to 50 per cent
of the public and 54 per cent of councillors, relied on their district for
shopping and leisure facilities. On everything except their workplace –
though that is a very significant exception – board members had
significantly fewer objective links to their locality than the public, and
TEC/LEC board members especially so.
All elites, elected or appointed, expressed more interest than the
public in political issues of any kind including local, national and
European issues. But as we might expect, councillors were uniquely
interested in local issues and local council activities, far more even
than members of appointed boards.
Councillors and board members hardly differed from the public in
their attention to local newspapers and local news programmes on
radio or television. But both were far more likely than the public to
have attended a parents’ meeting at a school or a public meeting on a
local issue, councillors about 15 per cent more even than board
members. And both councillors and board members were better
informed than the public about the control of local services and the
funding of local government. Overall therefore in terms of interest and
information, board members were closer to elected councillors than to
the public, somewhat less obsessed with local affairs than councillors,
but much more informed and participant in local affairs than the
public.
Identifications
Local governance elites differed little from the public in terms of their
identification with friends or family or even with their birthplace, their
region or with Britain as a whole. Even differences in the extent
(though not necessarily the direction, however) of identification with a
class or religion were small, though board members’ identification with
class was relatively weak. But the elites, whether elected or appointed,
identified much more strongly than the public with their workplace.
And for very different reasons no doubt, elites identified much more
strongly than the public with Europe.
Figure 7.1 shows that councillors had a unique attachment to the
very narrow locality in which they lived. They identified much more
strongly with their local district or their home neighbourhood (by
Figure 7.1 Identifications
around 1.5 points on our ±5 point scale of identification) than either
appointed board members or the public. And Figure 7.1 also shows
that elected councillors were even more uniquely political animals.
They differed by a margin of 3.7 points from the public, and even more
from appointed board members, on their identification with a political
party.
Pride, responsibility and exclusion

Elites, whether appointed or elected, distinguished more sharply
between pride and shame than the public. They were more inclined
than the public to feel proud of good actions by people from their dis-
trict but, at the same time, they were even less inclined than the public
to feel any shame over the bad actions by people from their district.
The difference between feeling pride and shame ran at 20 per cent
among the public but at 32 per cent among councillors and about
35 per cent among appointed board members.
At the same time it is clear, however, that, if we take pride and
shame together, councillors were 23 per cent more sensitive to the
behaviour of people from the district than they were to the behaviour
of people from the rest of Britain, that appointed board members were
around 16 per cent more sensitive to the behaviour of local people,
and the public only 11 per cent more. That pattern is consistent with
Table 7.4 Identifications

Mean Mean Mean Mean
score score score score
Strength of feeling of belonging to:
family 3.9 4.3 4.1 4.1
home neighbourhood 2.3 3.9 2.5 2.5
district 2.0 3.7 2.3 2.3
Britain 3.0 3.6 3.4 3.5
a political party –0.4 3.3 –0.9 –0.4
region 2.7 3.3 2.5 2.6
circle of friends 2.8 2.9 2.2 2.7
work neighbourhood 0.5 2.1 1.8 1.5
birthplace 1.8 1.9 1.1 0.9
Europe –0.1 1.2 1.3 1.0
a social class 1.0 1.1 –0.1 0.4
a religion –0.2 0.4 –0.6 0.4
Notes: All scores measured on a scale from minus 5 to plus 5. Entries sorted by councillors’
identifications.
our finding that councillors had a stronger sense of identification with

the local district than board members or the public
Councillors hardly differed from the public in terms of their feelings
of special responsibility for the welfare of local people. Neither did
board members, taken together, though there was a clear difference
between TEC/LEC board members and DHA/HB members – board
members in the health service were noticeably less willing to discrim-
inate between local and non-local people.
But when the issue was put in terms of local exclusion rather than
inclusion, a clear difference between elites and the public emerged.
Only 9 per cent of councillors and 7 per cent of board members com-
pared to 23 per cent of the public would exclude recent incomers from
local elections. And only 7 per cent of councillors along with still fewer
board members (especially DHA/HB board members) compared to
18 per cent of the public would exclude recent incomers from free
access to local schools and hospitals.
On exclusion as on inclusion (i.e. ‘responsibility for welfare’)
DHA/HB board members were particularly unwilling to discriminate
between locals and incomers. And while some of the differences
between them and TEC/LEC members were very small and not by
138
Table 7.5 Local pride

% % % %
*Feel pride when something good is done by people from…

district 70 81 79 74
region 67 65 66 64
rest of Britain 59 55 59 56
*Feel shame when something bad is done by people from…
2014-12-27
region 43 32 37 30
difference: pride for district – shame for district +20 +32 +31 +39
Feel [pride/shame] when something [good/bad] is done by
people from…
region 55 48 52 47
difference: district – Britain +11 +23 +17 +15
Note: * These two versions of the question were put to randomly selected split-half samples. Figures are the percentages who answer with an
unqualified ‘yes’.
Table 7.6 Local exclusiveness

% % % %
More responsibility for welfare of…

*others in district than for those who live in the rest of the region 61 64 71 52
*others in region than for those who live in the rest of Britain 47 49 52 46
2014-12-27
People from rest of Britain should…
only get free access to local schools and hospitals 18 7 6 3
only be able to vote in local elections 23 9 7 7
if they have [lived/paid taxes] locally for 2 years
Note: * These two versions of the question were put to randomly selected split-half samples. Figures are the percentages who positively agree.
139
themselves statistically compelling evidence, they were at least consis-

tent with DHA/HB board members’ participation in a service that
deliberately styled itself the ‘NHS’ – a ‘National’ rather than a local
Health Service.
Party and ideology
In Chapter 4 we found that ideology or partisanship affected attitudes

to most objectives of local governance, often quite strongly. So before
we contrast the views of different elites about the proper role of local
government with the views of the public we need to take note of broad
differences of ideology and partisanship.
In terms of national voting preferences, councillors were somewhat
more Liberal and Conservative, and considerably less Labour than the
public, whose mood at the time of our surveys had swung very heavily
towards Labour. Yet in terms of ideological self-images, the public
remained to the right of councillors. In addition, councillors tended to
put themselves at both extremes of left and right to a noticeably
greater degree than the public who tended more towards the centre. In
ideological terms, councillors were not only more left-wing than the
public but more ideologically polarized than the public. We might
expect therefore that ideology, whether left or right, would have a
greater influence upon councillors than on the public.
Appointed board members were somewhat more Conservative, less
Labour and less Liberal than elected councillors in terms of national
voting preferences – and, of course, far less Labour than the mood of
the public at the time of our surveys. In terms of their ideological self-
images, appointed board members were also far more right-wing than
either the public or elected councillors. While the public placed them-
selves somewhere between councillors and board members in terms of
ideology, appointed board members were twice as far away to the right
of the public as councillors were to the left of the public. Our findings
do not suggest that appointed board members were such Thatcherite
placemen as some journalists and politicians on the left had originally
claimed, but they were undoubtedly more Conservative and right-wing
than either councillors or the public.
Other things being equal we might expect the right-wing and
Conservative tendencies of appointed board members to prejudice
them against public services of any kind, whether national or local,
and to prejudice them in favour of letting private firms supply citizens’
needs by operating in the market and providing chargeable services.
But other things were very unlikely to be equal in this case. The people
appointed to local governance boards were likely to have an unusual
interest in locally provided public services. Right-wingers these
appointees might be, but very atypical right-wingers.
The role of local governance
Minimalism
Elites and public differed little on support for universal services or on
special services for the needy. But elites, especially councillors, were
relatively unenthusiastic about providing extra payable services for
business, and relatively favourable towards ‘quality of life’ subsidies for
theatres, concert halls and sports centres. Councillors were 23 per cent
less favourable than the public to the provision of extra payable ser-
vices yet, at the same time, 18 per cent more favourable than the
public towards ‘quality of life’ subsidies.
Averaging support across all four categories of local government ser-
vices, DHA/HB boards were as favourable as councillors, and TEC/LEC
boards slightly more so. Despite their relatively right-wing ideology,
therefore, board members certainly did not take a minimalist view on
local council services. Their entrepreneurial spirit was too strong for
that. The public differed from the elite, and rival elites differed from
each other, not so much in their commitment to minimalist or exten-
sive public services as in the mix of categories of public services that
they supported.
Ideological polarization was greater among councillors than among
the public. Amongst both councillors and the public at large, right-
wingers were more favourable than left-wingers to providing extra
payable services, and less favourable than left-wingers towards provid-
ing ‘quality of life’ subsidies. But the extent of ideological polarization
was much greater among councillors. Left and right differed on the
question of extra payable services by 14 per cent among the public but
by 22 per cent among councillors. And on ‘quality of life’ subsidies by
only 5 per cent among the public but by 17 per cent among council-
lors. Board members were less ideologically polarized than councillors,
but more so than the public.
National or local standards?

There was broad support for local autonomy. About 87 per cent of the
elite and 92 per cent of the public agreed that ‘local councils should be
free to provide whatever standard of services their local community
142
Table 7.7 Party and ideology

% % % %
Voting choice in an immediate parliamentary election:

Conservative 25 33 44 44
2014-12-27
Liberal Democrat 17 23 15 18
Labour 59 44 41 39
Labour lead over Conservative: +34 +11 –3 –5
left 26 33 19 19
centre-left 22 24 18 21
centre 14 9 17 14
centre right 21 16 23 23
right 17 20 24 24
Left (incl. centre-left) minus right (incl. centre-right) +10 +21 –10 –7
Note: Votes as percentages of those who opted for one of the three main parties.
Table 7.8 Minimalism

% % % %
Provide services for special needs 90 89 90 84
Grants and subsidies for theatres,
concert halls, sports centres 67 85 81 73
Provide universal services 82 79 77 84
Provide extra services for cash 71 48 65 57
Average: 78 75 78 75
Note: Entries sorted by councillors’ views.
wants and is willing to pay for’. And appointed board members were
only about 10 per cent less likely than councillors or the public to say
local government should provide ‘as few or as many services as the
local community decide’.
There was very much more support for national standards when the
concept was put more positively, by asking whether ‘Parliament should
decide national standards for public services and require local councils
to meet those standards everywhere’. But once again appointed board
members were only about 10 per cent more favourable than council-
lors or the public towards national standards.
Table 7.9 National standards?

% % % %
*Parliament should require local

councils to meet national standards 74 72 85 79
*Local councils should be free to
provide whatever standard of services
their local community wants and is
willing to pay for 92 88 87 86
Local government should provide
whatever services local people
want (versus only what central
government decides) 91 91 81 82
samples.
The Tiebout thesis

Local governance elites were not in general more likely than the public
to contemplate moving house just to live under a more acceptable tax-
service regime and they were influenced by the same factors as
influenced the public – namely a right-wing ideology, or living in
London. TEC/LEC board members who lived in London or in the
South East were specially likely to report that they had considered such
a move. And board members who had considered moving were more
likely than the public (or councillors) actually to have gone ahead and
relocated. Thus, among those appointed to TECs who lived in London,
half of the 16 per cent who had contemplated moving for Tieboutian
reasons had actually done so. And among the larger number of TEC
board members who lived in the South East, 7 out of the 8 per cent
who had contemplated such a move had actually relocated. But sur-
prisingly perhaps, appointed board members, like the public, were mar-
ginally more likely to contemplate such a move in order to get better
services than to get lower taxes.
A mission to mobilize?
Appointed board members hardly differed from the public on ques-
tions of local development, and councillors were only slightly more
inclined to say that local government should ‘actively encourage local
business’ rather than ‘leave economic development to the market’, or
still less ‘to central government’. Councillors were also only very
slightly more inclined than the public or appointed board members to
support discriminatory local preference in purchasing goods and
services.
Perhaps the surprise is that business-dominated TEC/LEC boards
were as willing as the public (and almost as willing as councillors) to
agree that ‘local government should actively encourage local business’
and yet no more willing than the public to back a purchasing prefer-
ence for local businesses. Adam Smith famously alleged that any
meeting of businessmen was a conspiracy against the public interest
and in favour of their own very particular interests. But despite their
right-wing ideology and their business background, TEC/LEC boards
were as ‘socialist’ oriented as the public in terms of public intervention
to encourage development. And despite their particularly local business
connections, they were no more inclined than the public to advocate
special favours for local businessmen. In these respects, their ‘public
spirit’ seemed to triumph over both their political ideology and their
narrow business interests.
Table 7.10 The Tiebout relocation thesis

% % % %
Considered move to council with better services

or lower taxes 5 3 5 5
among those on the left 6 4 1 5
among those in the centre 4 2 4 3
2014-12-27
among those on the right 7 3 9 8
*for better services 7 3 5 6
*for lower taxes 3 3 4 3
in London only 11 6 16 6
Actually moved to council with better services
or lower taxes 1 1 2 2
in London only 3 0 8 3
Note: * These two versions of the question were put to randomly selected split-half samples.
145
146
Table 7.11 Local interests and development
2014-12-27
% % % %
Local government should:

actively encourage local business in order to create jobs and improve 88 93 89 86
the local economy, not leave economic development
to [central government/market forces]
exercise local preference in purchasing 52 55 50 51
Councillors were around 20 per cent more enthusiastic than board

members or the public about the potential for developing human capa-
bilities and personalities through participation. Board members were
slightly more enthusiastic than the public but not a lot more.
Councillors were equally enthusiastic about local government
‘helping people develop their capabilities and personalities by encour-
aging them to participate directly in the management of services they
themselves used’ or ‘in elections and political campaigns’. Board
members and the public were not only less enthusiastic about both
kinds of participation, they were also significantly less enthusiastic
about participation in elections and politics than about participation
in self-management. As a result, the public was 19 per cent less enthu-
siastic than councillors about participation in self management, and
30 per cent less enthusiastic about participation in elections and polit-
ical campaigns. Elected councillors displayed a unique faith in the
value of the electoral process.
But councillors’ enthusiasm for mobilization faded when they were
asked about setting up special committees to encourage and support
ethnic groups, women’s groups or gays and lesbians, or ‘encouraging
those in need to demand more services’ from local government. When
framed in these ways, support was highest among the public, less
among councillors and still less among appointed board members.
Compared to the public councillors were 5 per cent less favourable to
special committees and board members 17 per cent less. And again
compared to the public, councillors were 17 per cent less inclined to
encourage demands on local government while board members were
23 per cent less.
Thus, elites were specially inclined to think that participation would
be good for the public, but also specially inclined to fear that it would
not be good for local governance. And within the elite, appointed
board members were less inclined than councillors to see the benefits
of mass participation and more inclined than councillors to see the
dangers.
On average elites were about 22 per cent less willing than the public
to agree that ‘local councils should pay most attention to the views
and interests of those who [pay most council tax/have expert knowl-
edge/need council jobs/rely most on council services]’. Indeed, elites
were less willing than the public to agree that the council should pay
attention to any of these four. But there was some variation across the
four. Elites differed most from the public on whether councils should
pay attention to those who needed council jobs. That was not wonder-
Table 7.12 A mission to mobilize?

% % % %
Develop people’s capabilities
and personalities by participation: 47 72 53 56
*in elections and political campaigns 42 72 48 51
*in self-management of services 52 71 59 61
Set up support committees: 51 46 34 35
*to give moral but not financial
support 51 43 30 32
*to give moral and financial support 51 50 38 36
*for women’s groups 55 48 33 33
*for racial and ethnic groups 62 59 52 50
*for gays and lesbians 35 31 15 20
Encourage the needy to demand more 78 61 56 55
Note: * These versions of the questions were put to randomly selected subsamples.
fully popular among the public but it was overwhelmingly opposed by

elites of all kinds. Among the local governance elite, councillors were
more inclined than board members to advocate paying attention to
those who needed council jobs or services, and less inclined than board
members to advocate paying attention to experts (a particular concern
of DHA/HB members) or taxpayers (a particular concern of TEC/LEC
members).
A bare majority of councillors, 53 per cent, agreed that ‘local coun-
cils should stay out of national politics except where it directly affected
local services’, but that was 25 per cent less than among the public
generally and 21 per cent less than among board members. Councillors
were thus uniquely inclined to feel that local councils could contribute
to national pluralism.
The image of local government
Compared to the public, elected councillors had a much more

favourable image of local councils – though not always of other
forms of local governance. Of course, the obvious response is: ‘they
would, wouldn’t they?’ But it is still worth investigating the size of
the difference. The size of the difference is not at all obvious.
Table 7.13 Pay most attention to whom?

% % % %
Councils should pay most
attention to those who:
*rely most on council services 90 72 67 60
*have expert knowledge 84 67 70 81
*need council jobs 52 21 7 11
*pay most council tax 22 4 15 7
Average 62 41 40 40
Note: * These four versions of the question were put to randomly selected quarter-samples.
Entries sorted by councillors’ views.
Table 7.14 Contribute to national pluralism?

% % % %
Local councils should stay out

of national politics 78 53 77 71
Appointed members of quango boards had a somewhat less

favourable image of local councils than did councillors themselves.
That also might be expected. But much less obviously, members of
quango boards still had a remarkably favourable image of local coun-
cils. In general, appointed board members held a positive and sympa-
thetic view of the traditional, elected local councils.
Conversely, appointed members of quango boards also held rela-
tively favourable images of their own boards. And yet again that might
be expected. But there was a very significant and much less obvious
qualification: appointed board members held considerably less
favourable images of quango boards other than their own.
Representation and responsiveness

By a margin of more than four to one, councillors felt their decisions
did represent the views of local people. And by margins of two or three
to one, board members agreed with councillors. That was less than the
margin among councillors themselves but far different from the public.
The public were fairly evenly divided as to whether or not local coun-
cils took decisions that represented local views and, on balance, they
were slightly more inclined to claim that council decisions were unrep-
resentative than representative.
Less dramatically, by a margin of 20 per cent the public were
inclined to allege that councils relied too much on experts. Councillors
and DHA/HB members were ambivalent about this. But TEC/LEC
members were more inclined (by a margin of 16 per cent the other
way) to suggest that councils relied too little on expert opinion and too
much on the wishes of their voters.
Personally, councillors and board members felt more efficacious than
the public. They were about 20 per cent more likely to claim that the
people they met in everyday life generally took account of their views
and opinions. So it would not be surprising if councillors and board
members were also more inclined than the public to feel that local gov-
ernment institutions cared about their views. What is interesting is the
way these feelings differed across institutions and between councillors
and board members.
Councillors differed most from the public in their feelings about the
responsiveness of councils (by 33 per cent). They differed less in their
feelings about local enterprise companies (by 24 per cent) and the
police (by only 12 per cent). And they did not differ at all from the
public in their feelings about the responsiveness of local health author-
ities.
Board members were almost identical to councillors in terms of per-
sonal efficacy, that is in their feeling that the people they met in every-
day life generally took account of their views and opinions. And their
views about the extent to which the local council or the local police
took account of their views closely mirrored the views of councillors
themselves. On these matters, the views of appointed board members
and elected councillors were very similar to each other, and very differ-
ent from those of the public.
But councillors and board members parted company when asked
whether quango boards, such as the local health authority or the local
enterprise company, cared about their views. Moreover, they distin-
guished very sharply between TEC/LEC and DHA/HB boards. Roughly
a quarter of councillors and of DHA/HB board members, but very few
of the TEC/LEC board members, alleged that the local enterprise
company did not care about their views. Conversely, a quarter of
TEC/LEC board members as well as half the councillors, but very few of
Table 7.15 Representation

% % % %
Local councils like the council in [district] generally take

decisions …
*that represent the views of
2014-12-27
local people 60 85 71 61
*that do not represent the views of local people 66 19 26 35
Local councils like the council in [district] …
*rely on the views of experts rather than their voters 74 44 45 56
*do what is popular with the voters rather than 54 38 61 57
rely on the views of experts
Note: * These two versions of the questions were put to randomly selected split-half samples.
151
the DHA/HB board members, alleged that the local health authority
did not care about their views.
It is particularly illuminating to compare the views of board
members towards other boards with their views about their local
council. Let us take TEC/LEC board members first: 22 per cent of
them alleged that the local health authority did not care, but only 8
per cent that the local council did not care. Conversely, 28 per cent
of the DHA/HB board members alleged that the local enterprise
company did not care, but only 16 per cent that the local council did
not care. So members of each appointed board were far more critical
of the other appointed board than they were of the elected council.
There was no community of interest or ideology between members of
different appointed boards in this respect. With the exception of
their own board, they each held a significantly more favourable
image of elected than appointed local governance – at least in terms
of responsiveness.
Interests: special interests, self-interest and corruption

Among the public, councillors and board members, opinion was fairly
evenly divided about whether local councils were too willing to accept
central government’s instructions, or too willing to reject them. But on
balance, they all concurred that councils were too willing to bow to
central government instructions.
On balance, the public also thought councils deferred too much to
business interests. By contrast, a large margin among board members’
(especially on TEC/LEC boards) felt that local councils paid too little
attention to business interests. Councillors agreed with board
members rather than the public on this – though not by the same
margin.
The public was evenly divided on whether council services were
biased towards richer or poorer areas. But by a margin of more than
three to one, councillors and board members were sure that local
council services were biased towards the areas of greatest need.
When asked directly whether each of nine groups had too much or to
little influence over council decisions, the pattern of board members’
opinions proved remarkably close to those of elected councillors, with
only two rather obvious and unimportant exceptions. Board members,
unlike councillors, did not think councillors had too little influence.
And conversely, board members, particularly on the business-oriented
TEC/LEC boards, complained more than councillors about local busi-
nessmen’s lack of influence. Indeed there was a broad measure of
Table 7.16 Responsiveness

% % % %
People I meet in everyday life generally …

*take account of my views and opinions 68 89 91 85
2014-12-27
*disregard my views and opinions 17 9 6 7
The local [council/health authority/enterprise
company/police force] does not care about
the views of people like me …
*local health authority 46 46 22 4
*local enterprise company 48 24 7 28
*local police force 26 14 12 7
*local council 41 8 8 16
Note: * These four versions of the question were put to randomly selected quarter-samples. Entries sorted by councillors’ views.
153
154
Table 7.17 Council bias

