Tag Archives: local government

What next for Elected Mayors? Localism Catch-22

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Boris Johnson may have won the Mayoral race in London, however the rest of England didn’t take to a “Boris for every city”. Nine out of ten cities participating in the coalition’s referenda on directly elected mayors (May 3) rejected the idea; only Bristol backed the proposals.  The referenda were also overshadowed by poor turnout rates with an average of 28.8% across the country and only 24% in Bristol. Given that localism is one of the coalition’s main drives, what next for the government’s credentials in this area?

The proposed “Mayors Cabinet” will unlikely go ahead now, but the mayoral agenda will certainly not end here. Liverpool and Bristol will “flaunt” their mayors to influence national policy as London has done in the last decade[1]. The coalition will do likewise to save face and rejuvenate their localism strategy. Other cities therefore may find themselves wishing for mayors and they don’t have to wait on another national referendum. Let’s not forget that Liverpool, Salford, Doncaster and Leicester have all appointed mayors in the last year through local referenda or local council agreement. The “big-bang” reform the coalition hoped for hasn’t quite happened but change is still likely to creep along. One idea gaining traction is “metro mayors”, which would look after transport, planning and policing across city-regional travel-to-work areas (an idea Lord Adonis will discuss at a Constitution Unit seminar on May 22). [2]

The low turnout raises deeper questions on public enthusiasm for localism. With only 28.8% of people voting nationally, can the government carry localism forward? Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) are due to be elected on 15 November, whose credibility will be questioned on a 10-20% turnout. Localism has good devolutionary intent but people need to feel involved. Citizens should have had a hand in shaping mayors’ roles before the referenda and we cannot be surprised that people voted against an office they did not call for with undefined powers, pay and job description.

Ultimately, the coalition has tried to provide the groundwork for a system few are yet interested in using and found themselves in a Catch-22 situation. How does one force localism from the top? To continue driving the localism agenda forward the government needs to gain this hard-face experience, and refocus on facilitating rather than imposing policy. Elected mayors may have a future yet, but it now lies in the hands of local communities rather than Westminster.

Is All Openness Local?

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Following our report on FOI and local government in England, we have had some interesting reflections on how FOI works elsewhere.  One of the really interesting points concerns how users are often focused on ‘local’ access to issues that are of importance to them. High profile expenses stories aside, FOI is actually about making a difference at the level of your own street or ‘micro-politics’ as someone wiser than me called it. Could this also be the way for new Open Data innovations such as fix my street?

Here’s the FOI (or FOIL) view from New York state:

‘Our FOI law (known by many as “FOIL”) has been in effect since 1974, and this office was created as part of the law.  There are approximately 100 state agencies, but more important to most residents are the thousands of local government agencies, i.e., counties, cities, towns, villages, school districts and the like.  Most residents have little connection with federal agencies in their daily lives and rarely have occasion to seek records under the federal FOIA.  A few have relationships with and a need to gain access to records of state agencies.  But everyone has a need at some point to seek information from local government, perhaps in relation to an environmental issue, building code and land use issues, the assessment of homes and other real property, the means by which taxpayers’ dollars are used or allocated by school districts, the qualifications of teachers and other public employees, the effectiveness of law enforcement functions – – the possibilities are endless.

We have also found, in general, that the smaller the unit of government, the more likely it is to be open.  In short, there is direct accountability. Most residents here, in the capital city of Albany, would recognize the Mayor walking down the street.  Few would recognize their congressman.

In short, despite the focus on Washington and the federal FOI Act, I believe that a local access to information law,  such as the 50 separate state FOI laws in the US, or a law of general application that includes local government within its coverage, is of primary significance and utility to the average person.  Further, for reasons suggested earlier, local government officials are more likely to comply with law and to be accountable that those higher up in the governmental chain of command.’

See http://www.dos.ny.gov/coog/ for more information, reports and analysis

Town Hall Transparency?

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Our new report on FOI and local government concludes that the FOI Act has made councils more open and transparent. Each year more and more questions have been asked with request numbers rising from around 60,000 a year in 2005 to nearly 200,000 in 2010.

Underneath the media headlines about senior officials’ salaries,  investments and the cost of dying, FOI is being used more quietly, day-to-day, by the public to find out about things that matter to them; allotments, parking, speed bumps etc., as you can see in these records of requests  here and  here (this one also lists requesters by type). Businesses are using it to keep one step ahead of the competition and national and local pressure groups are making FOI requests on all sorts of topics from zoo licences to libraries. It may even have helped to uncover a murder.

Some councils are more open and more at ease with FOI than others. A few have resisted and played games. Many are concerned it’s being ‘abused’ by businesses and journalists. Most of all officials are worried about how they will cope with rising request numbers with fewer resources.

Since January 2011 councils have published all their spending over £500 on their websites (see here). The government hopes this will give transparency an extra push and also motivate ‘armchair auditors’ to check where and how councils are spending and misspending our money. The response has been mixed. Some councils have had no interest in their data, while elsewhere local newspapers have exposed controversial spending on string quartets or libraries , as have a  few national newspapers . One official said the benefits are internal, as it has allowed councillors to understand their own budgets.

FOI and Open Data are working more and more closely with new online innovations, that allow data to be ‘mashed’ and sifted, and hyper local sites that serve as a platform for residents to talk about local issues. However, it remains to be seen if new technology and further local government reform helps or FOI or if it will be undermined by dwindling resources’.

