The Lib Dems have announced their proposals for Local Community Networks (LCNs). These were intended to be an opportunity to devolve functions and budgets to the community and away from the more remote Unitary County Council. Common sense says that we should be using the existing elected Parish and Town Councils, working together, to achieve this.
But the Lib Dems want to dilute elected Parish and Town Council control by giving equal weight to paid public officials on the LCNs. How can the public services be held to account for local failures if their representatives are serving and voting on the LCNs that are intended to be arguing on behalf of local residents? Conflicts of interest?
In a big unitary authority, local control is a vital residents' safeguard against the bureaucracy. We already know the LibDem council wants Parish Councils to take on more functions by increasing the parish precept. Now it wants those functions to be determined by the services themselves and not by residents.
The Conservatives will fight to maintain your say in the new networks.
