Power can be overcentralised locally as well as nationally, the former Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary told the LGA’s annual conference.
Setting out his vision for “double devolution”, Steve Reed OBE MP said that “residents can feel just as shut out by the town hall as by Whitehall if it refuses to listen to them”. He added: “When communities have more control, they use their energy and creativity to find answers. They push services towards preventing the problems in their lives rather than simply trying to manage them.”
These principles are at the centre of the Government’s Pride in Place programme, providing 300 of the poorest communities with up to £20 million each to transform life chances in their areas, he added.
Mr Reed spoke of the need to ensure local government stands on firm financial foundations, referencing Fair Funding reforms, the first multi-year funding settlement in a decade, and the “decision to end two-tier local government, with its costly duplication, so we could plough the savings back into frontline services”.
He also warned that “we won’t have strong communities if we don’t tackle the housing crisis”.
Government, he added, has opened the first phase of the £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme to fund social and council housebuilding, given councils certainty on rent convergence, and made changes to Right to Buy “so new council homes are protected from being sold off so you have the confidence to go ahead and build”.