% % % %
2014-12-27
*are dominated by business interests 62 7 5 11
*do not take enough account of business interests 51 22 49 42
Local councils like the council in [district] provide better services
*in poor areas where people need them most 44 63 54 44
*in rich areas where people need them least 46 18 12 18
Local councils like the council in [district] are too willing …
*to reject instructions from central government 48 18 24 25
*to accept instructions from central government 59 26 26 27
Note: * These two versions of the question were put to randomly selected split-half samples.
Table 7.18 Too much or too little influence?
% ‘too much’ minus % ‘too little’

% % % %
Groups which have too much or too little influence over

decisions about local services. …
central government 54 74 65 64
senior local government officials 35 31 24 39
local businessmen –10 –17 –49 –35
2014-12-27
those who pay most in local taxes –32 –20 –32 –30
women’s groups –49 –28 –24 –22
racial and ethnic groups –30 –31 –29 –32
elected councillors 3 –36 –1 5
ordinary council workers –63 –37 –27 –32
those who vote in local elections –60 –43 –46 –48
Notes: Entries sorted by attitudes of councillors. Although the question only asked whether each group had ‘too much or too little influence’, large
numbers of respondents replied ‘neither too much nor too little – about right’, or words to that effect. Excluding the question about central
government on which opinions were more one-sided, the numbers replying ‘neither’ ranged from 21 per cent to 32 per cent among the public;
from 45 per cent to 68 per cent among councillors; and from 38 per cent to 68 per cent among appointed board members. Consequently, we have
not excluded such answers from our calculation of percentages in this table, and instead report the difference between the ‘too much’ and ‘too
little’ percentages, calculated as percentages of all three responses – ‘too much’, ‘too little’ and ‘neither’.
155
agreement between councillors, board members and the public on

which groups had too much or too little influence over local services.
All identified central government and senior local government officials
as having far too much influence. And all identified local voters as
having far too little influence.
We might expect that each local councillor would claim to be per-
sonally motivated by public interest rather than by private gain. But it
is not at all obvious that they should think the same of their col-
leagues. Councillors are often very critical of the behaviour of other
councillors, and not only of councillors in rival parties. However, by a
margin of 91 per cent we found that councillors said their fellow coun-
cillors were motivated in general by the good of the community rather
than by hopes of personal gain. That set them apart from the public,
among whom the margin was only 37 per cent. But among appointed
board members a margin of around 72 per cent also said councillors
were motivated by the public good.
Perceptions of whether councillors were motivated by a sense of duty
rather than pompous pride were somewhat less favourable, but still
very positive. By a margins of 83 per cent councillors themselves said
that councillors as a whole were motivated by duty. That margin was
only 36 per cent among the public, but 63 per cent among appointed
board members.
The main contrast in these perceptions of councillors’ self-interest
was therefore between the public and the local governance elite. The
views of appointed board members were closer to those of councillors
themselves than they were to the views of the public.
Compared to councillors, board members were more critical of self-
interested councillors and less critical of self-interested board members.
By itself that is hardly surprising. What is far more surprising is the
extent to which councillors and board members had positive attitudes
about each other and focused their resentment on central government.
Despite the widespread suspicion that appointed board members were
a weapon of central government against traditional local government,
they seemed to be on the side of traditional local government against
central government in this respect at least.
This mutual sympathy was not perfectly symmetrical, but it was
impressive nonetheless. By a margin of 72 per cent, board members
said councillors were motivated by the public good. On balance,
councillors took the view that TEC/LEC members were motivated by
the public good rather than private gain – but only by a margin
of 48 per cent. And councillors took the view that DHA/HB members
were motivated by the public good – but only by a margin of

37 per cent.
Similarly, by a margin of 63 per cent, appointed board members said
councillors were motivated by a sense of duty rather than self-
glorification. But while councillors on balance took the same
favourable view that board members were motivated by a sense of
duty, they did so by a margin of only 42 per cent when assessing
DHA/HB board members, and by only 33 per cent when assessing
TEC/LEC board members.
And again it was clear that DHA/HB and TEC/LEC board members
were less positive about members of the other kind of board than
about members of their own. Even here there were clear asymmetries,
however. DHA/HB board members’ assessments of TEC/LEC boards
were less positive than vice versa.
By a margin of 75 per cent councillors claimed that councils were
less corrupt than private businesses. The public took the same view but
only by a margin of 16 per cent, and board members concurred but
only by a margin of around 21 per cent. Among the business-oriented
TEC/LEC boards the margin was actually higher, at 28 per cent.
Certainly that margin was far less among appointed board members
than among councillors themselves but from the perspective of busi-
ness-oriented boards it was remarkable since it implied a degree of self-
criticism rather than self-justification. Nonetheless, differences on
perceptions of council corruption set councillors apart from both the
public and board members.
Effectiveness
The public was highly suspicious of waste in public services, but far
more suspicious of central government than local government. Elites
were less suspicious than the public. But while councillors were 44 per
cent less likely than the public to allege waste by the local council,
TEC/LEC members were only 32 per cent less and DHA/HB members
only 15 per cent less likely to do so. Local governance elites were more
united in alleging waste by central government, however.
Opinion among councillors, board members and the public was
fairly evenly balanced on the question of over- or under-provision of
local services. The striking difference was that so many of the public
would agree with either proposition – indicating a lack of firm
opinion on the issue – while local governance elites were much more
willing to defend the existing level of council provision by rejecting
both propositions.
158
Table 7.19 Self-interest and corruption

% % % %
Local councillors …
*have the good of the community at heart 79 98 90 90
*are in it for personal gain 42 7 15 21
*have a sense of duty towards their fellow citizens 80 96 93 92
*just want people to look up to them 44 13 33 27
2014-12-27
People appointed to DHA/HBs …
People appointed to TEC/LECs …
*are generally more corrupt than private businesses 35 5 10 19
*are generally less corrupt than private businesses 51 80 38 34
By a relatively small margin of 14 per cent, councillors claimed that

councils were more efficient than private businesses. But the public
took the opposite view, and by the much larger margin of 44 per cent.
Board members, like the public, were critical of council efficiency, and
by even greater margins of around 58 per cent.
Figure 7.2 shows perceptions of how councils compared with private
businesses on corruption and efficiency. Appointed board members
took similar views to the public. By small margins they rated councils
as less corrupt than private business, and by large margins they rated
councils as less efficient than private businesses. But on both issues,
councillors took a uniquely favourable view of councils, very different
from the views of appointed board members or the public.
Using a battery of non-comparative questions we also asked whether
councils, TEC/LEC members and DHA/HB members were ‘good at
organizing things’ or not. Figure 7.3 reveals several features of the
answers to these questions:
• In general, TEC/LEC members had the best reputation for efficiency

(they were businessmen of course) and councillors the worst.
• Councillors had the worst opinion of appointed board members,
and board members had the worst opinion of councillors. In each
Figure 7.2 Councils compared to private businesses
Figure 7.3 Perceptions of each other’s efficiency
case, the public took a view that was intermediate between board
members and councillors.
• Each elite had a uniquely favourable perception of its own capabili-
ties. Councillors were uniquely favourable to councillors, DHA/HB
members to DHA/HB members, and TEC/LEC members to TEC/LEC
members. The scale of this tendency towards self-admiration was
large.
• But each appointed elite was only a little more favourable than
the public towards the other appointed elite. DHA/HB members’
perceptions of TEC/LEC members were only slightly more
favourable than the public’s perceptions of TEC/LEC members.
Conversely, TEC/LEC members’ perceptions of DHA/HB members
were only slightly more favourable than the public’s perceptions
of DHA/HB members.
Among the least obvious and least self-confident aspects of coun-

cillors’ opinions were their views about the relative capabilities of
central and local government. Across five relevant questions about
central government’s capabilities, councillors rated the capability of
central government 13 per cent higher than did the public. But by
contrast, across the four relevant questions about local councils’
Table 7.20 Efficiency

% % % %
Wasting taxpayers money:

*parliament and the govt waste a good deal of taxpayers’ money 92 77 76 67
*the council in [district] wastes a good deal of taxpayers’ money 61 17 29 46
*raise high local taxes to provide unnecessary services 47 11 19 26
*fail to provide services up to proper national standards 41 18 20 20
because they are unwilling to raise local taxes
2014-12-27
*are generally more efficient than private businesses 22 43 10 9
*are generally less efficient than private businesses 66 29 65 69
Local councillors …
*are good at organizing things 57 82 34 40
*are not very good at organizing things 45 16 55 47
People appointed to DHA/HBs …
People appointed to TEC/LECs …
161
capabilities, councillors rated the capability of councils 5 per cent

lower than did the public. Indeed on the capability of local councils,
the pessimism of local councillors set them apart from both the
public and appointed board members. The differences are small but
they hint at a general tendency to project perceptions of capability
onto others – in sharp contrast to claims about honesty and
efficiency. Contrary to the naive assertion that democratic politi-
cians claim more capability than they possess, our data hints at
attempts to lower expectations rather than inflate them. They would
prefer to be judged by input quality rather than by output
performance targets.
Councillors were three times as likely as the public to have com-
plained or protested through the eight channels of protest that we
investigated. Like the public, however, they were most likely to have
complained to councillors, councils or MPs and least likely to have
complained to appointed boards, especially TEC/LECs.
On average, appointed board members were only twice as likely as
the public to have protested or complained. Generally board
members complained significantly less than councillors, but there
were three exceptions to that generalization. DHA/HB members were
just as likely as councillors to have complained to their district
health authority, though no more so. TEC/LEC board members were
also as likely as councillors to have complained to an appropriate
department of central government. And TEC/LEC board members
were twice as likely as councillors to have complained to their local
enterprise company. All three exceptions were obvious ‘insider’
effects, however, and where insider effects were not operating, coun-
cillors complained and protested much more frequently than board
members.
Elites and public took similar views about the effectiveness of
protests to MPs or the mass media. But councillors themselves rated
the effectiveness of complaints to councillors much higher than did
the public or appointed board members.
Almost irrespective of the target of complaints – central government,
local councils or quangos – the effectiveness of complaints to council-
lors was rated much greater by councillors themselves than by the
public or board members. But councillors rated complaints to council-
lors as specially effective if the target of complaints was the local
council. On our ±5-point scale councillors rated complaints to council-
lors at 2.4 if the target of complaints was the local council, while both
the public and board members rated their effectiveness at only 0.7.
Table 7.21 Capability

% % % %
British governments can do ‘quite a bit’ to …

improve health and social services 83 94 92 93
improve the general standard of living 75 88 78 81
cut crime 69 83 75 74
2014-12-27
reduce unemployment 66 81 72 70
keep prices down 64 75 71 72
Average 71 84 78 78
Local councils can do ‘quite a bit’ to …
improve their area as a place to live 87 90 93 93
improve health and social services in their area 65 53 56 67
improve employment prospects in their area 53 53 53 57
cut crime in their area 63 52 60 65
Average 67 62 66 71
163
Table 7.22 Actually used as channels of protest

% % % %
Ever [protested/complained] in person,
or by phone or letter to:
* the district council 32 87 68 66
your MP 31 85 69 67
your local councillor 36 83 58 65
* offices of the appropriate 24 71 72 57
government department
newspapers, radio or television 17 68 38 41
* the police themselves 22 63 39 22
* your district health authority 15 50 16 50
* your local enterprise company 4 16 33 13
Average 23 65 49 48
Note: * These five versions of the question were put to randomly selected subsamples.
Entries sorted by councillors’ actions.
In a similar way TEC/LEC board members rated the effectiveness of

complaints to TEC/LECs about TEC/LECs at 1.8 while the public, coun-
cillors and even DHA/HB members never rated them above 0.6. And
DHA/HB board members rated the effectiveness of complaints to
DHA/HBs about DHA/HBs at 2.3 while the public, councillors and even
TEC/LEC members never rated them above 0.4.
Again this is evidence of insider effects which is not in principle sur-
prising. However, the insider effects were remarkably strong and
remarkably specific. And in particular, appointed board members only
displayed a strongly insider perspective in relation to their own board.
In relation to other boards, appointed board members were only
slightly more positive than councillors.
Satisfaction and trust

Elites and public expressed similar levels of satisfaction with the service
provided by local tradesmen, their local doctor and the local electricity
company. When asked about their local council, however, councillors
expressed significantly more satisfaction than the public or board
members.
Table 7.23 Generally effective as channels of protest

2014-12-27
on ±5 scale on ±5 scale on ±5 scale on ±5 scale
How effective would it be to [protest/complain] to …

your local councillor 0.3 1.4 –0.3 –0.1
newspapers, radio or television 1.1 0.8 0.6 0.8
your MP 0.1 0.5 0.4 0.4
165
166
Table 7.24 Specifically effective as channels of protest

How effective would it be to [protest/complain]

about actions of the government to …
your local councillor –0.2 1.4 –0.8 –1.4
your MP 0.0 0.4 0.3 –0.4
2014-12-27
offices of the appropriate government department –0.6 –0.4 –0.8 –1.4
about actions of your local council to …
your local councillor 0.7 2.4 0.6 0.7
the district council 0.4 1.8 0.6 0.2
your MP 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3
about actions of your local enterprise company to …
your local enterprise company –0.3 0.4 1.8 0.6
your MP 0.0 0.4 0.5 0.5
your local councillor 0.3 1.7 –0.6 0.2
Table 7.24 Specifically effective as channels of protest (continued)


about actions of your district health authority to …
your district health authority 0.0 0.0 0.4 2.3
2014-12-27
your MP 0.1 0.5 0.4 0.8
your local councillor 0.2 0.9 –0.3 –0.4
about actions of your local police authority to …
your local councillor 0.3 1.0 0.0 –0.1
your MP 0.1 0.6 0.7 0.7
the police themselves 0.1 0.5 0.3 0.3
Note: Entries sorted by councillors’ views, except for entries related to TEC/LECs or DHA/HBs which have been sorted by their board members’
views.
167
Though they were always trusted more than central government,

there were clear but complex insider effects on patterns of trust in local
governance elites:
• Councillors expressed uniquely high trust in councillors, TEC/LEC
boards in TEC/LEC members, and DHA/HB boards in DHA/HB
members.
• There was an asymmetry between the extent to which board
members trusted councillors and the extent to which councillors
trusted board members. Board members trusted councillors
significantly more than vice versa.
• Appointed board members displayed almost as much trust in elected
councillors as in members of other boards, though not as much as
in members of their own board.
So, as usual, insider effects were remarkably specific and the hierachy
of trust expressed by board members in particular was clear: the board
member’s own board came top; other institutions of local governance,
irrespective of whether they were elected or appointed came next; and
central government came bottom.
Institutional preferences
Local autonomy
Averaging across eight specific local services, councillors were 19 per
cent less inclined than the public to say they should be organized on a
national scale. On individual services, the difference between council-
lors and the public reached 30 per cent or more on whether services
concerned with the environment, pollution or economic development
should be organized on a local or national scale.
But averaging across these eight local services board members were
rather more inclined than councillors to say they should be organized
nationally, though not so much as the public. Of all the local gover-
nance elites, DHA/HB members were the most nationally orientated.
In addition, although board members were less favourable than
councillors towards organizing these services at district level, they were
more favourable even than councillors towards organizing them on a
regional scale.
The national orientation of DHA/HB members was evident in other
ways. They were the most inclined to complain that the area repre-
sented by their district council was too small for effective provision of
Table 7.25 Satisfaction and trust

Satisfaction with the overall service and value for

money you receive from …
local doctor 3.0 3.3 3.0 3.4
2014-12-27
local council 1.3 2.8 1.8 1.7
tradesmen who have done household repairs for you (if any) 1.8 2.4 1.9 2.2
electricity supplier 2.0 2.3 2.2 2.4
How much can you trust parliament and government, to do –0.7 0.2 0.6 0.9
what is right for Britain
How much can you trust, to do what is right for their areas …
people elected to local councils 0.8 2.8 1.3 1.2
businessmen appointed to TEC/LECs 0.4 0.8 2.6 1.4
people appointed to DHA/HBs 0.6 0.6 1.6 3.0
169
170
Table 7.26 Best size for different services?
Public Elected councillors TEC/LEC boards DHA/HB boards
District Region Britain District Region Britain District Region Britain District Region Britain
% % % % % % % % % % % %
Economic development 20 29 51 38 41 21 33 44 23 17 50 33
Hospitals/health 26 33 41 25 54 21 32 45 22 32 38 30
Environment 30 21 49 57 25 18 32 36 32 34 31 35
2014-12-27
Police 32 28 41 37 46 17 32 44 24 30 48 23
Roads 33 29 38 39 47 15 27 49 24 26 48 25
Schools/education 42 29 29 58 30 12 53 31 16 51 30 19
Refuse collection 84 10 6 95 4 1 94 5 1 98 1 1
Leisure services 82 13 5 95 5 0 92 7 1 88 11 1
Average 44 24 32 56 31 13 49 33 18 47 32 21
Note: Entries sorted by councillors’ views on organizing services nationally.
public services, and yet they were by far the least inclined to support
the idea of elected regional assemblies. Conversely, the public
expressed as much support for an elected regional tier of government
as councillors, and more than board members, but the public was far
less inclined than elites to complain that their district area was too
small.
Table 7.27 Regions and districts

% % % %
District council area?

*too big 18 4 7 3
*too small 38 53 57 63
difference: too small – too big 20 49 50 60
Support elected regional assemblies? 60 60 53 38
Table 7.28 The final say: local or central government?

% % % %
Local rather than central govt

should have the final say: 86 84 66 70
*after a local election on the issue 88 85 70 69
*after a local referendum on the
issue 83 83 62 70
Proper rights for local minorities:
to campaign against the decision
at the next local election 83 95 95 95
to appeal to central govt to
overrule the local council 54 64 64 68
Best way to ensure proper standards
in local services:
national government inspectors 39 59 64 66
voter power in local elections 32 30 22 23
go to court and claim
compensation 29 11 14 11
In a confrontation with central government, where the local council

had obtained an electoral mandate but was opposed by central govern-
ment, councillors hardly differed from the public in overwhelmingly
taking the side of the council, but board members were about 18 per
cent less willing to back local against central government.
But, counter-intuitively, councillors were 10 per cent more willing
than the public to accept that it was ‘right and proper’ for a local
minority to appeal to central government over the head of a local
council. Board members took a similar view to councillors.
As the best means of ‘ensuring proper standards in local services such
as health, education or policing’, councillors were 20 per cent more
inclined than the public to opt for ‘national government inspectors’ –
though at the expense of less support for legal action in the court
rather than less reliance on voter power. Board members were a little
more inclined even than councillors to opt for ‘national government
inspectors’ as the best way to ensure proper standards in local services
and somewhat less inclined to rely on voter power.
Democracy
Naturally enough, local governance elites were far less populist than
the public – irrespective of whether these elites were elected or
appointed. So, while 46 per cent of the public opted for local referenda
to fix local government boundaries, only 23 per cent of councillors and
21 per cent of board members agreed. Less obviously, councillors did
not differ from the public on whether boundary revision should be
controlled by local councils or central government. Instead, councillors
were much more inclined than the public to place the issue in the
hands of ‘independent experts’. And appointed board members were
even more favourable than councillors to relying on ‘independent
Table 7.29 Who should fix local government boundaries?

% % % %
Independent experts 15 33 39 44
Joint committee of local councils 31 31 22 22
Local people in a referendum 46 23 22 19
Central government 9 13 18 16
experts’ though they were also slightly more favourable to central

government.
Local governance elites were only around 16 per cent less favourable
to the principle of national and local referenda than the public. But
councillors drew a sharper distinction than others between local and
national referenda. So a majority of councillors favoured national
referenda but opposed local referenda.
And there were huge differences on the question of directly electing
a council leader – now usually described as a directly elected executive
mayor. That won the support of 78 per cent of the public. But it was
opposed by 62 per cent of appointed board members and by 82 per cent
of councillors. Four-fifths of the public supported it while four-fifths of
councillors rejected it. Clearly that issue brought out the populism of
the public and the councillors’ contrasting commitment to representa-
tive democracy.
At the same time there were sharp differences on whether the
number of elected councillors should be reduced. By varying margins,
both elite and public thought there should be a reduction rather than
an increase. But while the margin was only a modest 10 per cent
among councillors, it reached 32 per cent among the public and 47 per
cent among board members.
If the issues of directly elected mayors and a reduction in the
numbers of councillors came too close to home for the comfort of
councillors, the issue of monitoring quangos did the same for
Table 7.30 Direct democracy

% % % %
Support referenda: 65 51 43 50
*in national politics 69 58 45 51
*in local politics 61 45 40 48
difference: in local – in national –8 –13 –5 –3
Council leader should be directly
elected 78 18 38 37
Better to have:
*more councillors 26 11 8 8
*fewer councillors 58 21 57 52
difference: fewer – more 32 10 49 44
Figure 7.4 Quango accountability
appointed board members. And on this issue it was the councillors
who led the attack.
The locus of accountability

Relatively few, even among appointed board members, thought that
quangos should act like private businesses without a line of account-
ability to either local or central government. But while 76 per cent of
councillors and 68 per cent of the public thought non-elected local
quangos such as DHA/HBs and TEC/LECs should be responsible to
elected local councils, fully 63 per cent of board members disagreed
with them. Conversely while 42 per cent of TEC/LEC members and
55 per cent of DHA/HB members thought these quangos should be
responsible directly to central government, over 80 per cent of council-
lors and the public disagreed with them (see Figure 7.4).
The degree of accountability

In a different question we focused exclusively on the relationship
between local councils and local quangos, omitting any reference to
central government. Instead we asked whether local councils should
have powers of control over local quangos, powers of investigation or
neither. Councillors were 12 per cent more inclined than the public,
Table 7.31 Monitoring quango boards

% % % %
Non-elected bodies like health
authorities, NHS trusts, TEC/LECs
and school boards should …
be responsible to local councils 68 76 39 34
be responsible to central
government 20 18 42 55
decide their own affairs, like
private companies 12 6 19 11
Local councils should …
have powers to control these
non-elected bodies 26 38 14 12
have power to investigate, but
not control them 57 51 44 42
leave them to get on with
managing their own affairs 18 10 42 46
and 25 per cent more than board members, to support powers to

control. And while many board members would accept local council
powers of investigation and oversight, 44 per cent of board members
opposed even that. By contrast only 10 per cent of councillors and
18 per cent of the public were willing to let local quangos manage
themselves without even local council oversight.
The market: paying for services

In the abstract, all local governance elites were almost totally opposed
to the idea of user charges and totally in favour of tax contributions to
support local public services. The public responded in a very different
way, with over a third supporting the general principle of user-funded
services. But perhaps the public failed to understand the significance of
the question. Using our CATI system we put the alternative options to
randomly selected split-half samples. The public’s tendency to agree
with both alternatives casts doubt on their understanding. Nonetheless
the public were less willing than elites to back tax funding as well as
more willing to back user charges.
The difference between elite and public was less when we framed the
question in terms of practice rather than principle. When asked
Table 7.32 User-charges for services?

