Taking the long view

I sometimes think that our Scottish politicians live in a vacuum. So few of them seem to have any sense of what happened before their arrival on the political scene. Take, for instance, this latest row about specific grants to local authorities, the current (and apparently recurrent) obsession of Ms Alexander. Does she understand what she is advocating? On the other hand, did Mr Swinney appreciate what he was offering COSLA in return for their compliance over council tax rises?

It has long been the case that the more enlightened Ministers and civil servants in the Executive (and in the Scottish Office before them) have sought to minimise the extent of spedific grants to local authorities. There are sound reasons of principle amd practice for this. In particular, there is no point in having elected local authorities if all the spending decisions are to be made centrally. The centre has more than enough to do without intervening in decisions which - on the grounds of the famous subsidiarity - are better made locally. Furthermore, if resources for local purposes are to be allocated centrally through specific grants, it becomes incumbent on the centre to ensure that these resources are used for the purposes intended and that they deliver what they are intended to deliver; which leads of course to the panoply of monitoring, targeting and evaluating. (This is why the elimination of specific grants frequently forms part of the periodic efficiency initiatives that occasionally convulse the centre.) No, much better to allow local authorities to decide their own spending priorities and let them get on with it.

On the other hand, Ministers like to be seen to be doing things. And if a problem arises about the absence of homeless or educational or social provision for a particularly needy (and deserving) poulation group, it is difficult for Ministers to take the line of 'Nothing to do with us, mate - this is a matter for the local authority'. As these kind of problems arise frequently and as there are whole industries devoted to bringing them to the attention of the public, so Ministers are under more or less constant pressure to establish specific grants which have the effect of requiring local authorities to address the problems.

This means that the centre remains in a constant state of tension, with some parts of the Executive seeking to intervene and other parts (sometimes even the same parts) seeking to resist intervention. This tension manifests itself in a reform process which, as this year, sweeps away a host of specific grants in an effort to restore, as far as possible, the apparent purity of local government's ability to determine its own spending priorities. This 'wiping of the slate' is then followed over the next few years by the gradual restoration of specific grants as Ministers give in to demands for intervention. It all becomes excessive of course and in due time another reform process again sweeps away many of the specific grants. Thus does the cycle repeat itself. (None of which prevents politicians from hailing each stage in the cycle as entirely unprecedented.)

It is also worth noting that there is little ideological content here. Notwithstanding Ms Alexander's protestations about Labour's commitment to the most vulnerable groups, all the political parties pay at least lip-service to local authority independence from the centre and all of them have their own favoured priorities for specific grants. The cycle continues, therefore, regardless of who is in power. And all politicians at the centre know in their heart of hearts that it would be totally impractical to give in to every demand for central intervention. Some of the more grown-up politicians actually understand what is going on.

In these circumstances, I hear you ask - why is Ms Alexander abandoning the voice of reason and lining up with the heidbangers? That is a question only she can answer, but I fear that it is an error of strategic proportions.