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For nearly 30 years, since Tony Crosland declared "the party is over", a succession of governments has struggled with local government reform. Barely a year has passed without one or more pieces of legislation aimed at changing the frameworks for governance and financial control or altering the form and substance of local services.

The pendulum has swung with some services being radically centralised and others being localised. It is at times hard to discern any intellectual or ideological coherence underpinning changes - except that ministers appear to want to claim the benefits centrally while allocating any blame for failure locally.


Recently, central government's attention has switched to local governance and a patchwork of models has emerged across England. Despite the language of increased transparency and greater accountability, most of the councils with new governance arrangements have merely entrenched majority party rule. This is at odds with public opinion, which often favours more radical change. For example, in almost a third of the contests where voters have been given the option of a directly elected mayor they have chosen to pick outsiders ranging from Ken Livingstone to H'Angus the Monkey.

However, we will soon be able to see what the impact of more fundamental changes to local governance could be. A fortnight after the elections to the Scottish parliament, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have hammered out a new partnership agreement.

At its heart is the fulfilment of the Liberals' aspiration for proportional representation in local government. This will lead to sweeping changes in Scottish local government where Labour has had a dominant position in most of west and central Scotland for decades - winning 80 to 90 per cent of council seats on 50 per cent or less of the popular vote. The initial impact may be to increase turbulence in the Scottish Labour Party - councillors dominate many local parties and are threatening to deselect Labour members of the Scottish parliament (MSPs) as punishment for the loss of local control.


But in four years time, when the next local elections are held, Scotland will emerge with a far more diverse and representative array of local councils. Two big questions hover over this reform. First, will it actually change anything - or will it just bring in a slightly different set of middle-aged men to run local services with the only change of substance being that they are from three or four parties rather than one. Second, if the changes in Scotland work and deliver better and more representative governance, how long can English local government remain unreformed?

John McTernan is a political analyst.