Local Govt Reform

santry_goonshow

I was wondering why most irish people are clueless, ambivalent, cynical, passionless about local Governement reform in this country. There are a number of different problems with the system as it exists at present. These are (roughly):

• Ireland has very few local councillors per head of population, especially compared to the really well established democracies like Sweden, Denmark and France
• That Councillors are paid part-time salaries and work other professions.
• That the real power lies with unaccountable bureaucrats like County/City Managers and not with the elected people who face the vote. In other countries you get a local Minister for health who they get to fire at the ballot box every 5 years
• That the scope of functions is limited, i.e. Health should be connected to local govt like elsewhere but in ireland it is centralised into the HSE. Same goes for education which is usually a Local Govt function
• That there is little Civil enforcement by An Garda Siochana (i.e. they are focussed on Criminal matters exclusively) and operate to entirely different boundaries. This means a lot of moral ambivalence over littering, loitering, noise etc. as these matters are "trivial"
• That less than 10% of spending happens by local agencies

Just curious. One argument I will not accept is that we are too small - we are bigger than Finland for e.g. who has a far better system that is properly funded....

The_Minister

Emmmmm we tried locally operated health services.
It was an umitigated disaster, because the Irish people do not reward the same qualities at the polls as they do in other countries.
A huge number of the problems currently in the health service stem from local government.
We elect councillors who do us favours. Those favours involved abusing their powers (up the waiting-list etc). We have stopped that, because we took away their powers. Why would we go back to that system.

DadaKopf

I wondered how long it'd take to get a thread on this. Our dysfunctional system is in need of serious reform, and I was disappointed with the green paper delivered by Gormley last week.

Unfortunately, it's not an issue that arouses people's passions right now. It's hard to explain to people how much better their lives would be with real local government, and how much more worse off we are now without it.

I just hope that the government is smart enough to heed the very critical warnings contained in the OECD Public Service Review. If the Government doesn't integrate local government reforms with reform of the wider public sector (including tackling the rediculously obscene profusion of quangos), we're all screwed.

SkepticOne

People expect very little from their local councils. Most people seem to write to TDs who then write to the council or government agency rather than directly to their local councillor.

I think one of the reasons for this is that councils don't raise money directly from local residents through rates or a council tax set by the council. Central government pays the piper and therefore calls the tunes.

DadaKopf

That's definitely one of the issues. The fear, I suppose, is give councillors more power to do stuff with locally raised money and they'll abuse it. But it makes sense that this risk has to be taken if local services are to serve the needs of communities at all. What does Dublin care if water in Galway is contaminated, or there aren't enough school places next September? It's just not possible for central government to respond to issues before they become crises.

People expect very little from their local councils.

I think evidence shows people's expectations of public services, delivered locally and centrally, are going up. And in some cases, services have improved, but many haven't, or are at best patchy.

Mr.Micro

Local Government as it exists at present is a waste of money. Little gets done but money is wasted. The County Manager has too much power and most of the Councillors are just so out of touch and more interested in zoning and planning issues. A massive shake up is needed but what Government will have the balls to do it ?

murphaph

Indeed. We need major changes. Either fund it properly and expect the best from local government or we abolish it altogether.

I would like to see our county councils abolished as they now stand regardless. This system of government imposed in Elizabethan times has long been abandoned in the 'rest' of the UK but we cling doggedly to it as our counties have taken on a sentimental significance due to the GAA which simply doesn't exist in GB. They don't often know what historical/ceremonial county they even live in.

They have many more local authorities since 1974 (when they had their major reform) than cermeonial counties. I believe however that given our much smaller population we should go the other way and reduce the number of local authorities overall.

I would like local authorities to make sense. We are all familiar with the petty boundary disputes around Limerick/Waterford and so on and this should end. I personally believe that our society needs to become less selfish and more community oriented before any local government reform will be worth a damn as at the moment the concept of "the greater good" is lost on most people-hence planning experts being overruled by councillors and mass rezonings taking place and nobody really minds.

brianthebard

Sorting out local government would also mean that there would be less TD's elected to fix pot holes. There was a piece on the last word a month or two ago about councillors having huge expenses bills did anyone hear it? A FF councillor from Roscommon was talking about a "trade junket" to somewhere in the middle east and how he had to kit himself out in expensive suits and stay in expensive hotels "for appearance". Disgusting stuff.

santry_goonshow

The_Minister wrote: »

Emmmmm we tried locally operated health services.
It was an umitigated disaster, because the Irish people do not reward the same qualities at the polls as they do in other countries.
A huge number of the problems currently in the health service stem from local government.
We elect councillors who do us favours. Those favours involved abusing their powers (up the waiting-list etc). We have stopped that, because we took away their powers. Why would we go back to that system.

I don't like your generalisations. We never really tried locally operated health services. We had some of the health services operated by accountable Health Boards but these were regional, not really local and certainly not properly tied to local Government and other than superficial Board membership by Councillors. Oh and you are ill-informed if you think politicking doesn't get people of lesser clinical need up the lists, even today. Recently a Donegal granny camped out in a hospital up there and eventually brow-beat the hosp manager to over-ride her clinical diagnosis and have her seen before more needy cases. You also fail to acknowlege that the private public divide distorts clinical need and maybe locally operated accountable services would off-set that balance. Am I too optimistic?

santry_goonshow

SkepticOne wrote: »

People expect very little from their local councils. Most people seem to write to TDs who then write to the council or government agency rather than directly to their local councillor.

I think one of the reasons for this is that councils don't raise money directly from local residents through rates or a council tax set by the council. Central government pays the piper and therefore calls the tunes.

