"Streamlining" the social service cuts

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trusted: and that is why the Left must organise.

move the Party rightwards.

The left must organise. The left must unite.

our Party for being socialists. role.

challenging the Tories and their backers.

government now!

years.

Organiser Conference Briefing. ON FRIDAY last, 7 October, the Tory government announced a further step in its effort to slash local services and attack local democracy.

The White Paper carrying the title - perhaps intended to be ironic - 'Streamlining the Cities' - has been put forward as a means of removing a tier of local government, "tidying up" administrative arrangements and "reducing waste"

A reading of the White Paper makes it clear that the purpose of the Tory plans are nothing less than a reduction of the services provided to local communities and an effort to keep them much more closely under the control of Tory diktat.

The first argument presented for the proposals refers to the so-called 'overspending' of the Labour-controlled Metropolitan Authorities it is proposed to replace.

Interviewed on presenting the proposals, Environment Minister Patrick Jenkin was asked whether the political control of the Metropolitan Authorities was a factor in deciding this course of action.

He had to admit that it was, and press coverage makes it clear that the left wing policies of the GLC in particular and the campaigns built up against them by the Tory press, have provided an important pretext for this policy.

The proposals will of course reduce levels of democratic control and accountability. They will set up a great new range of unelected and unaccountable bodies to run local services.

Even where 'joint boards' are proposed consisting of groups of local councillors, experience in local authorities shows very clearly that such bodies are subject to a good deal less demo cratic control and accountability than the sorts of organisations that exist in the Metropolitan Authorities and the Inner London Education Authority.

It is important for socialists to realise that within all the laissez faire and antediluvian rhetoric of the present right wing Tory leadership, there is a real trend to a rigidly centralised command structure.

It is the task of socialists under such conditions to defend elected institutions and democratic rights, however ancient their lineage, and however unacceptable some of the SUn decisions they reach.

Tory moves against local government do not command universal support within their own ranks.

Local Tury politicians have been prepared to associate themselves with the defence of institutions which they had hoped that they might themselves one day control.

Even more interesting perhaps was an editorial in The Times of 8 October entitled 'No Minister' which condemned the enterprise as "political opportunism' and said that the aim of the White Paper was to make 'the entire system of urban admi stration in London and the Metropolitan Counties more opaque, less reachable."

It was, said The Times, a policy 'conceived " in haste' because of the failure of the Tories to come up with a better method of organising local government finance.

There are many things wrong with the Tory proposals beyond the attack on local democracy.

One particularly interesting feature of the proposals is that it will allow government ministers to dictate levels of employment during the changeover.

One of the problems the Tories have at the moment in their efforts to butcher the National Health Service is that they do not have the legal powers to compel regional health authorities to sack as many hundreds of workers as they would wish. The White Paper on 'streamlining' shows that they clearly do not intend to be so frustrated in the future in their efforts to escalate unemployment, especially in the Daily: Hail EXPRESS Chr Daily Orlegraph public sector.

But what really lies behind the entire enterprise is their efforts to cut local services, salvage odd bits for privatisation and reduce the rest to a minimum which. will prevent widespread rioting and social discontent at the least possible cost.

This becomes very clear if these latest proposals are considered in combination with those announced in August under the title of 'rate capping'.

They intend to reduce the resources available to local authorities below the level of the Metropolitan bodies at the same time as increasing the functions they will have to perform.

Thus the rate capping proposals will mean that London boroughs and other local authorites will be legally compelled to spend less on their services while they are being compelled to take on more functions like traffic management and waste disposal.

The only reaction from local authorities must be to refuse to cooerate with the Tory schemes.

There is no way that we in the lower tier authorities should accept functions which we were not elected to perform without any resources to carry them out.

The 1985-6 period will be crucial in this, when the Tories will be trying to pass on the functions to their 'quangos and joint boards' Local councillors will then be able to work with unions and community groups who care about decent services.

As the Tories begin to falter, we can now prepare the ground to fight back and defeat them. if Hitler relics or some junior sosition in the Holocaust Supsort Group.

To ensure firm evidence of nembership of such groups vould in any event require extraordinary measures. Reporters and photographers vould have to be posted outside he homes of suspects, day and light, photographing anyone who goes in or out.

Dustbins would very likely

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TOWIN HALL By Alan Clinton