The future of Local Government and a new constitutional settlement

8.00.00am GMT Fri 30th Dec 2005

Yesterday's Guardian tells me that Ministers are working on the biggest shake-up of local government for a generation. It says the shake-up could see a new form of neighbourhood authority modelled on French communes, the scrapping of county councils and greater economic powers for cities.

I have had, for some time, something similar, but perhaps more radical thoughts on the future of Local Government, most of which I had formulated before working at Walsall Council but some since. My main thoughts are on the structure, and they follow below, but since coming to Walsall my views on service delivery have changed somewhat - I used to think the public sector was by far the best way to deliver services, but now I care less about who delivers them but what is delivered and in what way and if that is by using the private sector (or even the third sector) then so be it.

As for structure, I have long thought we should actually start again with a (new) constitutional settlement for the United Kingdom, it's constituent parts and our relationship with Europe and the United Nations.

I passionately believe that the UN and EU are vital to, not just the United Kingdom but, the whole world. I would look again at what the EU should be legislating on, and ensure that is the limit of their legislative powers with member states retaining control over the rest - as for what it should legislate on I have written before on that and will again in the future. As for the UN I would happily give up the UK's seat on the Security Council and removed the other EU states seats and have one EU seat along with seats for other sub-global bodies and ensure Africa and Asia are properly represented.

The UK needs to look at it's own constitution too, well in fact one needs to be written. Scotland currently has one form of devolution, Wales another and Northern Ireland a third. Each of the nations that make up the UK should have the same devolution, however before that is agreed we need to decide on what the nations are - Scotland and Wales are obvious, is Northern Ireland a nation of the United Kingdom or is it a part of Ireland, is Cornwall a nation and should England be treated the same?

There are issues (such as Defence and basic taxation) that should be dealt with by a Federal Parliament (with representatives from all nations) in a similar way to the House of Commons. I would argue a second chamber could effectively be an English Parliament (with members supplied by the Regions) that would have the same powers, be they decision-making or tax-raising as the other Parliaments.

Beneath the English Parliament (and this could be true for the other nations) I would suggest there should be some form of regional government, but not necessarily the current Government Regions. In the West Midlands for example it makes little sense for Hereford to be in the same region as Coventry. There is an argument for a return for a West Midlands regional based on the seven metropolitan boroughs, likewise there is an argument for a Mercia region covering Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire. As for Staffordshire and Warwickshire we may look outside the current 'regional boundaries' to see what might logically link with them. I would see these regions taking much of the role of the existing County Councils or Metropolitan Councils particularly Health, Education and Transport.

Finally beneath these slimmed down regions (but beefed up counties) we could either have two more tiers of Local Government or ideally just one. If we were to go to two tiers the first would be effectively a county(ish) one where places that shared the postcode letters could come together (ie WV, B, WS, HR, SY etc) to form a body. If there were just one with the regional government also having the ability to sit in county groups for some discussion and decision-making (or this could sit beneath the aforementioned county(ish) level, it should be based on the first part of a postcode (or groups of) so WV6 for me. I am basing these levels on postcode as I believe people identify with their postal towns better than anything else - this is true in both urban and rural areas - ask someone in Willenhall where they are from and they will say Willenhall not Walsall the same is true in Aldridge, Moseley in Birmingham, Tettenhall in Wolverhampton, Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire and so on. This would be the only real way of returning power to local communities and empower people.

These are just my thoughts, random as they may be, and certainly need some fine tuning but it is a discussion I would welcome and hope to somehow feed into the Government's plans if possible. I would also welcome any comments for anyone reading this site.