% % % %
* Only service users should pay 34 7 9 6
* Everyone should contribute
through taxes 83 93 96 95
samples.
whether ‘most local services’ should be funded mainly by user charges,

by local taxation or by national taxation, councillors were only 14 per
cent less likely than the public to opt for user charges. Board members
were slightly more favourable to user charges but only slightly. They
remained closer to councillors than to the public.
And when we asked about six specific services even these modest dif-
ferences between elite and public shrank. Both elite and public were
almost totally opposed to funding state schools, hospitals or the police
by user charges. They differed little on local public transport (where
user charges were more generally acceptable) and only by around 10
per cent on the funding of swimming pools or public libraries. On
average, across these six specific services, the public, councillors and
board members never differed by more than 5 per cent on the alloca-
tion of costs between national subsidies, user charges and local
taxation.
Rival institutions of local governance

The public were 23 per cent less inclined than councillors to say that
traditional multi-purpose local authorities were better than a set of spe-
cialist bodies running individual services, and 42 per cent more
inclined than councillors to agree that it did not matter who ran local
services if the quality was right. Appointed board members took an
intermediate view on whether it mattered who ran local services but
they were as critical of traditional multi-purpose authorities as the
public. Indeed DHA/HB members were even more critical than the
public of multi-purpose authorities and more favourable to specialist
bodies.
But board members’ preponderant preference for single-purpose
authorities (usually appointed) over multi-purpose authorities (usually
Table 7.33 Best way to pay for different services?

Natl User- Local Natl User- Local Natl User- Local Natl User- Local
subs chg taxes subs chg taxes subs chg taxes subs chg taxes
% % % % % % % % % % % %
‘Most local services’ 33 24 43 31 10 59 26 15 59 30 14 56
2014-12-27
Specified services:
public libraries 19 14 67 14 4 82 12 10 78 12 10 78
swimming pools 8 26 65 6 15 79 4 25 71 3 25 72
local public transport 22 23 55 24 19 57 14 25 60 18 20 62
schools 73 3 24 74 1 25 75 2 22 79 4 17
police 77 2 22 78 1 21 79 1 20 84 1 15
hospitals 85 3 12 95 1 4 92 4 4 97 2 1
Average 47 12 41 48 7 45 46 11 43 49 10 41
Note: Entries sorted by councillors’ views on funding by local taxation.
177
Figure 7.5 Institutional ratings
elected) was perhaps instrumental rather than ideological, justified
only contingently by better performance. When asked to rate six ways
of organizing local services in general, the public and appointed board
members as well as elected councillors all rated elected councils as the
best way to run local services. Not surprisingly, as Figure 7.5 shows,
councillors were uniquely favourable to elected councils. But both the
public and appointed board members also gave very high ratings to
elected councils, far higher than they gave to any other system of local
governance.
Figure 7.5 also shows that councillors gave uniquely low ratings to
appointed boards and private companies, though both the public and
even appointed board members also gave them negative ratings on our
±5-point scale.
There was very little difference between the public, elected council-
lors or appointed board members on their ratings for control and man-
agement by service users (we instanced parents and schools as an
example). Opinion among all three elites echoed the ambivalence of
the public. But there were greater differences on control and manage-
ment by service providers (we instanced schoolteachers as an example).
Here the public took a moderately favourable view while elites took
a moderately unfavourable view. On the ±5-point scale there was a
2-point difference between the public and elites and not much differ-
ence among the elites themselves. Elected councillors and appointed
board members held similar views on service providers just as they had
on service users, but this time their views were strongly negative and at
variance with the views of the public.
There was a divergence between public and elite on the value of vol-
untary and community groups. The public was very enthusiastic about
them at least for representation and exerting pressure (68 per cent in
favour), and moderately enthusiastic about them for actually running
services (39 per cent in favour). But councillors were overwhelmingly
sceptical about the value of such groups either for representation or for
management (83 per cent unfavourable). Board members were consid-
erably more sympathetic than councillors to such groups as mecha-
nisms of representation and pressure, though less sympathetic than the
public. But board members were just as hostile as councillors to the
suggestion that services were best organized through ‘voluntary
groups’.
When asked whether local councils, private companies or central
government should control eight specific local services, councillors’
choices were very similar on average to those of the public, though
slightly more favourable than the public towards local councils and
less favourable than the public towards central government.
Compared to councillors, appointed board members were 12 per
cent less inclined to say these services should be run by local councils
and 9 per cent more inclined to opt for private companies. The differ-
ence varied across the eight services. Board members differed most
from councillors on refuse collection and electricity. On refuse collec-
tion, 30 per cent of board members but only 12 per cent of councillors
opted for private companies, entirely at the expense of local council
control. And on electricity, 58 per cent of board members but only
37 per cent of councillors opted for private companies, mainly at the
expense of central government control. But board members agreed
with councillors that private companies should not have a major role
in education, health, distributing unemployment benefits or policing.
Although the private security industry is now larger than the police
itself, it seems that no one in our survey thought of ‘policing’ in such
terms.
To a large extent preferences reflected perceptions of the actual situa-
tion. But in so far as preferences differed from perceptions the public
wanted more central government control and less private involvement,
and councillors wanted more local government control and less private
180
Table 7.34 Rating alternative institutions of local governance

% % % %
Does not matter who runs local services if

quality is right 70 28 51 43
All-purpose local authorities are better
than specialist bodies 30 53 34 21
2014-12-27
Best way to organize and control local services:
elected council 2.6 4.1 2.9 2.9
users, e.g. parents running schools 0.1 –0.1 –0.1 –0.3
providers, e.g. teachers running schools 0.7 –1.1 –1.5 –1.2
private companies charging for use of service –0.8 –2.0 –0.6 –0.9
*businessmen appointed by central govt –0.5 –2.3 –0.7 –1.2
*experts appointed by central govt –0.1 –2.3 –1.0 –0.3
Table 7.35 Voluntary and community groups

% % % %
Local community groups:
best way to get things done 63 16 35 38
represent people better than
councillors do 72 16 41 40
Best to organize services through
voluntary groups 39 18 17 18
involvement. The preferences of appointed board members closely

reflected their perceptions, however.
Conclusion: a governing consensus between rival elites but

divisions within
Councillors and public

In many respects councillors were similar to the public, truly represen-
tative figures. But how did they differ from the public? What made
councillors special?
Compared to the public, elected local councillors were more likely to
be long-term residents. They were better informed and much more
interested in local issues, though they were also more interested in
political issues generally. Councillors were far more politically active
than the public – not just in the council itself, but in lobbying MPs,
central government offices, radio, television and the press, and the
non-elected arm of local governance such as district health authorities
or local enterprise companies. Councillors had a much stronger sense
of psychological identification with their neighbourhood and district,
as well as with a political party. Yet despite this stronger sense of local
identification, councillors had noticeably less exclusive attitudes
towards incomers’ access to local schools and hospitals or voting in
local elections.
Councillors were much less favourable than the public towards
councils providing extra services for cash, but more favourable than
the public towards ‘quality of life’ subsidies. They were far more
inclined to see a role for local governance in developing citizens’
182
Table 7.36 Preferred control of different services
Local Private Central Local Private Central Local Private Central Local Private Central
council co. govt council co. govt council co. govt council co. govt
% % % % % % % % % % % %
Who does control different

services?
Average 45 25 30 36 25 39 36 24 40 35 25 40
Who should control different
2014-12-27
services?
refuse collection 77 19 4 87 12 1 67 32 1 71 28 1
schools 55 3 42 76 3 21 59 6 34 64 5 31
policing 46 1 53 65 1 34 54 1 45 52 2 46
help for local business 52 9 39 56 5 39 37 17 46 40 14 46
water and sewage 45 21 34 38 27 35 26 42 32 35 34 31
hospitals 30 4 66 32 3 65 21 9 70 9 4 87
electricity 18 36 46 13 37 50 5 59 36 7 56 37
unemployment benefits 23 1 76 9 1 90 7 2 92 6 2 92
Average 43 12 45 47 11 42 34 21 45 36 18 46
Difference: should – does –2 –13 +15 +11 –14 +3 –2 –3 +5 +1 –7 +6
Note: Entries sorted by councillors’ views on local council control.
individual capabilities and personalities through participation in local

election campaigns or in the self-management of local services. And
they were far more inclined than the public to see a role for local coun-
cils in national politics.
Naturally enough, some of the greatest differences between council-
lors and the public concerned their images of local councils and other
institutions of local governance. Councillors differed very sharply from
the public in their image of councils as truly representative and respon-
sive and in their feeling that councillors had too little influence over
services in their locality – and in their feeling that central government
had too much influence. Councillors also differed very sharply from
the public in their image of their fellow councillors. To a greater extent
than the public, councillors saw their colleagues as motivated by the
good of the community rather than personal gain, as trustworthy,
honest and efficient, and as the best channel for public protests or
complaints – even on matters which were the responsibility of central
government or non-elected local boards as well as on those where the
local council had direct control.
Compared to the public, councillors were substantially less inclined
to say that services should be run on a national basis though they were
substantially more inclined to support ‘government inspectors’ to
ensure proper standards in local services. They were much less
favourable than the public to populist devices such as referenda and
especially antagonistic towards the principle of directly elected execu-
tive mayors. Despite very considerable public backing, councillors were
even more inclined than their supportive publics to demand that
appointed local quangos be held responsible to, or even be controlled
by, elected local councils.
Finally, councillors’ ratings of alternative institutions of local gover-
nance followed the same pattern as among the public though it was
much more clearly defined. Councillors gave far higher positive ratings
to elected councils than the already very high positive ratings given by
the public. And councillors gave far more negative ratings to private
companies and appointed quangos than the already negative ratings
given by the public.
In their direction, few of these findings come as a surprise. What is
interesting is not that councillors differ from the public but the scale of
the differences, some of which were large by any standard and some of
which might qualify for the term ‘extreme’. At the same time there was
close agreement between councillors and the public on many aspects
of local governance. Both showed strong local identifications yet both
were overwhelmingly opposed to local exclusiveness. Both were over-

whelmingly favourable to councils providing universal services and ser-
vices for the needy. Both were strongly in favour of local autonomy, at
least to decide on services beyond a national minimum. Both backed a
role for local councils in economic development. Both agreed that
central government and (non-elected) local officials had too much
influence while voters and council workers had too little. Both agreed
that councillors were motivated by a desire to serve their community
rather than by self-interest. Both agreed that elected local councils
should oversee the work of appointed quango boards. And both desig-
nated elected local councils as by far the best institution for running
local services, and private companies or appointed quangos as the
worst.
Occasionally, differences between councillors and the public were
differences of direction. Usually they were differences of degree, due
more to the sharper perceptions and opinions of councillors than to
adversarial tensions between them.
Elected councillors and appointed board members

To a remarkable and surprising extent, the views of the appointed
members of local quango boards were similar to those of elected coun-
cillors. But not in everything. Moreover, the views of those appointed
to one kind of quango differed from the views of those appointed to
another.
What made appointed elites different from elected councillors?
Appointed board members had far weaker objective connections to
their locality. They were far less likely to be long-term local residents
than elected councillors and far less likely to have all their relatives or
friends living locally. Psychologically, too, they were far less local. In
particular the appointed elite identified much less than councillors
with their region, their district or their home neighbourhood, though
almost as much with their work neighbourhood.
Appointed board members had far less faith in public participation.
They were much less inclined than councillors to see participation in
local government as a means of developing citizens’ capabilities and
personalities. And in so far as they recognized this possibility at all,
they emphasized participation in self-management rather than in elec-
tions and political campaigns, while councillors gave equal weight to
both.
The appointed elite was rather less inclined even than councillors to
agree that councils should stimulate demand for their services. It was
less inclined than councillors to pay attention to those who needed

council jobs, and more inclined to suggest that councils should pay
attention to local taxpayers, though these differences between council-
lors and the appointed board members were fairly small. But appointed
board members were far more likely to say that local councils should
stay out of national politics. They were also much more likely than
councillors to claim that councils did not take enough account of busi-
ness interests or that local businessmen had too little influence over
local services, though councillors on balance agreed with these criti-
cisms, if to a lesser extent. Conversely, councillors were far more likely
than appointed board members to say that councillors themselves had
too little influence over local services.
Councillors were twice as likely as board members to claim that
councils were less corrupt than private business, though board
members on balance agreed. Conversely, appointed board members
were twice as likely as councillors to allege that councils were
inefficient, although councillors on balance agreed with that.
The appointed elite was far less willing than councillors to back local
councils in any confrontation with central government. It was far
more willing to cut the number of elected councillors, and far more
willing to impose a directly elected executive mayor on the council,
though no more willing to accept a role for local referenda.
Appointed board members were largely willing to accept that boards
should be monitored in some way, but much less willing than council-
lors to accept oversight and investigation by the local council, still less
actual control by the local council.
There was also an important asymmetry between the opinions of
councillors about appointed boards and the opinions of board
members about councillors. Councillors were more likely to claim that
board members ignored their views than vice versa. And they were also
more likely to criticize board members for being out for personal gain
than vice versa. Councillors were less likely to trust members of
appointed boards than vice versa. Most significant of all, the appointed
elite joined councillors in rating elected local councils as by far the best
way to organize and control local services, while councillors rated
private companies and appointed boards as by far the worst.
Divisions within the appointed elite

We have evidence that insider effects were highly specific. People
defended the very particular institution in which they served. Thus, for
example, councillors were the most likely to claim that their fellow
councillors were good organizers, TEC/LEC board members were the

most likely to make that claim about TEC/LEC boards, and DHA/HB
board members about DHA/HB boards. Councillors gave top marks to
fellow councillors for trustworthiness, TEC/LEC board members to
their colleagues on TEC/LEC boards, and DHA/HB board members
to their colleagues on DHA/HB boards.
But there was surprisingly little community of interest and respect
between the members of different boards. TEC/LEC board members
thought that the best way to influence a TEC/LEC was to complain to
it directly but DHA/HB members thought complaints to the press
would be more effective. Conversely DHA/HB board members thought
that the best way to influence a DHA/HB was to complain to it directly
but TEC/LEC members thought complaints to the press would be more
effective. And councillors thought complaints to councillors would be
most effective in both cases.
Far more members of TEC/LEC and DHA/HB boards alleged that
members of the other board did not care about their views than made
the same criticism of elected councils. TEC/LEC board members gave
only very lukewarm support to the idea that DHA/HB board members
were good organizers (though DHA/HB board members were more gen-
erous towards TEC/LEC boards). And although TEC/LEC and DHA/HB
board members rated the trustworthiness of people on their own kind
of board much higher than that of councillors, they rated the trustwor-
thiness of people on the other kind of board about the same as that of
councillors.
When they came to rate alternative institutions as the best way to
organize and control local services it was noticeable not only that both
TEC/LEC and DHA/HB boards put elected councils far above all other
institutions but also that TEC/LEC board members rated boards of
‘experts’ even lower than boards of ‘businessmen’, while DHA/HB
members rated boards of ‘businessmen’ even lower than boards of
‘experts’. It is difficult to avoid seeing that as a reflection of their own
composition and self-images, equating TEC/LEC boards with business-
men and DHA/HB boards with experts.
We can now answer the broad questions we raised at the start of this
chapter. While elected local councillors had strongly negative attitudes
towards appointed boards as an institution for running local services,
the appointed local elite of quango board members did not reciprocate.
They defended their own boards, but expressed remarkable sympathy
and respect for elected local governance. Indeed they tended to see
their own particular board as ‘exceptional’, and took a positive view of

it, yet without a wider commitment to the general principle of
appointed boards. Whatever their partisanship, their left/right ideol-
ogy, their commitment to efficiency or their service in an institution of
appointed local governance, they remained committed to the principle
of elective democracy in local as well as national politics.
Perhaps like the sinner who prayed for the strength to reform ‘but
not just yet’, the appointed elite were more committed to elective
democracy in principle than in practice. Perhaps they thought that
elective democracy was the best method of local governance but
sometime in the future when pressing problems had been solved, or
somewhere else than in the institution in which they themselves
served and which, in their view, seemed to work quite well. We do
not know. We did not ask. But we were surprised by the strength of
commitment to the ideal of elected local governance that was
expressed by those who were so deeply involved, as members of
appointed boards, in alternatives to it.
8
Testing Models against Public
Opinion
This chapter tests the four models of local governance outlined in
Chapter 1 against public opinion: the ‘traditional’ or ‘localist model’,
the ‘New Right’ or ‘individualist model’, the ‘New Left’ or ‘mobiliza-
tion model’, and the ‘agency’ or ‘centralist model’. Each model bases
recommendations about forms and structures of local governance on
assumptions about people’s identities, aims and objectives, images of
local government and institutional preferences. We find that all four
models fit some aspects of public opinion, and that none fits all aspects
of public opinion, but that some fit so much better than others that
there are clear winners and losers in this test against public opinion.
The ‘traditional model’ of British local governance was based on all-
purpose, elected local authorities. That model was always a theoretical
model even though it was sometimes presented as an empirical
description of a recently destroyed ‘golden age’ of local governance. So
it might be better to emphasize its theoretical rather than historical
status by naming it the ‘localist’ rather than the ‘traditional’ model.
We can test this ‘localist’ model against the findings of our public
opinion survey. But it is not enough to test that one model in isola-
tion. We should also test alternative models of local governance in the
same way. In the rhetoric of the 1970s and 1980s, the case against the
localist or traditional model was expressed in terms of ‘New Right’ or
‘New Left’ ideas. The ‘New Right’ viewed local governance in terms of
individuals exercising a choice of local services. The services would be
provided through competitive market mechanisms. Variants of this
model were sometimes called ‘New Right’ or ‘public choice theory’
models of local governance. For clarity, we shall term it the ‘individual-
ist model’ of local governance.
188
Testing Models against Public Opinion 189
The ‘New Left’ also paid attention to individuals but sought to

mobilize them into collective action, or into action within non-market
structures. It would encourage the poor or disadvantaged to demand
more and better local public services. It aimed to improve not only the
services but also the poor and disadvantaged themselves as human
beings by getting them to participate in the management of those
public services. Variants of this model were sometimes called ‘New
Left’ or even ‘Marxist’ models of local governance. We shall term it the
‘mobilization model’ of local governance.
Finally, although the 1979–97 Conservative governments’ rhetoric
approximated the individualistic ideas of the ‘New Right’ on local gov-
ernance, it was clear that many of their actions conformed more to an
‘agency model’ of central domination in which local authorities were
regarded as mere agents of central government. Desmond King noted
that the ‘New Right’ had a ‘rigorous theory of local government’ which
included ‘maximisation of local choice’ but that under their govern-
ments ‘national policy failed dramatically, through its centralising ten-
dency, to realise these principles’. 1 Paradoxically perhaps, the model
implicit in the Conservative governments’ actions is worth at least as
much attention as the model explicit in their rhetoric. Since the
‘agency model’ is a very extreme example of central government
control, let us simply call our fourth model the ‘centralist model’ of
local governance. Often neglected, or treated only by default, it
emphasizes membership of a national community, the need for
national standards and the prerogatives of national government. It fits
well with the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty.
Altogether, we now have four broadly defined models of local gover-
nance to test against public opinion:
• the traditional localist model of all-purpose, elected local authorities;

