Hammersmith & Fulham is a taste of things

Author: Tony Travers, The Times - Nov 2, 2009

Hammersmith & Fulham Council and its leader, Stephen Greenhalgh, have self-consciously made the case for radicalism within a single local authority. Ever since the Conservatives promised a 3 per cent per year cut in council tax at the time of the 2006 local elections, the council has been in the news. As a Tory government becomes a real possibility, it is inevitable that people will look to Hammersmith & Fulham for indications of how a Cameron government might operate.

The Conservative leadership will be ambivalent about embracing Hammersmith & Fulham too tightly. Although the Tories have appointed Mr Greenhalgh to head their Conservative Council Innovation Unit, his punchy style and willingness to court controversy risk allowing Labour to scratch the veneer of caring liberalism that David Cameron has applied to his party. Higher charges for services, cuts in staffing and a willingness to contract out provision can all be used to suggest that Mr Cameron is Tony Blair in Thatcherite clothing.

Mr Greenhalgh is heavily referenced in a recent Labour Party document entitled Cameron’s Councils: Cameron’s Real Agenda for Government.

Although written by the Tories’ opponents, the document is correct in identifying that radical innovation and cost-cutting by Conservative councils is almost certainly a leading indicator of the pressures that would be felt by Mr Cameron once in Downing Street. The London Borough of Barnet’s proposals for an "easy council" model of local government, where people could opt to pay for add-ons to services, has also been attacked by Labour as evidence of the Tories’ real motives.

Many Conservative councillors and activists are privately enthusiastic about the possibility of major changes to public services so as to make it possible to cut costs and thus reduce council tax. One of the last key differences between the Tories and Labour is their respective activists’ views about the state. Most Conservatives want a smaller public sector with lower taxes, while most Labour supporters would be happy to keep the state at its current size or increase it, even if taxes have to rise.

The policies of ambitious Conservative leaders such as Mr Greenhalgh are merely the embodiment of what many Tories privately believe. In fairness to such small-state Conservatives, all councils will be faced with demands for reductions in spending of perhaps 10 to 15 per cent during the coming decade.

However much Labour says to the contrary, if Gordon Brown were miraculously to win the next election he would have no more room to protect councils than Mr Cameron. Hammersmith & Fulham is the shape of things to come.

Tony Travers is a local government expert at the London School of Economics and Political Science

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