As published in the Suffolk Free Press, Thursday, June 28, 2018.
Recently, Suffolk County Council acquired both a new chief executive and a new leader. Nicola Beach and Cllr. Matthew Hicks will doubtless wish to use the opportunity afforded by their successful ascent of their respective managerial and political summits to pause and consider aspects of the County’s work. But I doubt the outcome will be anything revolutionary.
And that is a shame.
Because the relationship between their part of the public sector and Suffolk’s residents and business community remains fundamentally imbalanced.
As a resident of Suffolk, I’ve endured consultations upon consultations about local government reorganisations or the merger of one district with another over the last decade or so.
All such reforms are inherently inward-looking and more about preserving local councils’ slice of the cake rather than a serious consideration of what they should focus upon and what they should hand over to the private sector.
As a libertarian, I believe that individuals and families should have the maximum control over how they spend their income. I therefore question those parts of our council tax bills that are used to fund, directly or indirectly, things such as sports centres, wellbeing teams and community grants.
The first are always run better by the private sector, the second should be about individuals making well-informed decisions not being imposed upon by bureaucrats and the last surely is about taking less taxation out of people’s pockets in the first place! I could go on.
But an even more fundamental flaw is the lack of democratic accountability across councils in Suffolk in listening to and acting upon the interests of business.
Companies in Suffolk contribute millions of pounds each year to public services through business rates, yet they have no democratic voice as to how that is spent.
At present, business taxes are collected locally, sent to local government and then redistributed back to the councils via a complex and arguably anti-democratic formula.
Because of that local councils have in most cases at best only paid lip service to the needs of the very wealth creators they partially rely on for their existence.
The saying ‘no taxation without representation’ sparked a revolution in another country and I certainly believe that businesses in Suffolk should have the ability to contribute to the democratic debate. In short, businesses should have the vote, with the number of votes dependent, say, on local turnover, tax contributions or workforce employed.
If councillors relied in part on the support of the business vote during election times, there might well be fewer anti-business practice between those times, not least as regards the expensive, slow-moving and archaic planning system!
Of course, the financial underpinnings of local government finance are being reformed. Significantly, councils will be able to retain additional business rates from new companies set up in their areas.
This means that councils’ funding will rely more and more upon the level of growth they facilitate. Some of them, including Forest Heath and Mid Suffolk District and St Edmundsbury Borough Councils have announced growth investment strategies aimed at them taking a stake in initiatives that have both an economic and a social return.
Potentially, this could be a trigger that changes their process-driven, bureaucratic cultures into something more aligned with the needs of us wealth creators.
Yet we need to see these councils and others engaging more with businesses in delivering these investment opportunities – ideally having advisory boards made up of local entrepreneurs.
And finally, surely it’s time that the Suffolk public sector actually adopted a more supportive role in terms of buying goods and services from Suffolk firms? A ‘buy Suffolk’ bias would do wonders for supporting our diverse business base.
I understand there is an initiative looking at this area. Let’s hope it delivers actions and not just warm words.
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