• the individualist model of markets serving individuals;
• the mobilization model focused on the mobilization and human
development of relatively disadvantaged people and neighbour-
hoods;
• the centralist model which stresses national democracy and national
standards for public services.
Each of these models should be viewed as an ideal-type model of local

governance and not as an empirical description of reality in any
specific time or place. Each includes a prescription based upon a diag-
nosis. Each bases recommendations about forms and structures for
local governance on assumptions about people’s identities, perceptions

and preferences.
We shall set out as clearly as possible the assumptions of each model
and compare them with public opinion. And we shall force ourselves
to attach ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ signs to these comparisons, indicating
where public opinion is consistent or inconsistent with each theoreti-
cal model. It is a crude but necessary procedure if we are to match
these theories against public opinion. No doubt the advocates of each
model will be tempted to applaud the perceptiveness of the judgement
with which we award each ‘plus’ and attack the brutality, lack of sub-
tlety and perverse misrepresentation with which we award each
‘minus’. But there is no alternative. At some point we have to put aside
the subtleties and endless qualifications in order to decide whether a
theory is or is not consistent with some particular aspect of public
opinion. We have to reach a judgement, and this procedure is the most
transparent way to do so.
Our purpose is not to find out whether each model accurately
describes contemporary (or even past) local governance nor to reach a
judgement about whether its prescriptions are desirable or not. A test
of public opinion would be inappropriate for that purpose. Instead, our
aim is simply to see whether, or to what extent, each model is con-
sistent with public attitudes, with public perceptions and, more im-
portant, with public aspirations.
Assumptions about local identity and citizenship
Tip O’Neill, the legendary Speaker of the US House of Representatives,

is reputed to have claimed that ‘all politics is local’. That claim has
some surface plausibility when applied to the United States though it is
much less obviously applicable to Britain. Nonetheless, the traditional
or ‘localist model’ of local governance is based on the assumption that
locality has a sociological and psychological meaning as well as a geo-
graphic meaning. It assumes that people in some real sense ‘live’ in a
locality, that ‘local community’ is not an empty phrase, and that
people recognize, value and identify with their locality. If so, then
there is both a sociological and a psychological reality for local author-
ities to ‘represent’.
By contrast, the ‘individualist model’ assumes the validity of
Margaret Thatcher’s notorious claim that: ‘There is no such thing as
Society. There are [just] individual men and women, and their fam-
ilies.’2 It assumes that though people may live in a locality they do
not identify with it to any significant degree. The ‘mobilization model’

assumes that people do live in localities and identify with them, but
that the localities of greatest significance to them are much smaller
than local authority areas, much closer to the idea of a ‘neighbour-
hood’. Each local authority, in this view, represents not one local com-
munity but a variety of different local communities with different and
often conflicting interests. Partly for that reason, it is necessary to
mobilize the people who live in the less socially and politically dom-
inant neighbourhoods to assert their very specific interests. In the view
of this ‘mobilization model’, local authority areas are too large to be
the focus of identity. They are not constructed ‘on a human scale’.
The ‘centralist model’ makes the opposite assumption: that people
live in something much wider than a typical local authority area, and
that the focus of their identity is the nation as a whole rather than a
relatively small, often rather arbitrarily defined, and frequently
redefined, local authority area. Services may be provided locally, but
life itself, both socially and psychologically, exists and has its meaning
within Britain as a whole, not within small localities. Society and com-
munity do exist, but fundamentally as British society and as a national
community.
These assumptions conflict sharply. Surely they cannot all be right?
Do people live their lives materially and psychologically in local
authority areas, or in something larger, or in smaller neighbourhoods,
or just in the family itself?
Let us distinguish the social and material side of life from the psy-
chological. However unlikely it may seem, it is possible with the help
of television and the local library to feel psychologically ‘a citizen of
the world’ without ever physically going beyond a council district.
Sociological assumptions
We found that over the course of a person’s life only a small minority
live within a local authority area. At the time when we interviewed
them 92 per cent claimed to have been born in Britain, but only 67 per
cent in the region where they now lived, and a mere 36 per cent in the
local authority district where they now lived. And before their lives
ended, many of those who were still in the region or district of their
birth at the time of the interview would, in all probability, have moved
away.
A less long-term, whole-life view suggests higher levels of stability:
60 per cent had lived at least 20 years in their current local authority
district and 80 per cent had lived that long in their region.
On the other hand, mere residence is not all. We found that only
half the residents restricted their shopping and leisure activities to the
local district and that almost as many (27 per cent) worked outside the
district as inside it (38 per cent). Only a third said that all their friends
lived in the same district and less than a fifth that all their relatives did
so. Half regularly went outside the district for leisure or shopping pur-
poses.
For the majority of people, life was not lived exclusively within the
narrow confines of a single local authority district. On the other hand,
we could make the case that a majority lived their lives within the
wider confines of the region: 67 per cent were born in their region (as
we have defined ‘region’, one of the ten into which we divided
Britain), 80 per cent were long-term residents of the region, 59 per cent
said all their friends lived there and almost half that all their relatives
lived there. Only 18 per cent went outside the region for leisure or
shopping purposes. So the sociological assumptions of the ‘localist
model’ are clearly false for local authority districts though more valid
in terms of regions.
More clearly still, the sociological assumptions of the mobilization
model are false, at least for the population as a whole. If only a small
minority live their lives in a single council district, an even smaller
number must live their lives within the confines of a single neighbour-
hood. But of course, the mobilization model focuses on those particu-
lar sections of society that lack income, education and physical
well-being. It is not really intended as a prescription for the population
as a whole. More of those who need mobilizing do indeed live spatially
restricted lives. Judged by whether they had lived in the same district
for 20 years or more, we found that those who had no school
certificates were 18 per cent more locally rooted than those who had
school certificates and 35 per cent more than university graduates.
Manual workers were 24 per cent more locally rooted than those in
management. Judged by whether their shopping and leisure activities
were confined within their region the poor (those who said their
family income was ‘not enough to survive on’) were 19 per cent more
locally oriented than the rich (those whose family income was ‘enough
for a good standard of living’). The relatively uneducated, the manual
working class, the old, the poor and the tenants on council estates
were indeed tied more than others to life within the narrow confines of
a district and perhaps even within a neighbourhood.
The ‘centralist model’ assumes that people live in Britain as a
whole rather than being restricted to a specific locality. We found
that people do move around Britain in large numbers, but not round
the whole of Britain. They frequently venture beyond a local author-
ity district for shopping, leisure, housing or work. But only a minor-
ity move outside their region. So while only a minority live within
the confines of a district, an even smaller minority live in Britain as a
whole. Socially and materially, life is more typically regional than
either local or national.
The ‘individualist model’ assumes that life is in essence private: that
it is lived within the family, the circle of close friends, or even on a
purely individual basis. The individual only interacts with the world
beyond the circle of family and friends in order to buy in goods and
services. The individual may appear to be living within the district,
within the region or even more widely. But in fact the individual is
really living in a private world that is probably very small indeed in
terms of the number of its inhabitants, though not necessarily in terms
of locality. The ‘individualist model’ makes no assumptions about the
physical space within which life is lived but it does make strong
assumptions about psychological identifications.
We can summarize our test of the sociological assumptions underly-
ing these various models by drawing up a scorecard (see Table 8.1).
Psychological assumptions
The psychological space in which people live, and with which they
identify, is equally important for the ‘localist’, ‘mobilization’ and ‘cen-
tralist’ models. And it is particularly important for the ‘individualist’
model. The ‘localist’ and ‘mobilization’ models assume that people are
interested and informed about their locality, the ‘centralist’ and ‘indi-
vidualist’ that they are not.
We found that people admitted to being less likely to vote in local
than in national elections. But they nonetheless claimed to be as inter-
ested in local issues and what their local council did as they were in
national issues and what Parliament did. And they claimed to be far
more interested in both local and national affairs than in European
issues and what the EU did. Almost half read a local evening paper,
and three-quarters followed local news on television or in local weekly
papers. At a minimum level of information, a majority clearly knew
that local authorities provided services such as refuse collection,
schools and police, but that they did not provide hospitals, unemploy-
ment benefits or help for local businesses. Only 9 per cent thought
they supplied electricity and more remarkably a large majority were
already aware that they no longer supplied water and sewage services.
194
Table 8.1 Sociological assumptions
Model Assumption Test verdict Rating
Localist People live their lives in local districts Not true for local authority districts; – for district
more true for regions + for region
Physical test not relevant not relevant
2014-12-27
Individualist No assumption about the physical (as distinct from
psychological) space in which people live
Mobilization People live their lives in neighbourhoods Not true for the public as a whole; more – for whole
true for target groups – the uneducated, public
the working class, the old, the poor + for sections
Centralist People live their lives in a wide spatial area such as Not true for Britain as a whole; more – for Britain
Britain as a whole true for regions + for regions
The low educated and the working class were relatively uninter-
ested in political affairs on a British or European scale but,
significantly for the mobilization model, they were about as inter-
ested in local affairs as anyone else. And they were more likely than
others to read a local evening paper or a local weekly, or to follow
local affairs on television.
The ‘localist model’ assumes that people identify strongly with
their local authority area, and the ‘centralist model’ that they iden-
tify strongly with Britain as a whole. The ‘mobilization model’
assumes that they identify, or can be mobilized into identifying,
more with ‘people like themselves’ – that is, people who live in their
immediate neighbourhood and who have similar social characteris-
tics to themselves. And the ‘individualist model’ assumes that, if
they identify with other people at all, it is primarily with their
family and friends.
Our measure of the strength of identification ran from a possible
minimum of minus five to a possible maximum of plus five. On that
scale, identification with the local authority district averaged plus 2.0.
So people do identify quite strongly with their local district as the
‘localist model’ assumes. But they identified more strongly with their
region (at 2.7) and still more with Britain (at 3.0). So the assumptions
of the ‘centralist model’ clearly get more support than those of a pure
‘localist model’ based on districts, though not much more than a
‘localist model’ based on regions. An ‘internationalist model’ focused
on Europe would score very badly indeed since identification with
Europe averaged zero.
The level of identification with districts might provide a justification
for a limited degree of local autonomy within the framework of nation-
ally defined policy. But by the same token, the level of identification
with regions would justify a more equal relationship between regional
and national government. Since the level of regional identification
varied across the regions of England, and both regional and (British)
national identification varied once we crossed beyond the English
borders, the varying levels of identification actually would justify:
• predominantly British national government in the South and Mid-

lands of England;
• equality between regional and national government in the three
northern regions of England;
• predominantly regional government in Wales, and even more so in
Scotland.
196
Table 8.2 Psychological assumptions – local interest and information
Localist People are interested and informed about local affairs Yes +
2014-12-27
Individualist People are not interested and informed about local affairs No –
Mobilization People are interested and informed about local affairs Yes, and target groups more locally
oriented +
Centralist People are not interested and informed about local affairs No –
Of course, psychological identification alone is not the only basis for

government structures. But these are the structures that would be con-
sistent with the pattern of identification with districts and regions,
with Britain and with Europe.
The ‘mobilization model’ emphazises the actual or potential level of
identification with more specific neighbourhoods or social groups.
Overall, people identified more strongly with their neighbourhood of
residence (at 2.3) than with their local district as a whole (at 2.0),
reversing the trend towards lower levels of identification with smaller
areas. The assumptions of the mobilization model score well in this
respect. But it is important to notice that identification was only strong
with the neighbourhood of residence. Identification with the neigh-
bourhood where people worked was weak (at 0.5), with class it was
only slightly stronger (at 1.0) and with religion it was even weaker (at
zero).
In one sense, the pattern of identifications gave powerful support to
the ‘individualist model’. Identification with the family (at 3.9) far
exceeded identification with anything else. And identification with the
respondent’s circle of friends (at 2.8) exceeded everything except
identification with Britain. Individual identification and individual loy-
alties were very strong. Where the ‘individualist model’ fails, and fails
lamentably, is in assuming that what is indeed the strongest focus
of identification is the only focus, that identification with family
and friends excludes other identifications. Not only are other
identifications also strong, but there is a positive correlation between
family identification and other identifications. In fact our single most
important finding about identifications was that they were not ex-
clusive, and that they were in general positively correlated.
Another, less direct way of measuring psychological commitment
to localities is to see whether people feel a sense of pride or shame
about what goes on in them. The ‘localist model’ would assume that
pride and shame tied them to the district, the ‘centralist model’ to
Britain, the ‘mobilization model’ to the neighbourhood and the
‘individualist model’ only to the family. We found that a majority
were willing to take pride in good things done by other people but
only a minority felt shame for bad things done by other people.
More to the point, we also found that both pride and shame tied
people more to the inhabitants of their district than their region,
and more to their region than to the rest of Britain. By these
measures therefore, ties to the district were stronger than to the
region or to Britain.
198
Table 8.3 Psychological assumptions – identifications
Localist People identify strongly with local districts Yes, but even more with regions and Britain +
Individualist People identify with family and friends They identify more strongly with family + for strength
only than with anything else – but not – for
exclusively exclusiveness
2014-12-27
Mobilization People identify most with specific Yes, but only for neighbourhoods of +
neighbourhoods or social groups residence. Target groups identify more than
others with localities and social groups
Centralist People identify most with Britain Overall, they identify more strongly with +
Britain than with localities – but this is only
clearly true for the South and Midlands of
England
We did not ask about pride in the neighbourhood. But the target
groups of the mobilization model were much more willing than others
to admit to vicarious pride or shame. Not only that, but they were even
more sensitive than others to actions that were linked to their locality.
Compared to graduates, the low educated were 22 per cent more likely
to feel such pride or shame about things done by someone ‘from else-
where in Britain’ but about 32 per cent more likely to feel such pride or
shame about things done by someone from their region or district.
Similarly the poor were 8 per cent more likely than the rich to feel
pride/shame about things done by someone ‘from elsewhere in Britain’
but were about 16 per cent more likely to feel such pride/shame about
things done by someone from their region or district. Local authority
tenants were by far the most likely to feel such vicarious pride/shame
and private renters the least – but once again the difference between
them was greatest when it concerned actions by local people.
The four models differ sharply on social responsibility and exclusion.
The ‘localist model’ assumes a sense of ‘local citizenship’ involving
both a special right to local authority services and a special duty
towards others who live in the locality. A clear majority (61 per cent)
said they felt more responsible for the welfare of the inhabitants of
their district than for the welfare of the inhabitants of their region,
though only 47 per cent felt they had more responsibility for the
welfare of others in their region than for others throughout Britain.
Nonetheless even that 47 per cent is inconsistent with a pure ‘central-
ist model’, which would admit no citizenship more local than national
citizenship. And it is also inconsistent with the ‘individualist model’
which views people as customers for services rather than as citizens of
any kind. Customers have no rights to anything other than what they
purchase for themselves.
Like the ‘localist’ and ‘centralist’ models, the ‘mobilization model’
also accepts that those who do not have rights as paying customers
may still have a right to services, but the justification for such rights
under the ‘mobilization model’ is based more on ‘human rights’ –
applicable to people simply by virtue of their common humanity and
above all their need for services, rather than their ‘citizenship’.
Citizenship implies a right to services and benefits merely by virtue of
citizenship, even though the recipient has not paid for them and there-
fore has no rights as a paying customer. But the status of ‘citizen’ is
restrictive, just like that of ‘customer’. Citizenship implies that some
people are citizens while others are not, just as some are paying cus-
tomers and others are not. Citizenship, like customer status, has to be
200
Table 8.4 Psychological assumptions – pride and shame
Localist Emotionally involved with district Yes: pride strongest for district +
2014-12-27
Individualist Emotionally involved only with family No –
Mobilization Emotionally involved mainly with neighbourhood Not tested explicitly. Target groups Not tested
more sensitive than others, and
especially to actions by locals
Centralist Emotionally involved only with Britain No –
‘earned’ in some way. Citizenship is both inclusive and exclusive: it is

about setting boundaries and differentiating between people. Thus,
‘local’ citizenship implies differentiating local and national citizenship,
including those who qualify for specifically ‘local’ citizenship but
excluding those who do not.
Under the Maastricht Treaty, citizens of any EU country who have
lived in Britain for five years automatically become ‘local citizens’
though not ‘British national citizens’. They can vote in local authority
elections (and in the Scottish and Welsh devolution referenda of 1997
and in the subsequent Scottish and Welsh elections) but not in elec-
tions to the British Parliament.3 Conversely, local citizenship is not as
transportable as national citizenship. British national citizens who live
outside Britain can, in certain circumstances, continue to vote in par-
liamentary elections but not in local authority elections (nor in the
Scottish and Welsh devolution referenda of 1997 nor in Scottish and
Welsh elections). Under this ‘local government franchise’ Spanish citi-
zens living in Scotland were entitled to vote in the referendum on
Scottish devolution, but Scots living in England (let alone Spain) were
not. Similarly, local schools, primary heath care (except in emergen-
cies), many social services and even the use of public libraries are
usually restricted to local residents.
Mere residence is the least restrictive criterion for local citizenship. A
common criterion is residence for some minimum period, which
implies payment of taxes for some minimum period, though this latter
criterion can also be made explicit. The case for such minimum periods
is strengthened if local services are not provided entirely out of current
public expenditure, but reflect continuous public investment over a
period of time. We found that just over one-fifth of the public would
restrict local voting rights to those who had lived locally, or paid taxes
locally, for at least two years. And just under one-fifth would restrict
access to local schools and hospitals in a similar way. They made little
distinction between local residence and local taxpaying though they
put slightly more emphasis on taxes when asked about schools and
hospitals, and slightly more emphasis on residence when asked about
voting. And it made no difference whether the questions were framed
in terms of the district or the region.
These figures for local exclusivity are very low, much lower for
example than the numbers who felt a special responsibility for the
welfare of people who lived in their locality. No doubt the people in
our survey had not thought through all the possible costs as carefully
as a ‘New Right’ theorist, or perhaps they were just too warm-hearted,
but four out of five seemed very reluctant to place any significant
limits on access to local citizenship. Mere residence (without a
minimum time period) was clearly enough for them and, although we
did not test views on it explicitly, perhaps even mere presence was
enough.
Indeed, the public displayed a curious mixture of ‘localist’ and ‘cen-
tralist’ views about citizenship. Locality seemed to impose a duty of
care (which made the majority ‘localist’), yet without conferring privi-
leged access (which made the majority ‘centralist’). Paradoxically, this
combination of attitudes is consistent with the ‘mobilization model’ in
so far as it focuses on need rather than citizenship though that model
focuses especially on relatively small areas of deprivation. Though not
concerned with equal rights to local services in the nation as a whole,
it would not differentiate between needy individuals within the small
areas of its immediate concern.
Aims and objectives
The four models take very different views about the proper ideological
objectives of local government. The ‘localist model’ suggests local gov-
ernment should be autonomous with respect to central government
though accountable to its own electorate. The ‘centralist model’ sug-
gests that it should be an agent for central government and accountable
to it. The ‘mobilization model’ emphasizes the need to change society
and change the disadvantaged themselves by encouraging the weak to
demand more services and more power, rather than focusing on
accountability in any form. And the ‘individualist model’ suggests that
government of any kind, local or national, is at best a necessary evil
and one that should be minimized.
Local autonomy
In broad ideological terms we found overwhelming support for at least
‘standard raising autonomy’. Although 75 per cent also wanted central
government to ‘set national standards’, most of them (67 out of the
75 per cent) also said councils should be free to provide whatever ser-
vices local people wanted and were willing to pay for. Thus 67 per cent
supported ‘standard raising autonomy’ though not ‘standard lowering
autonomy’. In addition, another 24 per cent supported unqualified
autonomy for local government. Because even ‘standard raising auton-
omy’ involves a degree of local autonomy it fits the ‘localist model’
and not the ‘centralist’. Conversely, public insistence on at least main-
Table 8.5 Psychological assumptions – local or national citizenship
Localist Implicit sense of local citizenship:

more responsible for district welfare Yes: responsibility strongest for district +
exclusive definition of local citizenship No –
2014-12-27
Individualist No sense of citizenship:
responsible only for family No –
Mobilization Rights based on need, not exclusive citizenship, but Yes +
very local perspective
Centralist Implicit sense of equal national citizenship:
equally responsible for people anywhere in Britain No –
equal rights to local services, even for new arrivals Yes +
203
taining minimum national standards fits the ‘centralist model’ but not
the ‘localist’. But both ‘standard raising autonomy’ and national
minimum standards fit the expansionist aims of the ‘mobilization
model’. And in practice, the minimalist aims of the ‘individualist
model’ mean that its advocates support local autonomy against
national standards (‘standard lowering autonomy’) but cry ‘local
tyranny’ when local autonomy is used to reach a collective decision
to increase local taxes and services. They do not, in fact, support
‘standard raising autonomy’.
Minimalism
We found very little support for the ‘individualist’ model’s minimalist
view: 82 per cent said local government should provide universal ser-
vices, that is services that everyone needs such as refuse collection and
basic police services. Rather less, but not much less (71 per cent),
agreed that local government should provide extra services for
payment: ‘special services for those who are willing to pay extra for
them, like special security patrols for shops and businesses.’ And
almost as many (67 per cent) agreed that it should even provide ‘grants
and subsidies for things that councillors feel make the area a better
place, even if only a few people actually use them – things like
theatres, concert halls or sports centres’. And fully 90 per cent said
councils should provide ‘services which are only used by those in
special need, like the sick or the poor’.
A developmental role
The idea that local government should take a positively developmental
role, evidenced already in support for ‘quality of life’ subsidies, is con-
sistent especially with the ethos of the ‘mobilization model’, though it
is not in conflict with the ‘localist model’. The same could be said of
attitudes towards local authority encouragement of local businesses
and local employment. We found overwhelming support for the view
that local government should be active in local economic develop-
ment, and that it should not leave it either to central government or to
the mysterious workings of the market. Half, though only half, were
willing to go so far against free-market principles as to agree that local
councils should buy from local suppliers in order to boost local
employment even if they charged ‘a little more’. That would be
anathema to either the ‘individualist’ or ‘centralist’ models.
But the clearest test of the mobilization model was provided by ques-
tions that specifically asked about mobilization. Four out of five agreed
Table 8.6 Objectives – local autonomy and national standards
Model Ideological objective Test verdict Rating
Localist Autonomous with respect to central government Yes to ‘standard raising autonomy’ +
No to ‘standard lowering autonomy’ –
2014-12-27
Individualist Minimal government (local or national) Yes to ‘standard raising autonomy’ –
No to ‘standard lowering autonomy’ –
Mobilization A mobilizing force for change Yes to ‘standard raising autonomy’ +
No to ‘standard lowering autonomy’ +
Centralist An agent of central government Yes to minimum national standards +
No to maximum national standards –
205
206
Table 8.7 Objectives – minimalism
Localist Local government should be free to provide ‘extra’ Yes: public support ‘extra’ local +
services if it wishes services
2014-12-27
Individualist Minimal services only No –
Mobilization Local government should definitely provide ‘extra’ Yes: public support ‘extra’ local +
services services
Centralist Only services specified by central government No –
that local government should ‘encourage those in need to demand

more services’. And just as many disagreed with the opposite view that
it ‘should provide as few services as possible, allowing people to
provide for themselves.’ About half agreed that local government
should set up special committees to provide moral or financial support
(it made no difference to the answers whether the question focused on
‘moral’ or ‘financial’ as well as moral support) to groups of women,
racial minorities, or gays and lesbians. True, such support dropped to
only 35 per cent for gay and lesbian groups, but it rose to 55 per cent
for women’s groups and to 62 per cent for racial and ethnic groups.
The ‘individualist model’ would certainly not encourage demands on
the public purse and both the ‘localist’ and ‘centralist’ models would
offer it no more than lukewarm support. But the ‘localist model’ had
always claimed that participation in local government and local elec-
tions would develop individual personalities. To that extent the ‘local-
ist model’ had an element of mobilization in it. We found that 42 per
cent thought local government ‘should help people to develop their
capabilities and personalities by encouraging them to participate in
elections and political campaigns’. But we found even more support
(52 per cent) for the view that local government should assist personal
development by encouraging direct involvement in self-management
schemes, and that more focused and less electoral strategy was associ-
ated far more with the new ‘mobilization model’ than with the old
traditional ‘localist model’.
Among the mobilization model’s target groups, support for special
committees was even higher. It was 16 per cent greater among the poor
than among the rich, 11 per cent greater among council tenants than
among owner occupiers, and 12 per cent greater among the low edu-
cated than among graduates. But the pattern of support for ‘helping
people to develop their capabilities and personalities by encouraging
them to participate’ was more complex. That proposition had patroniz-
ing overtones. Thus support for it was 11 per cent greater among the
poor than the rich but, at the same time, 9 per cent less among the low
educated than among graduates – a pattern that is only possible
because income and education are only loosely correlated in Britain.
Graduates, but not the rich, wished to encourage human development
through participation in politics and self-management.
Accountability
Under the ‘localist model’ local government should be accountable to
its own electorate and under the ‘centralist model’ to central govern-
208
Table 8.8 Objectives – a developmental role
Localist Do not encourage more demands on public funds No –

