Austerity and Existing Tensions in English Local Government

While austerity is clearly the defining influence on local government and public services currently, it is not the only problem faced by the sector. This paper seeks to examine the impact of austerity beyond the headline reductions in budgets and spending. The United Kingdom coalition government have also legislated heavily around local governance introducing numerous reforms to the constitutional place and policy remit. Many practitioners argue that these changes have exacerbated the impact of austerity measures as well as causing significant additional tensions to some of the ongoing debates around English local government. The UK system of government is perceived as highly centralised (Greasley, John & Wolman 2011, Lowndes & Pratchett 2012) with local government highly constrained by central government. While initiatives such as the 'big society' may outwardly seek to address this, austerity and financial control are heavily dictated centrally. This 'centralisation' conflict is just one example but other issues such as voter engagement and turnout, political identity, democratic mandate and even the future of local government itself are all impacted by the austerity agenda. By identifying some of the key pre-existing tensions for local political leaders and examining the comparative (or cumulative) effects of the legislative agenda of the coalition government and the impact of austerity measures upon them, this paper seeks to demonstrate that consideration of the current austerity in local government must go beyond service cuts and a shrinking state, it must review the impact on the very fundamentals of local democracy and local government.