Sink or swim

John Denham had the toughest task, David Cameron got the most coverage, but it was Vince Cable who had the best lines. That pretty well sums up the speeches the central government heavyweights made at the annual LGA conference, which finished on 2 July.

Denham, a former city and county councillor, who was parachuted into the biggest chair at the Department of Communities and Local Government following the sudden departure of Hazel Blears, had to deal with the nitty-gritty of the here and now.

There were no complaints from the floor when he said: ‘We need stronger councils, answerable to local people, with real bite and more control over their local areas. That means central government prepared to cede some of its powers and local councils becoming more accountable for theirs.’

But there was distinctly less enthusiasm when he pointed out that a recent survey showed just 45% of residents were satisfied with the way their council ran things. It dropped even further when he outlined plans for a new consultation exercise to address this problem.

Cameron proffered a carrot in one hand and wielded a stick with the other. ‘The good news is that I want to give you a lot more power,’ he said. ‘The bad news is that there won’t be a lot more money.’

There certainly won’t be a lot more money. In fact, there certainly will be quite a bit less, as Cameron conceded later in his speech. ‘I want you to save money through reorganisation, partnership and joint working from below,’ he said. ‘You can cut budgets without cutting services… We have only scratched the surface of what is possible.’

The measure in Cameron’s speech that caught the eye of the press was the transparency clause – the proposal for local authorities to follow the example of Windsor & Maidenhead by publishing online all items of spending above £500. ‘This will lead to lots of tough questions,’ Cameron conceded. ‘It will give information to oppositions, not just administrations. But it is right.’

Cable, the Lib-Dem Treasury spokesman, whose stock as the man who predicted the recession continues to rise, had the freest hand. Not in charge now, extremely unlikely to be in charge in the future, he was able to roam beyond the nitpicking detail of Denham and the don’t-frighten-the-horses approach of Cameron. Like Denham, but unlike Cameron, he was also able to draw on the experiences of being a councillor.

‘We have to start by dismantling the command and control apparatus,’ he said. ‘I find it extraordinary that elected councillors are expected to compete for star ratings awarded by some unelected quango, like young children collecting points from a teacher for good behaviour. This makes a mockery of local democracy.’

The political spectrum didn’t appear particularly broad from these three speeches. All three said much the same things but in different ways and with different emphasis. We can’t give you more money, so we’ll give you extra powers to do with more with less instead.