Encourage personal development through A majority do not agree –
participation in politics and elections
Individualist Do not encourage more demands on public funds No –
2014-12-27
Leave people to develop in their own way Public divided Mixed
Mobilization Encourage the needy to make demands Yes +
Encourage personal development through More support for development through Mixed
participation in self-management of services participation in self-management than in
politics – but public still divided
Centralist Do not encourage more demands on public funds No –
Leave people to develop in their own way Public divided Mixed
ment. Under the ‘individualist model’, such local government as could

not be abolished and replaced by the market should be accountable to
its ‘customers’, the local taxpayers. The ‘mobilization model’ would
make local government most accountable to those in most need of its
jobs or services. We used four non-comparative questions, asking dif-
ferent subsamples whether local government should pay ‘most atten-
tion to the views and interests’ of four different groups: experts, local
taxpayers and those who most needed council jobs or council services.
The public was four times as willing to agree that local government
should pay most attention to those who relied most on council ser-
vices as to those who paid the most council tax. And it was well over
twice as willing to agree that local government should pay most atten-
tion to those who needed council jobs as to those who paid the most
council tax. Only ‘experts’ rivalled the needy as worthy of most atten-
tion.
These questions discriminate best between the ‘individualist model’,
which is firmly rejected, and the ‘mobilization model’, which is firmly
supported. They tell us relatively little about public support for the
‘centralist’ or ‘localist’ models.
Pluralism
Only the traditional ‘localist model’ emphasizes the contribution of
local government to political pluralism. That could happen at two
levels, either within the local authority or within the nation as a
whole. We found that a majority claimed to vote in local elections on
local issues. In so far as they do not, local election voting has been
interpreted as a referendum on central government’s performance.
Either way that might seem to indicate that local elections contribute
to the democratic process at some level.
But we also found that 67 per cent thought (perhaps wrongly) that
the same party nearly always controlled their local council and only
9 per cent thought that party control changed ‘quite often’ – though
17 per cent thought it changed ‘very occasionally’. Other responses
indicated independent or hung councils were the norm. So whatever
the self-conscious motivation for their votes in local elections,
people did not see local elections as a significant mechanism for
choice and change within their own localities.
Advocates of the ‘localist model’ have long recognized the tendency
for one-party dominance within particular local authorities and have
instead stressed the contribution of local government to pluralism in
national politics. Some local authorities would be controlled by the
210
Table 8.9 Objectives – accountability
Localist Accountable to the local electorate as a whole Test not relevant Not relevant
2014-12-27
Individualist Accountable to local taxpayers No –
Mobilization Act primarily in the interests of the needy Yes +
Centralist Accountable to central government Test not relevant Not relevant
party that was in opposition at Westminster. Thus central government

would always have to face local authorities which were opposed to it
and, moreover, had a democratic mandate of their own. At any time,
no party would control all elected bodies in Britain, and each of the
major parties would control some, thereby providing pluralism in the
country as a whole more effectively even than by proportional repre-
sentation, hung parliaments and coalition governments at national
level.
But the diversity of local authorities could only contribute to
national pluralism if local authorities had some role and status
within national politics. Both the ‘individualist’ and ‘centralist’
models deny such a national role for local authorities. They assert
that local government should concern itself exclusively with the
efficient provision of minimal or centrally decreed services and stay
out of national politics. At the other extreme, the radicals who sup-
ported the ‘mobilization model’ were eager for local authorities not
just to take a minor role within a generally co-operative national plu-
ralism but for them to challenge existing power structures nationally
as well as locally – at least when their opponents, the Conservatives,
held office nationally.
We found that the public opted for a quiet life. They did not support
the concept of using local authorities as a base to challenge central
government unless local services were the issue. Fully 78 per cent
thought local government ‘should stay out of national politics except
where it directly affects local services’. That seems inconsistent with
the mobilization model, and consistent with the individualist or cen-
tralist models. However, the fact that our question included the quali-
fying phrase ‘except where it directly affects local services’ means that
it is not entirely inconsistent with the localist model, especially when
we take account of public attitudes towards local autonomy.
Symbolism
Both the ‘localist’ and the ‘mobilization’ models favour symbolic acts
designed to raise collective consciousness within the locality. The
‘localist model’ would aim to bind the whole local authority area
together, while the ‘mobilization model’ is more concerned to raise the
collective consciousness of smaller areas of deprivation within the local
authority. Conversely, both the ‘centralist’ and ‘individualist’ models,
with their emphasis on efficient service delivery, would reject any kind
of local symbolism as a distraction, a waste of resources and perhaps a
cover for inefficiency and corruption.
212
Table 8.10 Objectives – pluralism
Localist Contribute to pluralism in national politics by Mixed Mixed
2014-12-27
defending local autonomy
Individualist Stay out of national politics Yes +
Mobilization Contribute to pluralism in national politics by No –
challenging established power structures
Centralist Stay out of national politics Yes +
Such symbols can take many forms: officially sponsored fetes and
galas, unnecessary and extravagant public buildings (for concert halls
or council chambers perhaps), ‘mayoral elections’ and referenda in the
case of the ‘localist model’, or street demonstrations and protests by
the deprived in the case of the ‘mobilization model’. Symbolism is an
elusive topic and one that our survey did not cover well. An inherent
problem is that few symbolic acts are purely symbolic. Most have a
practical justification as well. Extravagant public buildings may serve a
useful, functional purpose and local referenda may contribute towards
democratic decision-making as well as acting as a focus for local con-
sciousness. So although we did ask questions about mayoral elections
and local referenda, some may see these as questions about deepening
and improving democracy rather than indulging in symbolic politics.
Still, even those who advocated the direct election of mayors for big
cities such as London generally recognized that the role would be as
much symbolic as executive. As we found in Chapter 3, identification
with London boroughs was weaker than with local authority districts
in any other part of Britain, and identification with London itself was
weaker than with any other region of Britain. The importance of an
elected London Mayor would be as much to give London a focus and
an identity as to plan for London-wide services.
We found 78 per cent of the public supported directly elected execu-
tive mayors and 61 per cent supported local referenda. In so far as that
represents support for local symbolism, it is consistent with the ‘local-
ist model’ but not with the ‘individualist’ or ‘centralist’ models.
Images
Images or perceptions of the actual performance of existing local gov-

ernment may be more consistent with one model of local governance
than with another. Generally positive impressions of traditional
elected local authorities would support the ‘localist model’. More posi-
tive impressions of central rather than local government would
support the ‘centralist model’. Generally negative impressions of any
kind of government would support the ‘individualist model’. And
more negative impressions among relatively deprived sections of the
public would fit the ‘mobilization model’.
Representative
In particular, the ‘localist model’ suggests that local authorities can and
should be representative of their electors and responsive to them. We
214
Table 8.11 Objectives – symbolism
Localist Symbolic acts to raise consciousness of locality Yes +
2014-12-27
Individualist No symbolism No –
Mobilization Symbolic acts to raise consciousness of deprived Not tested not tested
groups or areas within locality
Centralist No symbolism No –
found that public opinion was ambivalent about the extent to which
the local council represented the views of local people. Indeed percep-
tions were weak and malleable. Roughly two-thirds of the public would
agree that their own local council did or did not represent the views of
local people, depending entirely on the way we put the question. But
the public was more inclined to agree that local councils paid attention
to the views of experts rather than to their voters. When asked whether
various groups had too much or too little influence over the provision
of local services, the public complained that local voters and ordinary
council workers had far too little influence.
As a perception of actually existing local authorities our findings do
not support the ‘localist model’ as an accurate description. People did
not feel that local authorities actually were as responsive as the ‘localist
model’ suggests they should be. But as an aspiration, these findings do
tend to support the ‘localist model’. The public wanted local govern-
ment to be more responsive to its electorate.
The ‘centralist model’ suggests local government is or should be the
‘agent’ or representative of central government within the locality.
When asked whether various groups had too much or too little
influence over the provision of local services, people were highly criti-
cal of the excessive influence of central government. And they were
inclined to agree that local councils were too willing to accept instruc-
tions from central government. Again we need to distinguish aspira-
tions from perceptions: people wanted less central control, but they
perceived an excessive degree of it. What they wanted was not consis-
tent with the ‘centralist model’, but what they saw in actually existing
local government was something all too consistent with the ‘centralist
model’.
The ‘mobilization model’ suggests local government should pay
most attention to representing the interests of the relatively deprived
sections of the public. We found people were a little more inclined to
agree that councils were dominated by business interests than that
they did not take enough account of business interests. Paradoxically,
when asked whether various groups had too much or too little
influence over the provision of local services they were, by a small
margin, inclined to say that local businessmen had too little. But they
were much more inclined to say that ordinary council workers,
women’s groups and racial and ethnic groups also had too little
influence. A breakdown of opinion by income and education showed
that the poor (those who complained their family income was ‘not
enough to live on’) were 21 per cent more likely than the rich (those
who said their family income was ‘enough for a good standard of
living’) to allege that councils ‘did not represent the views of local
people’. And they were 19 per cent more likely than the rich to claim
that councils provided ‘better services in rich areas where people need
them least’.
All the elite groups we interviewed, whether elected councillors or
appointed members of quango boards, said that council services were
biased towards the areas of greatest need within the locality, but the
public did not agree. Rightly or wrongly, and probably wrongly, the
public did not perceive any clear bias of services between rich and poor
areas within their local authority. Certainly there is no evidence here
that the general public perceived a ‘mobilization model’ operating
within their local authority, though they seemed to regret that.
The ‘individualist model’ questions whether government can ever be
representative. It suggests that government develops interests and
ambitions of its own which are not truly representative, though the
‘individualist model’ would still favour individual choice over any col-
lective decision, however representative. We found that the public
decisively rejected any suggestion that elected councillors were in local
politics for reasons of self-interest. By a majority of two to one, people
said councillors were motivated by ‘the good of the community’ or ‘a
sense of duty towards their fellow citizens’ rather than by personal gain
or a desire for self-aggrandisement. The ‘individualist model’ also sug-
gests that government tends to grow unnecessarily, to ‘build empires’
and to ‘over-supply’ services. Possibly that could occur even if politi-
cians were not personally motivated by the desire to build personal
empires. We did find that 47 per cent agreed that councils ‘raise high
local taxes to provide unnecessary services’ against only 41 per cent
who agreed that councils ‘fail to provide services up to proper national
standards because they are unwilling to raise local taxes’. But that dif-
ference is marginal and, given people’s natural antipathy towards tax,
it is perhaps surprising that it was so marginal. It is not enough to out-
weigh the public’s decisive rejection of the notion that councillors
were motivated by self-interest.
Honest, efficient, responsible and sympathetic

The traditional ‘localist model’ sees elected councillors as not only rep-
resentative but honest, sympathetic and responsible. Other models do
not. They suggest that councillors are perverse in various ways. The
‘individualist’ model’s view of elected councillors frequently shades
from allegations that they are unrepresentative, to the suggestion that
Table 8.12 Images of elected councils – how representative
Model Perceptions of councils Test verdict Rating
Localist Representative of local electorate and responsive Insufficiently – in contradiction to model –
2014-12-27
to them
Individualist Likely to pursue the council’s own interest No – in contradiction to model –
Mobilization Responsive to the deprived Insufficiently – as the model alleges +
Centralist Representative of central government Too much – in contradiction to model –
217
they are self-interested, and thence to the suggestion that they are
simply corrupt. However, we found that by a margin of 16 per cent the
public was inclined to view councils as less rather than more corrupt
when compared to private businesses – which is inconsistent with the
‘individualist model’.
The ‘mobilization model’ suggests that councillors are distant,
elitist and insufficiently sympathetic towards the plight of the poor.
Only a minority, though a large minority (41 per cent), felt their
local council did not care about the views of people like themselves,
which was inconsistent with the mobilization model. The poor were
14 per cent more likely than the rich to allege that their local council
did not care about their views. But they differed just as much from
the rich on whether appointed local governance boards and the
police, or even the ‘people they met in everyday life’, disregarded
their views. They felt a bit more neglected by everyone, not just by
local councils.
The public tended to suggest that the media – press, radio or televi-
sion – would be a slightly more effective channel of protest than their
local councillor, even on local government matters. But they seemed to
vote with their feet in favour of using councillors as their main
channel of protest. By their own account, 36 per cent had complained
to their local councillor at some time compared to only 31 per cent
who had ever complained to their MP, 17 per cent to the media and
even less to a health authority or local enterprise company.
Councillors were clearly more approachable than most other channels
of complaint and protest.
The ‘centralist model’ claims that councillors are irresponsible
and, in particular, that they are profligate spenders. We found that
61 per cent of the public were willing to accuse local government of
wasting ‘a good deal of taxpayers’ money’. But that gave no real
support to the ‘centralist model’ because a massive 92 per cent lev-
elled the same allegation against central government. By that stan-
dard, local government seemed comparatively frugal in the eyes of
the public. It looked less frugal when compared with private busi-
ness, however. A large majority accepted that councils were not as
efficient as private businesses but, paradoxically, a clear majority felt
that councillors were ‘good at organizing things’ (though not as
good as the business-oriented TEC/LEC boards). Instinctively the
public seemed to recognize that mere efficiency was not the only cri-
terion of good organization and responsible management in the
realm of public affairs.
Table 8.13 Images of elected councils – how honest, efficient, responsible and sympathetic
2014-12-27
Localist Honest, sympathetic and responsible Yes – as the model assumes +
Individualist Corrupt No – in contradiction to the model –
Mobilization Elitist and unsympathetic No – in contradiction to the model –
Centralist Irresponsible No – in contradiction to the model –
219
Trustworthy
A similar pattern emerged when we asked about satisfaction and trust.
People rated their local doctor, their electricity supplier and local
tradesmen higher than their local council in terms of ‘overall service
and value for money’, though they probably forgot how much they
were paying their doctor through national taxation. But they rated
their trust in elected councillors above their trust in the people
appointed to DHA/HB and TEC/LEC boards, and far above their trust
in ‘Parliament and government’. That is what the ‘localist model’
would expect. It is obviously inconsistent with the ‘centralist model’,
though that may partly reflect a less partisan public perspective on
local government than on central government.
The public clearly did not trust elected councillors anywhere near as
much as they trusted each other. But while not very high in absolute
terms, the level of public trust in councillors was sufficiently positive to
be inconsistent with the ‘mobilization’ model’s inherent suspicion of
local authorities and with the ‘individualist’ model’s inherent suspi-
cion of all elected bodies. Moreover, the fact that the public trusted
elected councillors more than ‘businessmen appointed to TEC/LEC’
boards is clearly inconsistent with the free-market and private business-
oriented ‘individualist model’.
Institutional preferences
The link between rival models of local governance and local authority
size is controversial. When Clarke and Stewart argued that ‘the struc-
ture of local government should be based not on the alleged efficien-
cies of administration, but on the perceived and felt community of
place’4 they seemed to link the ‘centralist model’ with large-scale local
authorities since that model gave priority to efficient service delivery.
And they linked the ‘localist model’ with small-scale local authorities
because it gave priority to local identification. Yet while we found
identification with neighbourhoods was stronger than with council
districts, we found identification with regions was stronger than both.
And when central government broke up large-scale local authorities
into smaller units, just after Clarke and Stewart had published their
views on scale, it was accused of doing so to reduce the political clout
of local authorities and make them easier to control centrally.
Abolishing Strathclyde Region was interpreted as centralization.
(Conversely, and equally paradoxically, creating a Scottish Parliament
was interpreted as decentralization.)
Table 8.14 Images of elected councils – how trustworthy
2014-12-27
Localist Relatively high public trust in elected councillors Yes +
Individualist Distrust all politicians and all elected officials No Trust elected councillors more than –
appointed quango board members – in
contradiction to the model
Mobilization Distrust remote councillors No – in contradiction to the model –
Centralist Trust central government more than local No – in contradiction to the model –
221
Size and subsidiarity

The appropriate scale of local government under the ‘individualist
model’ is unambiguous: the Tiebout thesis argues for very small local
government units to facilitate choice through ‘exit’ and short-distance
migration. Coming from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum,
the ‘mobilization model’ also focuses on neighbourhoods rather than
districts or regions in order to focus specifically on the disadvantaged
and to provide a context for mobilization that will not overawe them –
a more ‘human scale’. We are inclined to accept that a truly ‘centralist
model’ in the Bulpitt tradition of ‘high’ versus ‘low’ politics 5 would
also be most consistent with a multiplicity of small, weak and depen-
dent local authorities.
But the principle of subsidiarity, involving multiple levels of govern-
ment operating on different scales simultaneously, perhaps comes
closest to the spirit of the ‘localist model’. It was certainly the principle
behind the 1974–5 local government reorganization that inaugurated
the final phase of the ‘traditional’ system of local governance in
Britain. Moreover, it can be argued that the possibilities for genuine
local autonomy are positively correlated with size. This is not so much
for reasons of technical efficiency in the provision of services which
Clarke and Stewart claim have in fact been superseded by advances in
technology, but rather to deal with the problems of ‘free-riding’ and
‘exit’, and also to take advantage of the stronger sense of identification
and legitimacy associated with a regional level.
We found people were 20 per cent more likely to say their local dis-
trict was ‘too small’ than ‘too big’, though the majority seemed to
think it was neither. At the same time, a majority approved the idea of
elected regional governments. We have not always found so much
support for elected regional authorities in other surveys but other
surveys seldom asked people to think so intensively about local gover-
nance. We also asked whether different services should be provided by
‘a body responsible for an area about the size of [your district], or the
size of [your region], or Britain as a whole’. There was overwhelming
support for the districts taking responsibility for refuse collection and
for leisure services, but for nothing else. Views on all other services
such as education, roads, police, health, economic development and
environmental protection were characterized by division rather than
consensus. A plurality but not a majority of the public allocated educa-
tion to districts and almost everything else to Britain. Among local
governance elites of all kinds, appointed DHA/HB and TEC/LEC board
members as well as elected councillors, the plurality nearly always allo-
cated these other services (i.e. except for education) to the region
rather than to Britain. The term ‘subsidiarity’ is almost unknown to the
general public, but if it was brought to the public’s attention they
would probably react like M. Jourdain in Molière’s Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme when he discovers the meaning of ‘prose’: ‘I’ve been
talking prose for the last forty years and have never known it!’6
Subsidiarity applies at all levels, however, and so may be consistent
with the ‘mobilization model’ if not with the ‘individualist model’.
Both of these models focus on very small areas, but they differ about
the autonomy of those areas. The ‘individualist model’ incorporates
the Tiebout thesis, which was designed to reconcile autonomy for the
local community with freedom for the individual. Under this model,
the very small local authorities would be as independent as possible.
Individual citizens would act like consumers, ‘shopping around’ for a
place to live which had their preferred mix of local services and taxes.
While the ‘mobilization model’ emphasizes the ‘voice’ and interests of
neighbourhoods, it does not see neighbourhoods as fully independent
of a wider local authority, nor in free competition with each other to
attract and keep residents. It is more about collective decision-making
in the context of sublocal authority subsidiarity.
We found only 5 per cent of the public had ever considered moving
to a local authority with better services or lower council tax, though
that rose to 11 per cent in London. Only 1 per cent throughout Britain
had actually moved for these Tieboutian reasons, rising only to 3 per
cent in London. Among the few throughout Britain who had contem-
plated such a move, twice as many were motivated by a desire for
better services as for lower taxes. In London, between four and five
times as many were motivated by a desire for better services as for
lower taxes.
So very few people thought or acted in Tieboutian terms. No doubt the
advocates of the ‘individualist model’ would argue that people would
think and behave differently if they were presented with the new oppor-
tunities afforded by a large number of very small, highly autonomous
local authorities competing for ‘customer-citizens’. However, the density
of population and the density of rapid transport systems across London
meant that London boroughs came close to the Tieboutian prescription
in terms of geographic size, if not in terms of political autonomy.
Moreover we found that the psychological sense of local identity was
uniquely weak in London. But despite that, the numbers who had even
contemplated Tieboutian moves were small, and the numbers who had
actually made them very small indeed even in London.
224
Table 8.15 Institutional preferences – size and subsidiarity
Model Institutional preference Test verdict Rating
Localist Subsidiarity, devolving power to local authorities Yes – including districts and regions +
Individualist Very small local authorities, competing for No –
2014-12-27
‘customer-citizens’
Mobilization Subsidiarity, devolving power downwards from local Not directly tested. Not tested
authorities
Centralist District sized local authorities, large enough to provide No –
services efficiently, but not large enough to mount a
political challenge to central government
Funding – by user charges, local taxes or national subsidies

