A continuing revolution?

Significant local authority and regional reform had taken place during Labour's first four years. The Blair government had attempted to reduce the central control that the Conservatives had put in place, though they chose to do so using a careful, carrot-and-stick approach. A number of consultative documents had been published, leading to significant structural and public service reform. The ‘modernisation’ of public service provision was a key element in New Labour's approach. Because local government was responsible for broadly a quarter of all public expenditure, councils inevitably found themselves involved in efforts to change the method or quality of service delivery.

The second Blair government continued to evolve policies that created new service-delivery units for education, health, regeneration, housing and policing. It also sought to create consistency between different providers and to reduce the extent to which Whitehall departments handed down policies that were disconnected from those in other parts of public administration. Local government became ‘governance’, embracing a number of different organisation and requiring councils to lead coalitions of local service providers. By 2005, the emphasis had shifted towards ‘neighbourhood’ and ‘community’ governance.

The perennially difficult issue of local government finance reared its head in 2003–4. An unexpected jump in council tax levels in that year, coupled with a minority of schools suffering an apparent funding short-fall, led to pressure for a major reform to local funding. A Balance of Funding review was set up, which, in turn, spawned a second inquiry into the subject.