He found that he was unable to respond sensibly to the questions as framed due to the fact that no answer that he could have given to them would have adequately expressed his views. This is due to the fact that the questions are heavily, and carefully, loaded.
I can do no better than to post here his full response which he made by e mail. (You are invited to respond to the consultation in this way if you prefer.)
Dear Sir/Madam,
Devolution means transfer of powers
down from central government to local government but that is not what is on
offer. What is on offer is the creation of an additional tier of government, at
the regional level, with very limited additional powers of taxation, a
trivially small annual increase in central funding, and significantly lower
levels of accountability than currently apply to District or County Councils.
The concentration of power on a single person, the mayor, and the proposed
electoral structure whereby each authority has one vote on a new assembly,
would reduce or eliminate the ability of minority parties to hold the party of
power, whichever it might be, to account.
The European Union operates through
the prism of regional administration, but as we are now leaving it that should
no longer weigh as a factor in deciding whether or how to restructure local
government in England.
What is proposed is not devolution.
It is local government reform of a centralising and anti-democratic nature, and
it should be rejected.
Incidentally, I feel that your
questionnaire cannot elicit appropriate responses. Questions like ‘Do you
approve of the devolution of more power to local authorities and a mayor?’ have
two problems. The first is that devolution of more powers to local government
is not what is on offer. The second is that it confuses two questions –
devolution and concentration of powers on a mayor. So the whole consultation process
is hopelessly flawed.
Yours faithfully,
Nicholas Antill (resident of Babergh
District Council in Suffolk)
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