The traditional ‘localist model’ stressed the importance of local tax-
ation as at least a major contribution towards the cost of local public
services. Taxation was the basis for public services, and only specifically
local taxation could provide a basis for local responsibility and local
autonomy.
Under the ‘individualist model’, however, public services should not
be free at the point of use. To avoid over-provision of unnecessary ser-
vices and to encourage individual responsibility, users – and only users
– should pay directly through service charges. Under the ‘mobilization’
and ‘centralist’ models, public services would be subsidized by tax-
ation, but by national rather than local taxation: the rich must subsi-
dize the poor, and that principle should apply to localities as much as
to individuals.
We found overwhelming support (83 per cent) for the proposition
that ‘everyone should contribute through taxation to the cost of local
services whether they use them or not’. There was only relatively weak
support (34 per cent) for the opposite view that ‘people should only
have to pay for local services they use personally’. We approached the
issue in another way by asking whether ‘most local services’ should be
funded mainly by user charges or by local taxes or by national taxes.
Less than a quarter opted for user charges, 33 per cent for ‘national
subsidies, paid from national taxes like income tax and VAT’, and
43 per cent for ‘local council taxes’. When asked about six specific
local services, the public opted overwhelmingly for national taxation
as the preferred means of funding schools, hospitals and (more sur-
prisingly) the police. Less overwhelmingly, but nonetheless by a large
majority, they opted for local taxation as the preferred means of
funding local swimming pools, libraries and (more surprisingly) public
transport. There was almost no public support for user charges for
school, hospital and police services. But up to a quarter, though only
up to a quarter, opted for user charges as the main basis for funding
local sports, library and transport services. Public attitudes towards the
proper basis for funding local services were thus almost totally incon-
sistent with the ‘individualist model’, though they varied between
consistency with the ‘localist model’ and other models depending
upon the service in question.
Enforcement – by voters, courts or government inspectors

We have already discussed the principle of national standards and its
rather subtle relationship to the principle of local autonomy. Now we
226
Table 8.16 Institutional preferences – funding
2014-12-27
Localist Mainly local taxation Yes – especially for sports, arts and transport services +
Individualist Mainly user charges No –
Mobilization Mainly national subsidies Yes – especially for education, health and police services +
Centralist Mainly national subsidies Yes – especially for education, health and police services +
turn to the more institutional question of enforcement. The various

models of local governance naturally differ at least as much on the
enforcement of proper standards as on their setting. The ‘localist
model’ would leave enforcement to the local electorate, the ‘individu-
alist model’ to individuals and the ‘mobilization model’ to public
protests – all ‘bottom-up’ control mechanisms. By contrast, the ‘cen-
tralist model’ would rely on various techniques of ‘top-down’ monitor-
ing and inspection.
We asked people to choose between three of these methods of
enforcement, omitting the option of public protests. Which ‘would be
the best way to ensure proper standards in local services such as health,
education or policing…
• using national government inspectors to monitor standards;

• giving voters in local elections the power to dismiss those who
control local services;
• encouraging individuals to go to court and claim compensation for
poor services?’
Public opinion was fairly evenly divided between ‘government inspec-

tors’, ‘local elections’ and ‘encouraging individuals to go to court’. So
there was roughly equal support for each model on this question,
though a little more for the ‘centralist model’ than for the others.
The Tsar–Liberator
In a confrontation between local and central government, in which
the local authority had won the backing of its electorate by means of a
local election or a local referendum, the public came down overwhelm-
ingly on the side of local autonomy. That was clearly inconsistent with
the ‘centralist model’ and consistent with the ‘localist model’. Since
our respondents seemed no more impressed (indeed slightly less
impressed) by a local referendum than by a local election, it somewhat
undermines the argument for the more populist ‘mobilization model’,
but remains broadly consistent with it.
The ‘individualist model’ is based on fear of the ‘tyranny of major-
ities’ – especially the ‘tyranny of local and temporary majorities’ – over
individuals and minorities. For that model, the issue is not so much
whether the local authority should be able to impose its will against
central government as whether it should be able to impose its will on
the minority of its own residents who disagree with the collective
decision of the local majority. Under the ‘individualist model’, central
228
Table 8.17 Institutional preferences – enforcement
Localist Local elections Chosen by 32 per cent +
2014-12-27
Individualist Courts and compensation Chosen by 29 per cent +
Mobilization Public protests Not offered as an option Not tested
Centralist Government inspectors Chosen by 39 per cent +
government can therefore appear in the role of a Liberator rather than

a Tsar.
We found a remarkable degree of public sympathy for the ‘individu-
alist’ model in this respect. As could only be expected, over four out of
five thought it was quite proper for the local minority to continue
campaigning locally against the majority decision, at the next local
election in particular. That was surely their basic democratic right. But
much less obviously, a small majority (54 per cent) also said it would
be ‘right and proper for the minority to appeal to central government
to step in and overrule the local council’. Thus public opinion was
overwhelmingly on the side of the local council against central govern-
ment, but also (by a small majority) on the side of a local minority
attempting to use the power of the state against the local council.
It appears inconsistent to say the local authority should both have
the final say, and not have the final say. But the concepts of an ‘appeal’
(in law) or a ‘review’ (in public administration) or a ‘repeat experiment’
(in science) involve that same principle of inconsistency: that having
taken a firm decision, we should not be afraid to consider it again or
defend it before a wider audience. Our respondents did not say that
central government should respond to the minority’s appeal by actu-
ally overruling the local authority. They merely agreed that it was right
and proper for the minority to make that appeal. And a system of
appeals can be a very valuable incentive to make justifiable decisions in
the first place, even if it seldom leads to policy reversals.
The ‘mobilization model’ stresses the special rights of neighbour-
hoods within local authorities. The ‘individualist model’ warns against
the tyranny of the majority in the local authority leading to over-taxa-
tion and the over-provision of services which individuals may not
want. But the ‘mobilization model’ warns that this same tyranny of the
majority might lead to under-taxation and the under-provision of ser-
vices which the under-class in deprived neighbourhoods may desper-
ately need. And it also warns against the simple managerial neglect of
poor people and poor neighbourhoods, too inarticulate to adequately
defend their interests against insensitive or incompetent management.
As 18 years of Conservative central government wore on, New Left
mobilizers had little faith that central government would be any more
sympathetic than local governments to the problems of deprived areas.
They came increasingly to see solutions more in terms of populism,
self-management and neighbourhood autonomy than in terms of the
centralist ideas of postwar Attlee socialism. But in principle the ‘mobil-
ization model’ would also support the right to appeal over the head of
an unsympathetic local authority, even if such a right might be use-

fully exercised (from the perspective of the New Left) only when
appealing over the head of a right-wing local authority to a left-wing
central government.
Representative democracy versus executive management
The traditional ‘localist model’ was firmly based on the idea of repre-
sentative democracy, on local decisions being taken by committees of
elected councillors who were numerous enough to maintain close
contact with their electors. It was indeed a ‘councillor-friendly’ model,
unlike all the others.
The ‘individualist’ and ‘centralist’ models envisage small, business-
like, management committees, concerned primarily with efficiency
rather than representation. Among the public, we found 58 per cent
wanted a reduced number of councillors and only 26 per cent an
increase. Significantly, the vast majority of councillors themselves
wanted no change in their numbers. And while 55 per cent of
appointed members of quango boards wanted fewer elected council-
lors, only a mere 8 per cent wanted more. So the public tended towards
rejecting the traditional ‘localist model’ on this point, and quango
board members did so more decisively.
Representative versus direct democracy

The ‘mobilization model’ envisages direct management and decision-
making by the public themselves. We found a great deal of public
support for the mechanisms of direct democracy: 61 per cent in favour
of local referenda and 78 per cent for direct election of the council
leader or executive mayor. Both were rejected by elected councillors
and appointed board members. Such mechanisms are inconsistent
with the ethos of representative democracy on which the traditional
‘localist model’ was founded. For rather different reasons, the populist
mechanisms of direct democracy in local governance are also inconsis-
tent with the ‘centralist model’ because they might confer too much
independent political authority on local government. They are incon-
sistent with the status of an ‘agent’.
To a degree, they are consistent with the ‘mobilization model’
because they have the flavour of ‘people power’ and direct involve-
ment, which might energize the masses, though neighbourhood refer-
enda would be even more consistent with the ‘mobilization model’
than local authority referenda. Populist mechanisms won stronger
support from the mobilization model’s target groups. The poor were
Table 8.18 Institutional preferences – the Tsar–Liberator
Localist Local government to have final say Yes +
2014-12-27
Individualist Minority right to appeal to central government against Evenly divided, though small Mixed
(probably over-taxing) local government majority in favour
Mobilization Minority right to appeal to central government against Evenly divided, though small Mixed
(probably under-providing) local government majority in favour
Centralist Central government to have final say No –
231
232
Table 8.19 Institutional preferences – representation by number
Localist Large numbers of locally elected councillors No –
2014-12-27
Individualist Fewer elected councillors Yes +
Mobilization No clear view on number of elected councillors. More stress on Not relevant Not relevant
neighbourhood representation or direct participation in self-management
Centralist Fewer elected councillors Yes +
13 per cent more favourable than the rich towards local referenda, and
12 per cent more favourable than the rich towards directly elected
mayors. Graduates were slightly less favourable than average towards
local referenda and 21 per cent less favourable than the low educated
towards directly elected mayors.
Paradoxically, popular referenda are also acceptable to the ‘individu-
alist model’ as a ‘blocking mechanism’. In practice, low and socially
biased turnouts in referenda would probably favour the better-off high
taxpayers and work more to the advantage of the ‘New Right’ than the
‘New Left’. But whatever might eventually happen in practice, the
‘New Right’ and ‘New Left’ are joined by a common antagonism
towards elected local authorities and by common, though mutually
contradictory, hopes that populist mechanisms might work to their
advantage.
Providing – by all-purpose or specialist bodies

The traditional ‘localist model’ focused on elected all-purpose councils,
which themselves delivered as well as commissioned services. In the
jargon of local governance, they were ‘providers’ as well as ‘enablers’.
The ‘individualist model’ suggests that elected local authorities
should ‘enable’ as little as possible, and themselves ‘provide’ almost
nothing at all. Private companies should provide local services whether
these are paid for by individual users (the first preference of the ‘indi-
vidualist’ model) or commissioned by elected councils and paid for out
of taxation (the fall-back position of the ‘individualist’ model). The
‘centralist model’ on the other hand is more favourable to direct public
provision of services, but often by centrally appointed boards rather
than by elected councils. And the ‘mobilization model’ also tends to
support direct provision of services by public bodies other than the
elected local authority, perhaps operating on a neighbourhood scale.
This ‘enabling versus providing’ debate has proved intensely interest-
ing to local governance theorists, and still more to local governance
practitioners whose jobs were at stake. But we found the public does
not care one way or the other: 70 per cent were agreed that ‘it really
does not matter whether local services are run by elected councils,
appointed boards, or private businesses as long as they keep the quality
up while keeping charges and taxes down’. When asked to chose
between all-purpose and single-purpose specialist bodies 70 per cent
also came down in favour of specialist bodies. But when asked whether
eight specific services should be ‘provided mainly by local councils,
mainly by the government, or mainly by private companies’ there was
234
Table 8.20 Institutional preferences – direct or representative democracy
Localist Representative democracy No –
2014-12-27
Individualist Populist democracy – if any at all Yes +
Mobilization Populist democracy Yes +
Centralist Representative democracy No –
almost no support for private companies except on electricity, water

and refuse collection and then only minority support ranging from
19 to 36 per cent. Taken together, these findings are inconsistent with
the ‘localist model’ on the grounds of specialization, and inconsistent
with the ‘individualist model’ on grounds of the public’s preference
for public providers.
Enabling – monitoring and control

Commissioning, control and monitoring is another matter, however. It
is possible to update the traditional ‘localist model’ by transforming
elected local authorities from ‘providers’ into ‘enablers’ without
destroying the model completely. Monitoring and control is even
closer to the essence of that model than direct provision, however. The
‘localist model’ could not concede monitoring and control to bodies
other than locally elected bodies. The ‘individualist model’ believes in
control of services through the ‘hidden hand’ of the free market. The
‘mobilization model’ stresses non-market control and collective self-
management by users or by providers of local services. And the ‘cen-
tralist model’ stresses the value of control through appointed boards
that are ultimately appointed by central government and responsible
to central government rather than to their local communities.
The public had mixed and flexible views on the issue of service
providers but they had very clear views on the best ‘ways of organizing
and controlling local services’. They rated control by elected local
councils far above self-management by providers (such as teachers) or
users (such as parents of school children), and far above ‘committees of
experts or businessmen appointed by central government’ or ‘private
companies charging for the use of the service’. We found that a major-
ity reacted favourably towards the idea of ‘local community groups’ as
more representative of ordinary people’s opinions than local council-
lors, and as an ‘easier way to get things done than by approaching
local councillors directly’, which was consistent with the ethos of the
‘mobilization model’. On the other hand 61 per cent rejected the
proposition that ‘the best way to make sure people get the services they
want is to let them organize them through voluntary groups and asso-
ciations’. Perhaps that reflected concern about the availability of
resources as well as suspicion about the poor organizing ability and
inadequate accountability of voluntary groups. Nonetheless, along
with very strong support for elected local authorities as the best way to
monitor and control local services there is evidence of public support
for at least an input from ‘local community groups’ – though probably
236
Table 8.21 Institutional preferences – providing
Localist All-purpose public bodies Does not matter, but prefer specialist bodies –
2014-12-27
Individualist Specialist private companies Does not matter, but prefer public bodies –
Mobilization A variety of public bodies, including specialist Does not matter, but prefer specialist bodies +
Centralist Centrally appointed specialist boards Does not matter, but prefer specialist bodies +
acting in concert with the elected local authority rather than as an

alternative to it.
In a similar way we found very little support for the autonomy of
non-elected, specialist bodies ‘like health authorities, NHS trusts, or
Training and Enterprise Councils’: 68 per cent of the public said these
bodies should ‘be responsible to local councils’ (and another 20 per
cent that they should be responsible to central government). The only
public concession towards quango autonomy was that twice as many
said local councils should have only ‘powers to investigate these non-
elected bodies’ as said councils should have ‘powers to control them
directly’.
Conclusion: winners and losers among the four models

tested
To reach an overall conclusion on the extent to which these rival

models fit public opinion we can usefully total up the number of
‘pluses’ and ‘minuses’ that we have awarded to each model. Much of
the debate about local governance in Britain has been prompted by the
alleged inadequacy of the traditional ‘localist model’. We have found
that there were many points of agreement between public opinion and
this model, but also many points of disagreement. Overall we have
awarded it just 6 more pluses than minuses.
But no other model scored very much better and some scored
much worse. The ‘mobilization model’ won 8 more pluses than
minuses. It is a relatively populist model. Surveys of public opinion
consistently, but unsurprisingly, reveal populist tendencies among
the general public which are not shared by experts or politicians and
which are strongest among the least educated sections of the public.
That may partly explain the high public rating for the ‘mobilization
model’ but it does not, of course, invalidate the finding. As Figure 8.1
makes clear, however, the main difference between our test of the
‘localist’ and ‘mobilizing’ models lies in the totals of plus and minus
scores awarded, rather than in the balance between plus and minus
scores. Our test of the ‘mobilizing model’ produced fewer plus and
fewer minus scores than our test of the ‘localist model’. That reflects
the fact that the ‘mobilizing model’ focuses so strongly on target
groups rather than on the public as a whole. Our survey shows that
there was an even closer fit between the ‘mobilizing model’ and
public opinion within these target groups than between the model
and overall public opinion.
238
Table 8.22 Institutional preferences – enabling, monitoring and control
Localist Elected local body, even if not all-purpose. Yes +

Appointed boards to be subject to monitoring by
locally elected bodies
2014-12-27
Individualist The free operation of the market No –
Mobilization Collective self-management by users or providers Some limited support, but in concert –
of public services in a very restricted locality – a with the elected council, and not
neighbourhood, or even a school preferred as an alternative
Centralist Centrally appointed boards responsible to central No –
government
The ‘centralist model’ got a marginally negative rating overall: just 5

more minuses than pluses. And the ‘individualist model’ got an
extremely negative rating: 12 more minuses than pluses. Overall there-
fore, the ‘localist’ and ‘mobilization’ models scored moderately well,
the ‘centralist model’ won significantly less public support and the
‘individualist model’ simply failed to match public opinion.
What should that mean for the future of local governance in Britain?
• First, that the ‘individualist’ model is so far out of touch with public
opinion that it is not a helpful or useful model in theoretical terms.
Some of its more limited and practical prescriptions are useful in
themselves – the public does want efficiency and ‘value for money’ –
but the ethos of the model as a whole does not provide a useful
guide or framework for thinking about the general development of
local governance.
• Second, that the ‘centralist model’, much neglected in theory and
maligned in practice, should be taken more seriously. It has far more
public support than the individualist model that has attracted far
more theoretical discussion.
• Third, that some combination of the traditional ‘localist’ model and
the ‘mobilization’ model comes closest to public opinion and should
be the basis for thinking about the future of local governance.
Figure 8.1 Testing models of local governance.
Individualist model
Centralist model
Localist model
Mobilizing model
–20 –15 –10 –5 0 5 10 15 20

The number of plus and minus scores in tests against public opinion
240
Table 8.23 Testing four models of local governance – winners and losers
Model of local governance
Localist Individualist Mobilizing Centralist

plus minus plus minus plus minus plus minus
2014-12-27
Assumptions 5 2 1 4 4 1 3 4
Aims and objectives 3 3 1 6 5 1 2 4
Images 2 1 0 3 1 2 0 3
Institutional preferences 5 3 3 4 3 1 4 3
Totals 15 9 5 17 13 5 9 14
Net positive +6 –12 +8 –5
But, though closest to public opinion, neither the traditional ‘localist’

model nor the ‘mobilization’ model is very close. The public has reser-
vations about some aspects of both these models. In a total of 22 tests
that could have awarded scores ranging from plus 22 down to minus
22, the traditional model of local governance got a net score of plus 6.
On a scale that runs from ‘disaster’ to ‘perfection’, that model therefore
comes closer to perfection than to disaster, but it is closer to the
middle of this scale than to either end.
The test of public opinion suggests that the traditional theory of
local governance, and the corresponding practice, need development,
reform and improvement rather than total reconstruction or compla-
cent reassertion. Of course it is always difficult to be passionate about
moderation at the time and always easy to recognize the evils of enthu-
siasm in retrospect.
9
Public Support for Local
Democracy
In this final chapter we focus on the key concepts of democracy and
autonomy in local governance and bring together some of our earlier
findings in a slightly more systematic way.
Local democracy is not itself a single concept but a combination of
these two: democracy and autonomy. Governance can be local without
being democratic, or democratic without being local. Local democracy
implies a form of governance that is at once both local and democratic.
But more than that, it implies a form of governance in which the
democratic element is itself local. Local boards appointed by a demo-
cratically elected central government do not fall within any reasonable
definition of local democracy, even though they can claim to be both
local in one sense and democratically accountable in another. And the
democratic element in local governance cannot itself be local without
some degree of local autonomy. Unless the local electorate is free to
make some choices that express local preferences different from those
of central government then the democratic element in local gover-
nance is a sham – no more than the right of local people to chose their
own administrators without influencing policy.
Since local democracy is both local and democratic, its space is vul-
nerable to encroachment by central government (which is democratic
but not local) on the one hand and by local appointed boards or busi-
nesses (which are local but not democratic) on the other. So the
concept of local democracy has to defend itself on two very different
fronts.
Our findings in earlier chapters suggest that there was a general
public presumption in favour of a democratic form for governance and,
at the same time, a general public presumption in favour of locally
autonomous governance albeit within a framework of national
242
Public Support for Local Democracy 243
minimum standards. Despite all the acknowledged shortcomings of

local democracy, this combination of prejudices protects the concept
in public esteem. The public prejudice in favour of a democratic form
protects local democracy from the rival claims of other means of
efficient local administration. And the public prejudice in favour of
local autonomy protects it from the rival claims of democratic central
government. Any other system of local governance is judged, both by
the public and by local elites of all kinds, to be a second best, a neces-
sary evil perhaps to solve a short-term or abnormal problem, but fun-
damentally incompatible with a culture that is both democratic and
localist.
A democratic form of local governance
Public support for elective local governance

When we asked the public, local councillors and appointed board
members to rate alternative systems of local governance we found
overwhelming support for local democracy as the best system of local
governance. The public gave high scores to a system of locally elected
councils as the best way of ‘organizing and controlling local services’ –
far higher scores than they gave to any alternative structure of local
governance such as appointed boards, self-management by service
users or providers, or relying on private companies operating in the
market to provide local services.
Elected councils scored far higher than all these alternatives not just
amongst the public as a whole, but in every age group, at all levels of
education, at all strengths of identification with the locality, at all
lengths of local residence, at all points on the left–right ideological
spectrum and among supporters of every major party. And not just
among the public but among both elected and appointed elites. Not
only elected councillors but, more surprisingly, appointed members of
local enterprise and health boards gave even higher ratings than the
public to a system of local governance based on elected local councils
and lower ratings than the public to local governance by appointed
boards. Indeed appointed board members even gave lower ratings than
the public to their own boards – though they gave still lower ratings to
other appointed boards.
This preference for locally elected councils as the norm for local gov-
ernance did not depend upon a deep psychological or emotional
attachment to the locality, nor on participation in local elections, nor
on a favourable view of actually existing local councils, nor on a partic-
ular ideological position. Support for a democratic form of local gover-

nance was simply a universal presumption, as universal as the pre-
sumption in favour of democracy itself. Even though classic arguments
about efficiency and representation as justifications for a democratic
form of local governance may be wrong, they are redundant. In this
age of liberal democracy, popular support for a democratic form is not
to be derived from basic principles. It is itself a basic principle of gover-
nance, an article of faith, a universal presumption. It is not to be subor-
dinated to arguments about efficiency, honesty or community, which
are themselves less fundamental than the public’s universal and
unquestioning though perhaps irrational and misguided commitment
to democracy. In the contemporary world, governance requires a
democratic form for reasons of legitimacy rather than efficiency.
Influences upon support for elective local governance

