Smoke 'em out!

The Government has taken a tough line on smoking – banning smoking in public places, and raising to 18 the age at which it is legal to buy tobacco products. In its defence, the Government can point to both success: smoking rates having fallen from 28% to 21% in the decade since 1998; and the ongoing tobacco-induced carnage as a prompt to further action: more than 80,000 die from smoking-related illnesses per year (which according to the Government is "more than alcohol, road traffic and other accidents, suicide, illegal drugs and diabetes combined").

The Health Bill before Parliament contains provision for more anti-smoking measures, and to coincide with it the Department of Health has opened a consultation on the implementation of the main proposals in the Bill: to restrict tobacco displays in shops and the sale of tobacco products in vending machines.

However, a rebel amendment from Ian McCartney MP has somewhat pre-empted half of the consultation's remit by introducing an outright ban of tobacco vending machines – which does seem a logical step, since you can't buy alcohol (also 18-rated) from vending machines, as Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) pointed out. Cancer Research UK also welcomed the move, their Chief Executive Harpal Kumar stating, "removing cigarette vending machines will help reduce the number of young people taking up a lethal addiction: tobacco kills half of all long term users".

Still, for consultation fans, you have until 4th January 2010 to have your say about the display of tobacco products in shops – about which the Government previously consulted in 2008. A YouGov survey at that time on behalf of anti-smoking campaigners ASH found that nearly 60% favoured banning tobacco displays in shops.

However, the plans have lined up another organisation against New Labour – though not necessarily one to join the progressive throng – the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN), a trade association representing over 32,000 independent newsagents and convenience stores. They are now threatening to boycott Labour at the General Election (join the queue!) unless the legislation is overturned. Just wait until age discrimination legislation stops their "no more than two schoolchildren" signs!

In the consultation document it states: "we firmly believe that small shops are at the heart of our communities and it is vital that we listen to shopkeepers to make sure that the regulations are workable and cost-effective in practice". Perhaps that is why the draft regulations proposed in the consultation to allow for the outlawing of tobacco displays will apply in large shops from October 2011, but newsagents will be given until October 2013.

While previous Governments have focused solely on price – which disproportionately hits the poorest – to deter smoking, this Government has also recognised the importance of changing the smoking culture (by outlawing it in pubs and clubs) and restricting advertisements. As the consultation document states, smoking "is the primary reason for the gap in healthy life expectancy between the rich and poor".

Mother, father, parent.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is carrying out a final consultation – having already consulted in 2006 and 2007 – on bringing in additional paternity leave. The proposals in effect make the latter six months of maternity leave into flexible parental leave by allowing mothers to transfer up to 26 weeks’ leave entitlement to fathers after the first 20 weeks.

Although the term "father" is used throughout the consultation paper, additional paternity leave and pay would also be available to partners (of either sex) of mothers and members of adopting couples who are employed and who qualify for statutory adoption leave and pay.

Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, said last month: "The new rights will give families radically more choice and flexibility in how they balance work and care of children, and enable fathers to play a bigger part in bringing up their children."

While Harman often, and rightly, points out how new Labour has doubled maternity leave from six months to (soon to be) twelve months, and increased maternity pay, this has not challenged gender roles. The EHRC's 'Working Better' report found that, "new parental rights introduced over the past decade are well intentioned but entrench the current unequal division of labour and caring between the sexes and work against gender equality".

The Government's Enterprise tsar, Sir Alan Sugar, made this point all too clearly when he said he would be less likely to hire a woman of child-bearing age. Explaining, he said: "If someone comes into an interview and you think to yourself 'there is a possibility that this woman might have a child and therefore take time off' it is a bit of a psychological negative thought", adding that extended maternity leave was "counter-productive".

Trade unions have welcomed these proposals, while recognising the need for Government to support further changes in working culture. The CWU advocates that "working parents should be allowed to take time off together and that the time off together should not be limited to just the two weeks of Statutory Paternity Leave".

The GMB pointed out in its response to a previous consultation that UK fathers currently work the longest hours in Europe and that the gender pay gap means that, for the majority of two parent families, it still makes better financial sense for the mother to take the bulk of time off work to care for the children.

But as the Daycare Trust points out, such changes are about "enabling families to make a choice about which parent is the carer, as well as promoting gender equality and potentially closing the gender pay gap" – although such cultural changes may take a long time. The Government estimates in the consultation paper that only 4-8% of fathers will take up this entitlement.

This issue therefore cannot be seen isolation from the gender pay gap, childcare provision and levels of poverty. While this is a welcome move by the Government, there's a lot more that must be done to truly break down traditional gender roles in child-rearing.

The consultation can be downloaded from the departmental website. The deadline for responses is 20th November 2009.

How do we care?

Just before the summer recess, the Government published a Green Paper 'Shaping the Future of Care Together' proposing to develop a 'National Care Service' in the UK to make social care affordable for everyone.