FOI and local government in 2010: The experience of local authorities in England

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The Constitution Unit has just published its report on English local authorities’ experiences complying with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) throughout 2010.  The report aimed to gain an understanding of the numbers and types of requests local authorities received throughout 2010, the problems they encountered with compliance and their thoughts about different aspects of FOI.  The study used a web-based survey of local authorities’ FOI practitioners.  Of the 353 local authorities in England, practitioners from 104 (or 29%) gave substantive responses to the survey.  Key findings include:

  • Based on answers given by the 104 participating practitioners, the total estimated number of FOI/EIR requests received by local authorities in 2010 is 197,737. This is 33,229 (or 20%) more requests than we estimate were made in 2009.
  • A total cost of £31.6 million (an average of £159.80 per request) was estimated based on multiplying the average number of hours spent on a request, the total number of requests and the £25 per hour standard rate in dealing with an FOI request. Cost has therefore steadily fallen since 2008, showing an increase in efficiency in dealing with requests. It should however be noted that it is relatively difficult to generate an accurate estimate considering both the comparatively small sample and wide spread around the average time spent on a request.  Interestingly, some local authorities (such as Rotherham Borough Council) have taken to including the cost of handling a particular request upon supplying the information to the requester.
  • All council types improved their performance with regard to answering requests within the 20 day limit, despite the fact that requests are increasing in number.
  • With regard to amount of information disclosed following a request, slightly more were answered in full in 2010 (79.1%) compared to 2009 (78%).  However there are wide differences amongst council types.  In line with this, the number of requests where no information has been released has decreased, though again, there are wide differences across council types.
  • Opinion was divided over the impact of the £500 spending publication rule introduced by the coalition government.

“Extra work and virtually no benefits – for residents, businesses or the Council!”

“It’s a springboard to further regular disclosures, with a bit of luck.”

  • Financial information continues to be the most frequently requested, as has been the case since 2008.
  • According to respondents, the general public generate most requests, contradicting Tony Blair’s publicised regret that FOI is used not by “the people”, but predominantly by journalists.  However, it is difficult to be certain of exactly who is making use of FOI as most councils fail to record this.
  • Respondents identified a few main problems with compliance: requests, requesters, lack of resources, and the cooperation of management or service departments.  This is a similar list to that of the 2009 report.

“Increased number of requests with less resources available to deal with them”

“Receiving information from holders and communication of requests from departments”

  • When asked about positive effects of the Act, the most frequently given answers were: the development of more open, transparent, and accountable authority, improvements to records management, and general improvements to the organisation.

You can read the full report here.

£500 Online Publication: What’s Going On?

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David Cameron has promised a ‘transparency revolution’ based upon Open Data and online publication. As part of this, since January 2011 all local authorities in England (with one exception) have begun publishing online details of all their spending over £500. What is this supposed to achieve? According to the government, many things. Publishing online will make local authorities more transparent, less wasteful and will help the public understand where its money goes. It will also give developers the opportunity to create new applications. Most of all, it will give power back to the people, enabling an army of armchair auditors to hold government to account.

What do we know? One survey of 168 local authorities found that 17 per cent felt the online publication had been ‘very successful’, 13 per cent felt it had been ‘somewhat’ successful, 17 per cent ‘good in theory but not in practice’ and 23 per cent did not know. So what of the benefits? 38 per cent felt it had increased transparency, 25 per cent accountability and 13 per cent trust. Only 3 per cent felt it increased participation or social and commercial value.

Our own study found similar variation. Some local authorities had experienced very little interest in the new data with one recording ‘180 visits and one FOI request’ in 3 months and another experiencing local media interest in ‘electricity and phone bills’ which had quickly ‘settled down’. Elsewhere there were higher levels of interest in the data, particularly from the local press and some ‘small use by trade unions’. Local media stories have highlighted odd spending on training, consultants and crematoria. Others pointed to internal benefits, with officials and politicians now able to better understand their own authority’s spending.

There has been, as of yet, little sign of the army of armchair auditors. In June Eric Pickles praised a group of bloggers who held to account the flagship Conservative authority over its contractual procedures. Other sites have sprung up with names such as ‘armchairs auditor’, and ‘reluctant armchair auditor’ but the latter wrote in the Guardian that the data was ‘not yet’ of good enough quality. There are difficulties around finding out who is accountable and knowing what mechanisms to use, whether to pass information to the media or the authority itself.

It has led to a growing number of new sites that help quickly and simply analyse the spending data, such as ‘Spotlight on Spend’ and ‘Openly Local’. The latter site is an open source site containing 168 local authorities’ spending data, attracting around a 1000 unique visitors a day, including businesses and local politicians. These sites allow you to quickly examine and compare authorities by payments, providers and make sit easy to benchmark. Many feel the future lies here.

It’s still very early days to say if it has succeeded or failed. The new online publication will make government more transparent and the parallel publication of salaries and contracts. It is unlikely to lead to very much ‘armchair auditing’ from the public, as most people won’t have the time or the patience to scroll through long excel sheets, but NGOs and journalists will find it useful. The area to watch will be the ‘local’ initiatives and hyper local sites. It is here, on their doorsteps, where the new information may make a real difference.

This article appeared in the Local Government Chronicle