But over and above the public’s generalized commitment to a democra-
tic form of governance, other factors may exert a measurable influence.
They do not make the difference between a positive and a negative
view, but they can still make the difference between grudging accep-
tance and enthusiastic support. To what extent therefore was support
for a democratic form, as expressed in the ratings given to a system
of locally elected councils, affected by a psychological sense of
identification with a local community? Or by a more pragmatic belief
that government operates best on a small scale? Or by admiration for
the character and performance of existing local councils? Or by ideo-
logical opposition to the incumbent central government?
We can address these questions by calculating multiple regressions
relating the level of support for a system of locally elected councils to
the strength of local identification, to pragmatic localism, to images
and perceptions of local council performance, and to left–right ideol-
ogy. For these regression analyses we have measured these potential
influences as follows:
• Psychological identification with the locality: measured by the ‘marks

out of ten’ which people used to express the strength of their
‘feeling of belonging’ to their local district.
• Pragmatic localism: measured by the tendency to opt for a district or
at least a regional scale, rather than a Britain-wide scale, for the
organization and control of schools and education, hospitals and
health services, road building and maintenance, the police, environ-
mental protection and pollution control.1
• Ideology: measured by left-right self-image on a 7-point scale from

‘strongly on the left’, through ‘left’, ‘centre-left’, ‘centre’, ‘centre-
right’ and ‘right’ to ‘strongly on the right’
• A good image of local councils: measured by whether the respondent
viewed local councils such as their own as representative, efficient
and honest.2
We measured the dependent variable, support for a democratic form of

local governance, by the ‘marks out of ten’ which people assigned to a
system of locally elected councils as the best way of ‘organizing and
controlling local services’.
Among the public, our regression analysis shows that none of the
four potential influences had a very large impact upon support for a
democratic form. All except pragmatic localism had a statistically
significant impact but all the coefficients were small. Public support for
a democratic form was very strong and it was not much affected by
psychological identification with the locality, by pragmatic localism,
by ideology or by a good or bad image of local councils’ performance.
Nonetheless a strong sense of psychological identification with the
locality, a good image of council performance and, to a lesser extent, a
left-wing ideology provided a small additional boost.
Among local elites, however, these factors exerted a greater
influence, especially among appointed board members. Neither psy-
chological identification with the locality nor pragmatic localism had a
statistically significant influence upon support for a democratic form of
local governance, either among elected councillors or among
appointed board members. But a left-wing ideology had a clear impact
among both, with coefficients of around 0.14. And a good image of
local councils had a similar impact among councillors, and twice as
much impact among appointed board members where the coefficient
reached 0.28.
While the correlation with left-wing ideology is indisputable, its
interpretation is not. We suspect that left-wing support for elected
local councils at the end of a long period of right-wing central govern-
ment was the reaction of a political opposition excluded from central
government power rather than a purely left-wing reaction in a simple
sense.
Influences upon support for local alternatives to local democracy

A general presumption in favour of democracy and top scores for a
democratic form of local governance need not preclude relatively high
246
Table 9.1 Regressions predicting ratings for local democracy
Public Elected Appointed

councillors board members
beta 100 beta 100 beta 100
Psychological identification with the locality 8 * *
2014-12-27
Pragmatic localism * * *
Left-wing ideology 4 13 14
Good image of local councils 8 14 28
Multiple correlation coefficient 13 23 37
Note: ‘Betas’ are ‘standardized regression coefficients’ or ‘path coefficients’. * = statistically insignificant coefficients.
support for alternative structures of local governance, at least within

some sections of the public.
Local governance by appointed boards

Public support for appointed boards ran at a much lower level than
support for elected local authorities, but it varied more sharply.
Ideology had the greatest impact – by a very narrow margin among the
public, but by a huge margin among local elites. Right-wingers were
relatively sympathetic to local governance by appointed boards while
left-wingers were not. But since appointed boards were associated in
the public mind with right-wing central governments, this apparently
ideological influence probably reflected opposition sentiment as well as
anti-business sentiment.
Board members themselves were a little less driven than councillors
by ideology and, unlike councillors, they were influenced by their
image of elected councils. A negative image of elected councils encour-
aged board members to favour appointed boards as a general panacea
in local governance (the coefficient reached 0.15). Figure 9.1 shows
how a good or bad image of local council performance had a relatively
strong impact on appointed board members’ attitudes towards alterna-
tive forms of local governance, but little or no impact on the attitudes
Figure 9.1 The impact of a good image of local councils.

5
By councillors
Rating of councils
4
3
By public
2
1 By board
members
By public
0
Rating of boards
–1
–2
–3
By councillors
–4
See councils as representative, honest and efficient?
of the public or elected councillors. Indeed board members whose

image of local council performance fell into the most negative quintile
rated governance by elected councils only a little higher than by
appointed boards – though it is significant that even in that group,
there was a small preference for a democratic form.
But most surprisingly for the communitarian advocates of traditional
local democracy, the strength of psychological identification with the
locality proved no defence at all for local democracy against the claims
of a system of appointed boards. Quite the opposite in fact. Those who
identified the most with their locality were the very ones who were
most sympathetic to local governance by appointed boards. Among
the public the regression coefficient reached 0.16. It was less, but it was
still significant, among councillors and board members. We should
remember that appointed boards such as TEC/LECs or DHA/HBs were
local even if they were not a product of local democracy.
We asked random half samples for their ratings of appointed boards
of ‘businessmen’ and of ‘experts’. Comparison shows that left-wing
ideology had a somewhat greater negative impact on attitudes towards
boards of ‘businessmen’. Conversely, identification with the locality
had a somewhat greater positive impact on attitudes towards boards of
‘experts’.
Provision of local services by the private market

By far the most predictable of all were attitudes towards private compa-
nies delivering and charging for local services. Attitudes were domi-
nated by ideology and, in this case, probably reflected genuinely
ideological reactions more than opposition sentiment. The coefficient
of ideology reached 0.23 amongst the public and a huge 0.51 among
local elites. Right-wingers favoured market provision, left-wingers did
not. In addition to ideology, however, a negative image of local coun-
cils significantly increased support for local governance by private
companies not only among appointed board members but among
councillors as well.
Local governance by self-management

By contrast, support for local governance through self-management by
service users or providers – we instanced parents and teachers as exam-
ples of users and providers – was the least predictable. Among the
public, those who identified most strongly with the locality were the
most sympathetic towards self-management, but the effect was fairly
small.
Table 9.2 Regressions predicting ratings for appointed boards

2014-12-27
Psychological identification with the locality 16 7 10
Left-wing ideology –17 –37 –28
Good image of local councils * * –15
249
250
Table 9.3 Regressions predicting ratings for local services to run by private companies

2014-12-27
Good image of local councils * –16 –13
Nothing significantly affected the low ratings councillors gave to

self-management by service providers, but ideology and image had a
modest impact on their attitudes towards self-management by service
users (a right-wing ideology and a negative image of local councils
increased councillors’ support for user control). Conversely nothing
significantly affected the low ratings that board members gave to self-
management by service users.
A democratic form of local governance versus local alternatives

Our review of these influences on attitudes towards local governance
by democratically elected councils and various non-elected alternatives
suggests some general tendencies:
• Ideology had a strong influence on sympathy for governance by

appointed boards and private companies, but not on anything else.
• Images of local councils affected board members, attitudes across the
whole range of alternative structures, but images had less influence
on councillors’ attitudes, and none at all on the public’s attitudes
towards any of the alternatives to elected local authorities.
• Pragmatic localism had very little influence on attitudes towards
elected councils or on attitudes towards alternative local structures.
• Psychological identification with the locality had more influence upon
attitudes among the general public than on elite attitudes, but while
it increased support for a democratic form of local governance it
increased support, even more, for each of the local alternatives. So,
on balance it eroded the relative advantage in public support that a
democratic form enjoyed over other forms of local governance.
Autonomous local governance
A democratic form constitutes the first element of local democracy.

Local autonomy constitutes the second. The Widdicome Committee
argued that ‘there is no validity in the assertion that local authorities
have a local mandate’ which could place them beyond the reach of
Parliament.3 But even Parliament and central government themselves
pay lip-service to the principle of local autonomy, usually expressed in
the ambiguous formula of declarations such as that in the 1970 White
Paper: ‘The Government believe unequivocally in greater freedom for
local authorities within the framework of national policies.’4
This reflects neither hypocrisy nor muddled thinking, however.
There has always been, and probably always will be, a ‘chronic tension
between powerful traditions of local rule and central rule – between

the idea of local government and the idea of parliamentary sover-
eignty’.5 Both traditions, both goals, are highly valued by the public,
local elites and, with a few notable exceptions, by central government
politicians also.
Public support for local autonomy
Just as we found a general public presumption that local governance
should have a democratic form, we also found a general public presump-
tion that local governance should enjoy a degree of autonomy.
One question provided a measure of support for the basic principle
of local autonomy: ‘Suppose a local council wants to do something and
gets the support of local people by winning a local [election/referen-
dum] on the issue, but the government is opposed to it. Who should
have the final say, the local council or the government?’ Of those with
a view on this, about 85 per cent of the public and a similar number
of councillors backed the council rather than central government.
More remarkably, 68 per cent of appointed board members agreed
with them. That was not the considered view of the Widdicombe
Committee and it went far beyond any central government’s commit-
ment to ‘greater freedom for local authorities within the framework of
national policies’. It might be dismissed as populist and unrealistic. But
it does indicate a general presumption in favour of local autonomy in
the absence of good reasons for overriding it.
Influences upon support for the principle of local autonomy

But over and above the public’s generalized commitment to local
autonomy, other factors may exert a measurable influence. As with
support for a democratic form of local governance, they do not make
the difference between a positive and a negative attitude towards local
autonomy, but they can still make the difference between moderate
and enthusiastic support for it.
One good reason for rejecting local autonomy may be pragmatic cen-
tralism, the sense that services should be provided on a regional or
national scale, the exact inverse of our notion of pragmatic localism. But
those who are strongly committed to universalist ideologies, whether of
the left or of the right, also find it exceptionally difficult to tolerate any
degree of local autonomy. No doubt some centralists value national uni-
formity as an end in itself, but many more value it as a means to the end
of spreading their particular idea of good government as widely as poss-
ible or as a means of resisting bad government wherever it may be found.
Opposition to local autonomy may therefore be driven by commitments

that are as much ideological as centralist.
We can use our standard regression model to predict support for the
principle of local autonomy. Judged by these regressions it seems that
pragmatic localism and the strength of psychological identification
with the locality both had some influence on the attitudes of the
public and appointed board members (though not on the opinions of
councillors). But the largest single impact came from ideology with
coefficients of 0.13 among the public and 0.22 among local elites,
whether elected or appointed. Towards the end of a long period of
right-wing central government, left-wingers were relatively favourable
to local autonomy while right-wingers were not. It is likely that this
reflects opposition sentiment rather than left-wing ideology as such.
Support for autonomy should not be dismissed simply because it is
strongly influenced by opposition sentiment, however. Opposition is
the very foundation of liberty and democracy at any level – and quite
naturally it is an important foundation for local democracy in particu-
lar. It is natural and healthy for the opposition to discover the need to
disperse power. If they do not, then who will?
Influences upon support for the practice of local autonomy

In practice, aside from the principle of whether local or central govern-
ment should have ‘the final say’ in matters of dispute, the scope and
powers of local authorities affect the degree or extent of local autonomy.
An important practical aspect of local autonomy was whether the
elected council should be ‘master within its own house’ with respect to
quangos. Quangos would not be able to evade responsibility to a fully
autonomous local government system either by pleading their own
autonomy or by claiming direct responsibility to central government.
We reminded people that ‘many local services are no longer provided
by elected local councils but by special bodies like Health Authorities
(Boards in Scotland), NHS Trusts, Training and Enterprise Councils
(Local Enterprise Companies in Scotland) and School Boards’.
We then asked a randomly selected half-sample whether elected
local councils ‘should:
• have powers to control these non-elected bodies;

• have powers to investigate these non-elected bodies, but not control
them directly;
• leave these non-elected bodies to get on with managing their own
affairs?’
254
Table 9.4 Regressions predicting support for local autonomy

Psychological identification with the locality 7 * 11
2014-12-27
Pragmatic localism 9 * 12
Good image of local councils * 8 *
This version of the question stresses the degree of control or oversight to

be exercised by the democratic form of local governance over the
appointed form. And consequently, the attitudes of the public and of
elected councillors to this question were almost totally dominated by
left–right ideology. The views of appointed board members were also
dominated by ideology though influenced, to a lesser but considerable
extent, by their image of councils as being representative, efficient and
honest.
We asked the other half-sample whether these non-elected bodies
‘should normally:
• be responsible to central government;

• be responsible to local councils;
• act like private companies and decide their own affairs?’
This version of the question concerns the locus of quango responsibility

rather than the degree of responsibility. It stresses the local versus
national dimension to oversight. Consequently, attitudes were
influenced by localism, though more by pragmatic localism than by
psychological identification with the locality.
The public’s preference for local rather than national oversight was
clearly influenced more by pragmatic localism than by ideology or its
image of council performance. And pragmatic localism also had a
significant impact on the attitudes of local elites. But the attitudes of
appointed board members were influenced most of all by their image
of council performance, and the attitudes of elected councillors most
of all by their left–right ideology. Councillors were uniquely motivated
by ideology, board members by instrumental considerations.
Figure 9.2 illustrates the independent influences of ideology and prag-
matic localism on attitudes to the locus of quango accountability. Both
clearly made an impact. Among the public the rising bar at the back-left
is the highest and at the front-right the lowest. But the two other bars are
at roughly the same height, indicating roughly equal impacts from ideol-
ogy and localism. And the same pattern emerges among appointed board
members, though all four rising bars are much lower among board
members than among the public since they were generally much less
enthusiastic about quangos being held accountable to local councils. But
among councillors a left-wing ideology had much more influence than
localism. So the two rising bars on the left are roughly equal. Even those
left-wing councillors whose localism was weak nonetheless wanted to
make quangos accountable to their local council.
256
Table 9.5 Regressions predicting attitudes towards the degree of accountability

beta 100 Beta 100 beta 100
Psychological identification with the locality –7 * *
2014-12-27
Good image of local councils * * 16
Table 9.6 Regressions predicting attitudes towards the locus of accountability

Should behave like private companies:

Pragmatic localism * * –11
Left-wing ideology * –24 –8
Good image of local councils * * –13
2014-12-27
Should be responsible to (central) government:
Pragmatic localism –18 –13 *
Good image of local councils –9 * –13
Should be responsible to local council:
Psychological identification with the locality * * *
Pragmatic localism 15 14 16
Good image of local councils 11 * 23
257
Figure 9.2 The impact of ideology and pragmatic localism.
Another key question in our survey also posed a three-way choice

between national or local democracy or the market. We asked
whether each of eight services should be provided ‘mainly by local
councils, mainly by the government, or mainly by private compa-
nies?’ We can use our standard regression model to predict the fre-
quency with which people opted for central government, local
councils or private companies.
Judged by these analyses, left–right ideology dominated the fre-
quency with which people opted for private companies. And pragmatic
localism (or its inverse, pragmatic centralism) dominated the frequency
with which people opted for central government. So in the context of
this three-way choice, both ideology and localism affected the fre-
quency with which people opted for local council provision. These pat-
terns of support for local councils in a three-way contest with central
government and the private sector illustrate very well the two fronts
on which local democracy was open to attack.
Among the public, support for service provision by local councils
was influenced most by pragmatic localism. Among elites, it was
influenced about equally by pragmatic localism and left-wing ideology.
Conclusion: defending local democracy on two fronts
Local democracy versus non-democratic alternatives

The strongest defence of a democratic form for local governance is the
general and pervasive assumption that elective democracy is the right
way to run any system of governance, be it central or local. Among
elites, and especially among appointed board members, a good image
of local councils as representative, efficient and honest provided a
further defence for local democracy against other specifically local
alternatives for local governance. For elites, local democracy was to
some extent justified instrumentally by performance.
Among both the public and local elites, but most especially among
elected councillors, a left-wing ideology boosted support for a democ-
ratic form of local governance and decreased support for such non-
elected alternatives as appointed boards or market provision of local
services. Its seems likely that the impact of ideology should be taken at
face-value here. It is natural for the left to support public services and
oppose the provision of local services by private firms or appointed
boards, especially appointed boards staffed by local businessmen.
But a strong sense of local identification actually encouraged support
for non-elected local alternatives to local democracy and provided an
alternative legitimacy for them. They might not be democratic, but at
least they were local.
Local versus central government

On the other hand, psychological identification with the locality, and
more especially belief in small-scale government (pragmatic localism),
provided a defence for the idea of local democracy against central gov-
ernment. Among both public and elites, pragmatic localism increased
support for local councils in disputes with central government, it
increased support for local services to be run by local councils rather
than by branches of central ministries, and it increased support for
appointed boards to be held accountable to local councils rather than to
central government. It seems as natural that localism should provide a
defence for local democracy against the encroachments of central
260
Table 9.7 Regressions predicting how frequently people opted for services to be provided by local councils, central government
or private companies

By private companies:
Psychological identification with the locality * * *
Good image of local councils –6 –10 –10
2014-12-27
By (central) government:
Pragmatic localism –32 –27 –29
Left-wing ideology * * 10
Good image of local councils –5 * –10
By local councils:
Psychological identification with the locality 5 9 8
Pragmatic localism 30 25 24
Good image of local councils 7 * 18
government as that left-wing ideology should provide a defence of local

democracy against the provision of public services by the private sector.
A second role for ideology: opposition sentiment

Much less obviously, our analyses have shown that ideology also
played an important role in defending local democracy against central
government, and particularly so among elites. Left-wing councillors
and board members were considerably more inclined to back local
autonomy against central government. But we interpret this as evi-
dence of the impact of opposition sentiment rather than left-wing
sentiment in itself.
It is natural for the party or ideology that is in opposition at the
centre to discover, or to rediscover, the virtues of local autonomy. By
the time of our survey, the right had held power at the centre for
almost two decades, but it had lost control of most local councils. So
ideology and partisanship provided the left with a reason to support
local autonomy and the right with a reason to reject it. After a similar
period of left-wing power at the centre, it is likely that ideology would
again reinforce support for local autonomy, but more among right-
wingers than left-wingers.
National politics and public attitudes to local governance

It seems that public attitudes – and more especially elite attitudes –
towards local governance cannot be separated from attitudes towards
national politics even when we focus on the question of local auton-
omy. Local governance is part of a complex web of governance at
many levels. It cannot be treated as if it exists in a separate compart-
ment, insulated from national governance and national politics. Nor is
it connected to central government purely by localism versus central-
ism. The strains within national politics provide a strong motivation
for supporting local autonomy. Conversely, the use of democratic
forms in local governance and the achievement of at least some degree
of local autonomy contribute not just to the health of local democracy
but to the dispersion of power and the institutionalization of democ-
racy-in-depth on which the health of national democracy depends.
The democratic culture is indivisible.
Notes
Introduction and Overview
1. Caroline Andrew and Michael Goldsmith, ‘From local government to local
governance – and beyond?’,International Political Science Review: Special
Issue on New Trends in Municipal Government, vol. 19, no. 2 (1998)
pp. 101–7 at p. 105.
2. Clarke and Stewart have argued that ‘the primary role of local authorities is
local government and not local administration’, that this role ‘must have its
basis in citizenship’ and that, in consequence, its structure should be based
‘not on the alleged efficiencies of administration but on the perceived and
felt community of place’. See Michael Clarke and John Stewart, The Choices
for Local Government – for the 1990s and Beyond (London: Longman, 1991) at
p. 76 and p. 74 respectively.
3. The large inter-party differences between Conservative and Labour support-
ers on the issue of local autonomy which were so clearly visible in five BSAS
surveys between 1986 and 1994 had ‘all but disappeared’ by 1998. See
Nirmala Rao and Ken Young, ‘Revitalising local democracy’, in British Social
Attitudes: the 16th Report – Who Shares New Labour Values? (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 1999) pp. 45–63 at p. 52.
Chapter 1 From Local Government to Local Governance

1. For overviews of local government during the period of change in the 1980s
and 1990s see John Stewart and Gerry Stoker (eds), Local Government in the
1990s (London: Macmillan, 1995), and David Wilson and Chris Game,
Local Government in the United Kingdom, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan,
1998).
2. For an account of that debacle see David Butler, Andrew Adonis and Tony
Travers, Failure in British Government: The Politics of the Poll Tax (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1994).
3. See Gerry Stoker (ed.), The New Management of British Local Governance
(London: Macmillan, 1999).
4. See Gerry Stoker, ‘Governance as theory: five propositions’, International
Social Science Journal, vol. 50, no.155 (1988) pp. 17–28, and Roderick A. W.
Rhodes, Understanding Governance (Milton Keynes: Open University Press,
1999).
5. Guy Peters, ‘Managing the Hollow State’, in Kjell A. Eliasson and Jan
Kooiman (eds), Managing Public Organizations, 2nd edn (London: Sage,
1993) p. 44.
6. See Gerry Stoker, ‘Quangos and local democracy’, in Matthew V. Flinders
and Martin J. Smith (eds), Quangos, Accountability and Reform (London:
Macmillan, 1999) pp. 40–54.
262
Notes 263
7. See Lord Nolan (Chairman), Committee on Standards in Public Life: Report on

