Local councils can play a very positive and central role in the life of each community.

The recent, much publicised events that throw a bad light on local councils are to me a source of disappointment. These events do not come, however, as a surprise. As Labour’s spokesperson on local government, I had consistently, both in and out of Parliament, highlighted key factors that will lead to stagnation or deterioration in the workings of local councils.

I will here highlight three of these key causes.

1. The government keeps increasing popular expectations of what a local council can do that goes way beyond the current potential of local councils. This creates a climate of high expectation on the one hand and a sense of inordinate power on the other, that leads to an on-the-hoof culture that makes it hard to decipher honest but misguided action from action having a wrong intent.

2. Further pressures are loaded on the operations of local councils through the launching of schemes, impressive by way of spin but misleading in their implication that a local council has the potential to see to all the needs of, say, road resurfacing. Few realise that the amounts made available through such schemes represent but a tiny fraction of national requirements.

3. Despite this inordinate pressure, mayors, councillors and administrators do not have adequate support mechanisms to guide them through their daily decision-making processes, as the Department of Local Councils itself is not equipped to provide such support. Each council is, therefore, left to its own devices to deal with daily issues, leading to the on-the-hoof culture mentioned earlier.

This gives me a distinct feeling that the central government is playing political strategy with local councils in its narrow partisan interests, ignoring the real needs of communities.

While Labour’s objective criticism of the government’s behaviour towards local councils has often been met with either silence or spin, the Labour Party remains fully committed to contribute towards a healthy climate for local councils to be a major source of good in our communities.

Will the government, this time round, abandon cheap politicking in favour of active devolution based on realistic and professional structures in the interest of all communities?

I do not doubt the government’s lack of political will to rise to the occasion.