Grenfell Tower has dealt a severe blow to the reputation of local government. It will hit the devolution agenda, reform of council finance and will have ramifications for the future of social care and councils’ role in NHS sustainability and transformation plans.
The departure of Kensington and Chelsea’s chief executive Nicholas Holgate – regarded for the past week as a dead man walking by his London peers – sums it up. He was ordered to go by Sajid Javid, the communities secretary. So much for local autonomy; here was a reminder that Whitehall always tries to keep reserve powers, just in case of local failure.
Holgate’s going probably won’t stop the bleeding from the council’s reputation, as more is learned about its housing management and regulation. Though shored up for the moment by his Tory colleagues, the council leader Nicholas Paget-Brown looks unlikely to survive the protracted period of inquiry and recrimination.
Theresa May spoke of a “state failure”, national as well as local. That’s not right: the Metropolitan police, fire and rescue, London ambulance and other emergency services performed magnificently.
Neighbouring councils swiftly offered staff and accommodation, but found themselves rebuffed or ignored – calling into question the efficacy of pan-London arrangements and the respective roles of boroughs and the mayor. But failure does seem to be focused on the Basil Spence designed headquarters of the council, and nobody quite understands why.
Despite the severe cuts in staffing and low levels of morale, civil servants from the communities departments have now mobilised, having held off intervening for several days after the fire because (it is alleged) Javid did not want to embarrass local Tories.
But the puzzle remains. Why did this local authority, regarded in Whitehall, as in the wider local government world, as the safest of pairs of hands, perform so miserably in a crisis?
In his book London’s Boroughs at 50, Tony Travers noted the continuity in the borough’s leadership. Since its creation in 1965, it has been a one-party statelet, with long serving leaders and chief executives. Its Tories have been predominantly patrician and moderate. From 1968 to 1977 Sir Malby Crofton built social housing in north Kensington including Grenfell Tower.
His successor Nicholas Freeman, opposed the poll tax. Successors included Baroness Joan Hanham and Sir Merrick Cockell, who held office from 1989 to 2013 as loyal Tories but not Thatcherites.
Compared to the other members of the “tri borough” executive grouping, Kensington and Chelsea was identifiably less ideological than Hammersmith and Fulham and less business and efficiency focused than Westminster.
Some colleagues have wondered whether the Treasury background of Holgate unfitted him for the operational challenge of Grenfell Tower – but others point out that he left Whitehall in 2008 and, like all council executives, have substantial acquaintance with emergency planning and preparation.
Localists will say, correctly, that it is unfair to generalise across local government from the failure of a single authority. Besides, they will say, central government’s record isn’t exactly spotless. But localism rests on the assertion that councils are better, which is why they should acquire or reacquire service capacity and spending power.
That cause has stalled. It looks like the ambitious commitment to allow councils to retain their business rates has been put on ice. It was always problematic. George Osborne, its progenitor, never quite explained how the huge disparities in wealth and business income between different parts of the country would be dealt with without continuing a necessarily complicated scheme for redistributing money from the centre.
The prospects of Manchester-style devolution for other parts of the country are now dim.
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