Originally published @ 10:50 pm, Tue 8th Jun 2010
Consultations over making a budget is an idea that the Labour Government pushed. Releasing full information on actual and planned spending was something I saw a Labour County Council do as long ago as the mid-nineties.
Both sharing information and consulting is a good and proper thing to do and was encouraged, nay driven, by the Labour government.
But, unfortunately, only for local government.
A shame, because you wonder if Building Schools for the Future (and the aspiration to renew all our secondary schools) and the biggest hospital building programme in British history and free bus passes for older people might have had more political purchase in the last General Election if voters had more often been part of the pressure developed for it to be done (as repeated lobbying for every annual budget could have encouraged).
And given some the repeated pushing by some Labour think-tanks for things American like candidate primaries, why they haven't picked up on the more prevalent American practice of lobbying over the budget.
Such practice does not negate our responsibility as politicians to rehearse the country's needs and interests (or meeting the challenges we are to face in terms of globalisation, an ageing society in climate change); nor does it negate our role in explaining why shaping our budgets to embrace our values (of achieving more together than we do apart, helping those most who are most in need and care & concern for the environment) is the best way to take the people and country forward.
With it might come a better focus on service delivery to give us boosts to sustain momentum (rather than dreaming up new legislation or even regulation as one-off initiatives).
My experience was that consultation on local budgets (whilst both providing assurance on the direction we were taking from some, and challenges or lack of appreciation from others) did give indications that areas were being missed. The most noticeable example I found was growing support for community facilities (meeting spaces and play areas and parks) was coming through and which we were finding we didn't have enough spare resources for.
We should trump the Conservative announcements on publishing more data on national spending and on consulting on budgets, by saying we'd do it every year and that there would be defined stages in the year when such matters would be the focus of Parliamentary debate.
And in the meantime, just how would the Con-Dems respond if the feedback from their exercises reflected the view of Labour supporters, trade unionists and public sector workers that the burden of paying back the debt in a four-year spell should be shouldered by those most able to pay!
Comments