'Bold' devolution slowed by Westminster
Author: Local Government Chronicle - May 28, 2009
Government has failed to deliver a "bold devolution" of powers to local authorities, with Whitehall and Westminster slowing moves to localism, the local government minister John Healey has admitted. In a candid assessment of the government’s track record on devolution, Mr Healey admitted: "It has been a slow evolution of devolution". "It has been significant but not, as we saw in Scotland and Wales, a bold devolution of powers," he added. "It has been managerial, not political. It’s been policy and funding based, not constitutional." Of Labour’s early years in power, Mr Healey said "we were a government in a hurry" and councils "were not the immediate answer to the challenges" of delivering better schools, hospitals and policing. "The alibis for not placing more power and responsibility in the hands of elected local government are long gone," he claimed. His previously unpublicised comments were made at a seminar organised by the Fabian Society and contrast markedly with most of his previous speeches were he has berated councils for not taking full advantage of the powers available to them.
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