Local Government (London: HMSO, 1997).
8. See David Widdicombe (Chairman), The Conduct of Local Authority Business:
Report Cmnd 9797 (London: HMSO, 1986). A review and development of
the research conducted by Widdicombe is provided in John Gyford, Steve
Leach and Chris Game, The Changing Politics of Local Government (London:
Unwin Hyman, 1989).
9. See Commission for Local Democracy, Taking Charge: The Rebirth of Local
Democracy (London: CLD/Municipal Journal Books, 1995). Much of the
research undertaken by the CLD and a critical commentary on its report is
provided in Lawrence Pratchett and David Wilson (eds), Local Democracy
and Local Government (London: Macmillan, 1996).
10. See Lord Hunt (Chairman), House of Lords, Select Committee on Relations
Between Central and Local Government, Volume 1 (London: HMSO, 1996).
11. See Nirmala Rao, Managing Change: Councillors and the New Local Government
(York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1993).
12. See Chris Game and Steve Leach, ‘Political Parties and Local Democracy’, in
Pratchett and Wilson, Local Democracy and Local Government.
13. Figures taken from Wilson and Game, Local Government in the United
Kingdom, Exhibit 14.1, p. 260.
14. See William L. Miller, Irrelevant Elections? The Quality of Local Democracy in
Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
15. See Tony Blair, Leading the Way: A New Vision for Local Government (London:
Institute for Public Policy Research, 1998) p. 22.
16. Blair, Leading the Way, p. 13.
17. Blair, Leading the Way, pp. 14, 15, 16.
18. See DETR (Department for Environment, Transport and Regions),
Modernising Local Government: In Touch with the People (London: HMSO, July
1998).
19. Leach suggests the logic of the 1998 White Paper is not as ‘joined up’ as
New Labour claims and that within it there are unresolved tensions – first
between support for more local leadership and autonomy combined with
more central direction and oversight, and second between some measures
designed to strengthen representative democracy and others designed to
encourage a move towards a more populist concept of democracy. He con-
cludes that New Labour is genuinely enthusiastic about local community
leadership but haunted by memories of how some of its own Labour-con-
trolled local authorities abused their powers in the past. Hence the tensions
and ambiguities. See Steve Leach, ‘Modernisation and devolution: implicat-
ions for local government’, Representation, vol. 36, no. 1 (1999), pp. 29–38.
20. Strong advocates of the localist case are George Jones and John Stewart, The
Case for Local Government (London: Allen & Unwin, 1995).
21. For a review of New Right thought on local government see Gerry Stoker,
The Politics of Local Government, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1991), and
Desmond King, ‘From the urban Left to the New Right: normative theory
and local government’, in Stewart and Stoker, Local Government in the
1990s.
22. See Andrew Sancton, ‘British Socialist theories in the division of power by
area’, Political Studies, vol. 24 (1976) pp. 158–70.
264 Notes
23. The mobilization model finds support in general terms and some concept-
ual elaboration in a number of chapters in Desmond King and Gerry Stoker
(eds), Rethinking Local Democracy (London: Macmillan, 1998). See in particu-
lar the chapters by Anne Philips and Hugh Ward. See also Desmond King,
‘From the urban Left to the New Right’, in Stewart and Stoker, Local
Government in the 1990s.
24. On the practice of left-wing Labour councils in the 1980s see Martin Boddy
and Colin Fudge (eds), Local Socialism? (London: Macmillan, 1984), and
John Gyford, The Politics of Local Socialism (London: Unwin Hyman, 1995).
25. The emergence of the centralist line of thought is described in Martin
Loughlin, Legality and Locality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
Chapter 2 A Multi-Level Survey

1. In the mould of Desmond King and Gerry Stoker (eds), Rethinking Local
Democracy (London: Macmillan, 1996) for example.
2. See, for example, Gerry Stoker (ed.), The New Management of British Local
Governance (London: Macmillan, 1999).
3. David Butler, Andrew Adonis and Tony Travers, Failure in British Government:
The Politics of the Poll Tax (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
4. George Jones, John Stewart and David Regan, ‘Chapter 14: the case for local
authority control in the government of health’, in George Jones and John
Stewart (eds), The Case for Local Government (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983)
pp. 114–41 at pp. 124–5.
5. Indeed, there is no generally agreed definition of just what constitutes a
quango. See Stuart Weir and Wendy Hall (eds), EGO-trip: Extra-Governmental
Organizations in the United Kingdom and their Accountability (London: Charter
88, 1994) and Chris Skelcher, The Appointed State: Quasi-governmental
Organizations and Democracy (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1998).
However, there was much more agreement about which quangos had an
important role within the new structure of local governance set up by the
1979–97 Conservative governments. Desmond King, for example, claimed in
1996 that ‘according to some writers [himself included] Britain now deserves
the sobriquet “quango state”, such is the prevalence of non-elected authori-
ties with administrative responsibilities. Commonly cited examples include
Training and Enterprise councils [TECs], hospital trusts, grant maintained
schools, housing associations, housing action trusts, urban development
corporations, and district health authorities [DHAs].’ See Desmond King,
‘Conclusion’, in King and Stoker, Rethinking Local Democracy, pp. 214–23 at
p. 216. See also John Stewart, Alan Greer and Paul Hoggett, The Quango State:
An Alternative Approach. Research Report No. 10 (London: Commission for
Local Democracy, 1995), and Gerry Stoker, The Role and Purpose of Local
Government (London: Commission for Local Democracy, 1994).
6. Jones and Stewart, The Case for Local Government, p. 140.
7. Jones and Stewart, The Case for Local Government, pp. 145–6.
8. OPCS, General Household Survey (London: Office of Population Censuses and
Surveys, 1993).
9. Interviews averaged 29 minutes. Councillors took around three minutes less
than average, appointed board members about two or three minutes more.
Notes 265
Within the general public there was a correlation between the time taken to
complete the interview and the age of the respondent: those over 55 years
old took seven minutes longer than those aged under 25. But there was no
correlation between the length of interviews and other social or political
characteristics such as gender, education, region or voting preference.
Chapter 3 The Limits of Local Identity
1. Michael Clarke and John Stewart, The Choices for Local Government – for the
1990s and Beyond (London: Longman, 1991) p. 76.
2. Clarke and Stewart, The Choices for Local Government, p. 74.
3. For an analysis of the reorganization of London government in the 1960s see
Gerald Rhodes, The Government of London: the Struggle for Reform (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970). On the 1970s reorganization see Bruce
Wood, The Process of Local Government Reform 1966–74 (London: Allen &
Unwin, 1976). On the 1980s reorganization of metropolitan government see
Steve Leach et al., After Abolition: The Operation of the Post-1996 Metropolitan
Government System in England (Birmingham: INLOGOV, 1992). And for an
account of the 1990s reorganization see the special issue of Public
Administration, Spring 1997.
4. Our figures overestimated actual turnout in both local and national elect-
ions, partly because official figures underestimate turnout (the register is
inaccurate) and partly perhaps because those who agreed to give an inter-
view were more likely to be participators – in elections as in surveys – but
also because errors of memory make people overestimate their turnout espe-
cially in local elections. Most people vote in some elections even if they do
not vote in every election. And in Britain abstention is usually accidental
rather than principled, caused by the pressures of daily life rather than polit-
ical antagonism. In consequence, when we probe their memories of turnout
people tend to confuse voting preferences with actual voting, and voting in
one election with voting in another, thereby inflating their memories of
voting on any one occasion. The effect seems stronger in relation to local
than national elections.
5. Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992) p. 46.
6. Ken Young, Brian Gosschalk and Warren Hatter, In Search of Community
Identity (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1996).
7. See, for example, Lynn Bennie, Jack Brand and James Mitchell, How Scotland
Votes (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997) p. 133.
8. Although our Scottish subsample was inevitably quite small (only 207
respondents) it is interesting that, among respondents in Scotland, the corre-
lations between identifications with all of the seven geographic areas men-
tioned in our questions were also positive, without exception. In particular
there was a positive correlation between identification with Scotland and
Britain, though it was weaker than the correlation between identification
with an English region and with Britain. And in the light of nationalist
slogans such as ‘Scotland in Europe’ it is interesting that there was a particu-
larly high correlation in Scotland between identification with Britain and
with Europe (0.44 in Scotland compared with 0.21 in Britain as a whole).
266 Notes
This suggests that Europe was not viewed in Scotland as some alternative to
Britain but rather as just another area larger than (or even beyond) Scotland.
Scottish identification with Europe is thus perhaps best seen simply in terms
of a cosmopolitian/parochial or outward/inward dimension to public atti-
tudes rather than in terms of the nationalist concept of Europe as an escape
route for Scotland from the confines of the United Kingdom.
Chapter 4 The Role of Local Governance
1. Charles M. Tiebout, ‘A pure theory of local expenditures’, Journal of Political
Economy, vol. 64 (1956) pp. 416–24.
2. Keith Dowding, ‘Public choice and local governance’, in Desmond King and
Gerry Stoker (eds), Rethinking Local Democracy (London: Macmillan, 1996)
pp. 50–66 at p. 61.
Chapter 5 The Image of Traditional Local Government

1. See David Beetham, ‘Theorising democracy and local government’, in
Desmond King and Gerry Stoker (eds), Rethinking Local Democracy (London:
Macmillan, 1996) pp. 28–49.
2. At this point we did not ask about local community groups. Other evidence
presented in the next chapter suggests that the public regarded these even
more local organizations as both accessible and effective.
3. Although the percentage difference is small, it is interesting that slightly
higher numbers said they had complained to their ‘local councillor’ than to
the less human and more institutional ‘district council’.
Chapter 6 Institutional Preferences

1. For a review see Michael Keating, ‘Size, efficiency and democracy: consolida-
tion, fragmentation and public choice’, in David Judge, Gerry Stoker and
Harold Wolman (eds), Theories of Urban Politics (London: Sage, 1995)
pp. 117–34.
2. Scotland had a parliament until 1707 of course and, whatever the historic
reality, the myth probably affected contemporary Scottish attitudes towards
Scotland- wide control of services.
3. William Waldegrave, The Reality of Reform and Accountability in Today’s Public
Service (London: Lecture to the Public Finance Foundation, 5 July 1993)
p. 13.
Chapter 8 Testing Models against Public Opinion

1 Desmond S. King, ‘The New Right, the New Left and local government’, in
John Stewart and Gerry Stoker (eds), The Future of Local Government (London:
Macmillan, 1989) pp. 185–211 at p. 186.
Notes 267
2. Tony Augarde (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 213, citing Women’s Own, 31 October 1987,
though Thatcher made similar claims when she addressed the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, whose very existence denied her claim.
3. Ann Dummett, ‘Citizenship and identity’, in Robert Hazell (ed.),
Constitutional Futures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) pp. 213–29 at
p. 221.
4. Michael Clarke and John Stewart, The Choices for Local Government – for the
1990s and Beyond (London: Longman, 1991) p. 74.
5. See James Bulpitt, Territory and Power in the United Kingdom: An Interpretation
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983).
6. See J. B. Poquelin (known as ‘Molière’), Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Act 2,
Scene 4.
Chapter 9 Public Support for Local Democracy

1. Our measure of a localist-versus-centralist attitude towards local governance
was based on a battery of eight questions about the proper scale of govern-
ance. We asked: ‘For each of the following services, do you think it would be
best provided by a body responsible for an area about the size of [the local
district], or the size of [the local region], or Britain as a whole?’ The question
then specified: (i) schools and education services; (ii) hospitals and health
services; (iii) refuse collection; (iv) road building and maintenance; (v) the
police; (vi) leisure services; (vii) environmental protection and pollution
control; (viii) economic development. We excluded three of these questions
because over 80 per cent opted for a district-size body for refuse collection
and for leisure, and less than 20 per cent for a district-size body to deal with
economic development. For these three services there seemed a broad con-
sensus favouring either a small or large scale. But for each of the other five
services, opinion was broadly spread across the three possible scales of
governance and thus provides an indication of the differences between indi-
vidual perspectives. Answers to each of these were initially coded as follows:
district-sized (coded +1), region-sized (coded zero) and Britain-wide (coded
–1). We then averaged each person’s coded answers over these five services.
2. The questions asked whether ‘local councils like the council in [own district]’
did or did not ‘represent’ local opinion, and whether they were more or less
‘efficient’ and ‘corrupt’ than private business. Answers to each were rated on
a 5-point scale, from most positive to most negative, and the three answers
averaged.
3. David Widdicombe (Chairman), The Conduct of Local Authority Business:
Report, Cmnd 9797 (London: HMSO, 1986) para. 3.6.
4. The Reform of Local Government, Cmnd 4276 (London: HMSO, 1970) para. 60.
Compare Michael Heseltine’s declaration that ‘democratic accountability
lies in Parliament, from which all the authority exercised at local level
is derived…but that does not argue for tightly centralised control.
Conservatives distrust the concentration of power.’ Michael Heseltine, Where
There’s a Will (London: Hutchinson, 1987) p. 132.
5. David Butler, Andrew Adonis and Tony Travers, Failure in British Government:
The Politics of the Poll Tax (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) p. 267.
Index
Adonis, Andrew, 13, 33, 252, 262, corruption, 90–1, 157–9, 218–19
264, 267 councillors, opinions of, 130–87
aims and objectives, 5, 71–84,
141–48, 202–14 democratic governance, influences on
aims and objectives, influences on, support for, 9–10, 244–51,
79–84 259–61
‘all-purpose’ institutions, 115–16, democratic governance, support for,
176–82, 233–6 9–10, 243–4, 259–61
Andrew, Caroline, 1, 262 DETR (Dept. for Environment,
Augarde, Tony, 190, 267 Transport and Regions), 25, 263
autonomous governance, influences DHA/HBs, 7, 38
on support for, 9–10, 252–61 DHA/HBs, opinions of board
autonomous governance, support for, members, 130–87
9–10, 251–2, 259–61 direct democracy, 111–12, 172–3,
autonomy, local, 73, 108–11, 141–3, 230–4
171–2, 202–5, 222–4 don’t knows, unusual significance of,
40
Beetham, David, 86, 266 Dowding, Keith, 74, 266
Bennie, Lynn, 63, 265 Dummett, Ann, 201, 267
Blair, Tony, 24–5, 263
board members, opinions of, 130–87 economic development, 75–6, 144–6,
Boddy, Martin, 31, 264 204–8
Brand, Jack, 63, 265 effective channels of protest, 94–7,
Bulpitt, James, 222, 267 162–7, 218–19
Butler, David, 13, 33, 252, 262, 264, efficiency, 90–2, 157–60, 218–19
267 Eliasson, Kjell A., 19, 262
elite consensus, 184–5
capability, 92–3, 160–3 elites, divided, 185–7
CATI, 3, 41–4 ‘enabling’ institutions, 112–14, 174–5,
central government, local minority 235–8
appeals to, 110–11, 171–2, 227–31 exclusion, 66–7, 137–40, 199–202
centralist model, 8, 31 executive management, 111–12,
centralist model, testing, 188–241 172–3, 230–2
Clarke, Michael, 4, 45, 220, 262, 265,
267 Flinders, Matthew V., 20, 262
CLD (Commission for Local Fudge, Colin, 31, 264
Democracy), 21–4
Commission for Local Democracy, 21, Game, Chris, 11, 21, 22, 23, 262, 263
263 GLC (Greater London Council), 12
compulsory competitive tendering, Goldsmith, Michael, 1, 262
17–18 Gosschalk, Brian, 59, 265
Conservative Governments’ reforms ‘governance’, contrasted with
1979–97, 1, 11–32 government, 1, 18–21
268
Index 269
governing perspectives, 130–87 Leach, Steve, 21, 22, 27, 46, 263,
Greer, Alan, 36, 264 265
Gyford, John, 21, 31, 263, 264 local autonomy, 73, 108–11, 141–3,
171–2, 202–5, 222–4
Hall, Wendy, 36, 264 local governance, 1, 11–32
Hatter, Warren, 59, 265 local governance, support for,
Hazell, Robert, 201, 267 253–9
Heseltine, Michael, 267 local identity, 4, 9, 45–70, 135–7,
Hobsbawm, Eric J., 53, 265 190–203
Hoggett, Paul, 36, 264 local minorities, protection of,
Hunt, Lord, 21, 263 110–11, 171–2, 227–31
localism, 9, 190–203
identifications, 45–70, 135–6, localism, influence of, 244–61; see also
190–203 under: ‘influences on’ various
identifications, multiple, 53–7 attitudes
identifications, regional patterns of, localism, pragmatic, 9, 105–7,
63–4 168–71, 222–4
identifications, social patterns of, localist model, 8, 28
58–62 localist model, testing, 188–241
ideology, 9–10, 140–2 locality, exclusive attitudes towards,
ideology, influence of, 244–61, see 66–7, 137–40, 199–202
also under: ‘influences on’ various locality, objective links to, 46–50,
attitudes 131–5, 191–4
image of local government, influence locality, pride in, 65, 136–8, 197–9
of, 244–61 locality, resonsibilty for, 65, 136–8,
images of local government, 5, 199–201
85–104, 148–69, 213–21 locality, subjective links to, 51–64,
images of local government, 133–5, 193–203
influences on, 97–103 Loughlin, Martin, 31, 264
individualist model, 8, 30
individualist model, testing, 188–241 metropolitan counties, 12
institutions for local government, 6, Miller, William L., 23, 263
11–28 minimalism, 72, 141–3, 204–6
institutions for local government, Mitchell, James, 63, 265
influences on preferences, 119–29 mobilization model, 8, 31
institutions for local government, mobilization model, testing,
preferences, 6, 105–29, 168–82, 188–241
220–38 mobilize, mission to, 76–79, 147–8,
institutions for local government, 204–8
ratings of, 116–19, 176–80, models of local governance, 3, 8,
233–8, 242–51 28–32, 188–90
models of local governance, test
Jones, George, 28, 35, 37, 263, 264 results, 237–41
Judge, David, 105, 266 models of local governance, testing,
188–241
Keating, Michael, 105, 266 ‘monitoring’ institutions, 112–14,
King, Desmond, 30, 31, 33, 36, 189, 174–5, 235–8
263, 264, 266 monitoring quangos, 112–14, 174–5,
Kooiman, Jan, 19, 262 235–8
270 Index
national standards, 73, 141–3, 202–5 self-interest, 88–89, 156–9, 216–17

national standards, enforcement of, Skelcher, Chris, 36, 264
111–12, 171–2, 226–8 Smith, Martin J., 20, 262
‘New Labour’ reforms, 24–8 ‘special interests’, 87–9, 152–5,
New Public Management, 17–18 218–19
Nolan, Lord, 20, 263 ‘special purpose’ institutions, 115–16,
176–82, 233–6
OPCS (Office of Population Censuses Stewart, John, 4, 11, 28, 30, 31, 35,
and surveys), 39, 264 36, 37, 45, 189, 220, 262, 263,
264, 265, 266, 267
party, 9–10, 140–2 Stoker, Gerry, 11, 17, 19, 20, 30, 31,
party, influence of, see under: 33, 36, 105, 189, 262, 263, 264,
‘influences on’ various attitudes 266
paying for services, 114–15, 175–7, structure of local government, see:
225–6 institutions for local government
Peters, Guy, 19, 262 subsidiarity, 222–4
Philips, Anne, 31, 264 survey design, 3, 36–40
pluralism, local government’s symbolism, 211–14
contribution to, 73, 148–9, 209–12
‘Poll Tax’, 13–14, 33, 252, 262, 264, TEC/LEC board members, 7, 37
267 TEC/LEC board members, opinions
Pratchett, Lawrence, 21, 22, 263 of, 130–87
‘providing’ institutions, 115–16, Thatcher reforms, 1–2
176–82, 233–6 Tiebout thesis, 74–5, 144–5, 222–4
Tiebout, Charles M., 74, 266
quangocracy, 7 Travers, Tony, 13, 33, 252, 262, 264,
quangos, 14–16, 36–9 267
trust, 95–7, 164–9, 220–1
randomized question wordings, 41–3 ‘two-tier’ system of local government,
Rao, Nirmala, 10, 22, 262, 263 12
‘refusals’, unusual significance of, 41
Regan, David, 35, 264 Waldegrave, William, 128, 266
respresentation and responsiveness, Ward, Hugh, 31, 264
86–7, 149–53, 213–17 waste, 90–2, 161, 218–19
Rhodes, Gerald, 46, 265 Weir, Stuart, 36, 264
Rhodes, Roderick A.W., 19, 262 welfare mission, 78–9, 148–9, 204–8
rival elites, 7, 34–9 Widdicombe, David, 21, 251, 263,
rival elites, opinions of, 7, 130–87 267
role of local governance, see: aims and Wilson, David, 11, 21, 22, 23, 262,
objectives 263
Wolman, Harold, 105, 266
sampling, 39 Wood, Bruce, 46, 265
Sancton, Andrew, 31, 263
satisfaction, 95–97, 164–9 Young, Ken, 10, 59, 262, 265
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DOI: 10.1057/9781403920119
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Models of Local Governance

Public Opinion and Political

William L. Miller, Malcolm Dickson

ALTERNATIVES TO FREEDOM: Arguments and Opinions

Also by Gerry Stoker

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

List of Figures vii

Introduction and Overview 1

1 From Local Government to Local Governance 11

3 The Limits of Local Identity 45

4 The Role of Local Governance 71

5 The Image of Traditional Local Government 85

6 Institutional Preferences 105

7 Governing Perspectives 130

8 Testing Models against Public Opinion 188

9 Public Support for Local Democracy 242

3.1 Objective links to locality 49

We must thank the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council)

inside: the attitudes of elected local councillors from the traditional

Measuring attitudes towards local governance

concerned our respondents. CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone

The role of local governance

The image of traditional local government

Critics of traditional local governance by elected councils had claimed

than private business, and less wasteful than central government,

The structure and institutions of local governance

In Chapter 6 we investigate the general public’s attitudes towards the

on the ideological (or party) spectrum. Similarly the strength or weak-

The perspectives of rival elites

Chapter 7 focuses on the attitudes of rival local governance elites,

view to their own particular kind of board. Far more members of

Testing theoretical models against public opinion

In Chapter 8 we test four comprehensive theoretical models of local

• the traditional local democracy or localist model centred on all-

and three alternative models:

• the ‘new right’ or individualist model centred on markets serving indi-

The foundations of support for local democracy

Finally, in Chapter 9 we address the question of why people support

1. a psychological sense of local identity;

The strongest defence of a democratic form of local governance

provide a defence for local democracy against the rival claims of

Two decades of institutional change

The institutional structure of local governance changed substantially

largely two-tier to a unitary structure. Central control over local

clusively single-tier systems of local authorities. In England the reform

Table 1.1 The structure of elected local government in Britain 1997/1998

authorities were required to set up companies to take over responsibilities

Functional area Government appointed bodies Self-governing bodies

Education City Technology Colleges Grant Maintained

and/or public funds it would be possible to stimulate efficiencies and

organization (DSO), had to operate within its own finance and

Governance: a strange new world?

The switch to the new concept of ‘governance’ implied more than a

the public and policy-makers. The complexity and blurred responsibil-

Second there was a raft of concerns about the standards applied by

What price local democracy?

The emergence of this new concept of ‘governance’ led to increasing

the CLD and Hunt reports recognized, but a number of weaknesses

party). About 15 per cent of councils have some element of independent

• local authorities should have a general power of local competence;

• there should be greater local control over spending decisions