See thats a good insight. Our national system is clientelist which means that TDs are elected on the same basis as Councillors and the FF ones in particular all compete against one another. The premier division favour-doers get TD places, the less talented get a seat on the Council.

Victor

There is currently a Green Paper on this topic.

See http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/LocalGovernment/Administration/FileDownLoad,17134,en.pdf

santry_goonshow

Victor wrote: »

There is currently a Green Paper on this topic.

See www.environ.ie

Yeah thanks victor, I saw it. It addresses NONE of the core issues with local Government (and the ones I raised are not a comprehensive list of all the problems by any means), just going with the gimick for a regional mayor for Dublin and trying to decide if Kildare people could live with an arrangement including them. Tchoh. Maybe somebody should tell John Gormley that the OECD report is calling for more fundamental reform.

Belfast

That is to say most power is in the Capital city Dublin.
compare to other countries local government has little power.
In England local government run schools, police and has a local tax (council tax)

santry_goonshow

Belfast wrote: »

That is to say most power is in the Capital city Dublin.
compare to other countries local government has little power.
In England local government run schools, police and has a local tax (council tax)

Whoopsies, you mean "centralised" instead of "capitalist" don't you? I'm afraid you are wrong, centralised countries do exist in the OECD but Ireland is the most centralised of the lot. After us there's Mugabe's Zimbabwe and Russia. Perversely centralised states don't really care where their capital is, and make equally bad decisions for that part of their country too. Local Government doesn't run the Police in England, but the elected Councillors have the right to question everything which is good.

DadaKopf

I've come to the conclusion that what needs to happen is to abolish all county councils. Replace them with democratically accountable Regional Authorities headed by a directly elected Regional Mayor, and then establish a patchwork of sub-county Area Authorities headed by directly-elected Area Mayors. Regional Authorities provide regional policy and strategic leadership and integrated, regional services and infrastructure; Area Authorities provide local-level services and infrastructure. The City/County manager would be demoted to a position like 'Regional Secretary' who would effectively be a top civil-servant adviser to the Regional Mayors with no executive powers (like Secretary Generals in government departments).

We would still elect TDs based on the (nearly)county system to legislate at national level. Provided power and finance would be effectively devolved from central government, this would 'decouple' TDs from local politics because much of the power would be redistributed to the Regional and Area Authorities. Citizens would look to TDs on national matters and RAs and AAs for sub-national matters.

There would also be a national tax and a regional tax, reinforcing the devision between national and local. RAs and AAs would also be permitted to speculatively invest their budget surpluses as a means to promote better management and efficient use of public resources.

Over time, it could emerge that we would have regional police and welfare services under the Regional Authority banner.

Combine this with a reining in and rationalising of semi-state agencies through comprehensive 'whole-of-government' reform as advocated by the OECD, and I think you'd have a national governance system on a similar footing to the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

santry_goonshow

I think its the monstrously bureaucratic, inefficient and unaccountable state agencies that are most in need of reform. FAS for example should be regionalised and placed within the ambit of Local Government. Enterprise Ireland and County Enterprise Boards should also be merged into local Govt. Just imagine the overheads cost savings of doing all the salaries of these guys separately. Also a bit of new blood needed in many of the services so get them all to switch around

ninty9er

If I had my way I'd abolish elected councils and just leave the officials off to do their job, same as now, but without the expense of elected reps.

santry_goonshow

ninty9er wrote: »

If I had my way I'd abolish elected councils and just leave the officials off to do their job, same as now, but without the expense of elected reps.

Thats right, even less accountability like the USSR. What could possibly ever go wrong?:rolleyes:

DadaKopf

ninty9er wrote: »

If I had my way I'd abolish elected councils and just leave the officials off to do their job, same as now, but without the expense of elected reps.

This is just the exact opposite of what needs to happen.

ninty9er

santry_goonshow wrote: »

Thats right, even less accountability like the USSR. What could possibly ever go wrong?:rolleyes:

People could be sacked as opposed to being secure for a guaranteed 5 years

santry_goonshow

ninty9er wrote: »

People could be sacked as opposed to being secure for a guaranteed 5 years

Or shipped off to the Gulags. Camp 914, for all enemies of the people.

A proper system of local government could a long way towards reducing parochialism on the national level.

invincibleirish

ninty9er wrote: »

If I had my way I'd abolish elected councils and just leave the officials off to do their job, same as now, but without the expense of elected reps.

Bit of an extreme overreaction methinks, y'know as crappy as it can be, countries still need a civil service, even Ronald Reagans America!

As a probable future Civil Servant (guess my course) **** still needs to be done.

santry_goonshow

Deleted User wrote: »

A proper system of local government could a long way towards reducing parochialism on the national level.

You could almost guarantee that it would. There are many ways to start, for wxample preclude people who are publicans or estate agents from serving on local elected councils. Then give them a salary instead of the bullshyt "expenses". Then have a Mayor in each Council, elected by popular vote for a 5 year term. Give the powers of County Managers in relation to planning to them.

fly_agaric

ninty9er wrote: »

If I had my way I'd abolish elected councils and just leave the officials off to do their job, same as now, but without the expense of elected reps.

True, and even with no elected reps we'd probably need a political "politburo" of sorts to oversee it all? Who would step up for that job I wonder?:pac:

santry_goonshow

fly_agaric wrote: »

True, and even with no elected reps we'd probably need a political "politburo" of sorts to oversee it all? Who would step up for that job I wonder?:pac:

Maybe he has a point. If the elected ppl have been marginalised by the officials then there's no point in having them and at least we could all be honest about the administrative soviets running the Council