England’s local democratic deficit

'Over a period of decades, English local government has been reduced to a dwindling set of prescribed services that councils are permitted to perform. We do not really have local government, but rather councils with responsibilities for some local public service. The sector does not decide the policy on which it will act or have the powers to tax or borrow to the degree needed to execute this for the area it serves’ writes Rob Whiteman on CIPFA’s Public Finance blog. Whiteman points out that the devolved administrations outside of England retain control of the shape and system of local government 'whereas ‘double devolution’ in an English context is often more a matter of central government cutting out what it sees as the middle-man of local government by creating markets of autonomous delivery/provider organisations’