The Localis think tank is pushing for a radical rethink of local government finances – as reported by the Public Finance website:
Financial control needs to be devolved from Westminster
Urgent and radical decentralisation will have to depend on resource-based expenditure if we are to rebalance the economy through a strong local state, argues Joe Fyans, head of research at Localis.
The United Kingdom must urgently decentralise to preserve democracy and restore social mobility. When in 2009 Localis issued a report on international progress in localism, this statement would have seemed beyond hyperbolic. But a decade later, the numbers, tragically support this contention.
Hansard polling has the UK ‘poised to embrace authoritarianism’. National politicians are attacking the legitimacy and durability of British democracy left and right – they are finding sympathetic audiences in all sections of the public.
In our new report ‘Hitting reset’, we urge radical decentralisation to bring people back into the democratic fold and mend our tattered social fabric by devolving power from a political complex located in SW1 – a form of governance which is seen by too many as too remote and disinterested.