In his foreword, Gordon Brown states that "A care and support system that reflects the needs of our times and meets our rising aspirations is achievable, but only if we are prepared to rise to the challenge of radical reform".

During 2008, the Government ran a six-month engagement process with the public, people who use services, and people who work in the care and support sector. Perhaps that was a sobering experience, because the DoH admits in this consultation paper that "There are wide variations in the standards and quantity of care and support offered by different local authorities. Such postcode lotteries are worsening as funding struggles to keep pace with rising numbers of older people in need of support".

The costs of care in the UK are phenomenal: a 65-year-old can expect to need care costing on average £30,000 during their retirement. Two in three women and one in two men will develop high care needs in their final years.

The one way in which a system could meet needs is through a universal, free at the point of need national care service funded through general taxation – it would also be the "radical reform" the Prime Minister claims to want.

The consultation paper looks at five funding options, the fifth of which is a tax-funded system. This is "ruled out because it places a heavy burden on people of working age". This has to be the most illogical statement ever made. If that burden is heavy when spread across the entire working population, then how 'heavy' will it be when placed solely upon those who actually need care? The paper also stops short of suggesting care home accommodation costs should be met, which will impose another cost on older people.

However, it is entirely consistent with the New Labour agenda against universalism and towards co-payment, means-testing and stigmatisation – across the board from benefits to pensions. As part of that agenda it is proposed that non-means tested, needs-based Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance would be used to fund a national care service. However, these benefits enable individuals to pay for extra living expenses, not basic care.

The National Pensioners Convention states that therefore the Green Paper "does not meet our concerns". In response the NPC has instead presented an alternative vision of a National Care Service, and is building alliances with others to forcefully put the case for truly fair system – the only fair system.

Social care is an issue that, like healthcare and pensions, will affect us all. Universalism is the only way forward – and trade unions also need to be fighting alongside the NPC and carers’ organisations for this approach. A National Care Service could then be as emblematic as the National Health Service.

This approach is also advocated by Age Concern and Help the Aged, "high quality care must be available to all who need it regardless of where they live and whether they are rich or poor" according to their Director Michelle Mitchell.

The consultation on the Green Paper runs until 13th November 2009, and can be downloaded from the Department of Health website.

Long wait for council housing

The Government is currently running a consultation on the 'Reform of Council Housing Finance'. In his foreword, the Housing Minister John Healey writes, "these changes will enable councils to become, once again, significant providers of new housing" – if only those words had been written in 1997 . . .

For several years, the Defend Council Housing campaign, supported by every major UK trade union, has been highlighting the daylight robbery by the Government from council housing, and campaigning for the reasonable demand that there should be a level playing field for council housing that is retained in public ownership.

The fact this consultation even exists, and that it explicitly promises "a level playing field between transfer and retention", is therefore a tribute to the DCH campaign.

Currently, councils are only offered funding to meet the Decent Homes Standard if they, in some form, privatise their council housing stock – through full stock transfer, Arms-Length Management Organisation (ALMO) or Private Finance Initiative scheme. DCH has been fighting for the 'fourth option' of direct funding for council housing.

There are over one million people living in council homes which do not meet the Decent Homes Standard (one in three of all council housing tenants). Yet for decades council tenants have paid more in rent to Government than is spent on the upkeep of council homes. It is a robbery from some of the most vulnerable people, undermining one of the most valuable institutions in British society. DCH estimates that over £30 billion has been siphoned out of council housing in the last 15 years.

The Government's commitment "to develop a sustainable, long term system for financing council housing" is therefore long overdue. Also welcome is the promise of capital grants in excess of £6 billion to meet the backlog of outstanding works to those estates and streets where tenants have refused to be blackmailed into transfer or ALMO. However, the promise of a level playing field is not yet a reality.

The government's impact assessment gives further evidence that the proposed settlement falls well short of what is required. Under the present system the Government will be taking more than £22 billion over 30 years – under the new proposals they would still be taking more than £10 billion.

Twelve years after the election of a Labour Government, after numerous conference defeats (which ultimately led to the Labour Party abolishing votes at conference) DCH concludes, "the proposals fall short but the door is opening". Please respond to the consultation and give that door another nudge.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Department for Communities and Local Government website, and the deadline for responses is 27th October 2009.

For a full response from Defend Council Housing see www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk

The Equality, within limits, Bill

The Equality Bill is currently being debated by Parliament, and will continue to be scrutinised once MPs return in October from their summer break.

However, like many other parts of the Bill, most aspects of the Bill relating to age discrimination will come in much later through secondary legislation and therefore the Government is consulting on proposals: 'Making it work: Ending age discrimination in services and public functions'.

If you read the consultation paper you would be forgiven for believing that age discrimination does not affect young people, only older people. There is barely a reference to any of the discrimination faced by young people.

During the passage of the Employment Bill last year, John McDonnell MP tabled amendments to outlaw the lower pay rates in the National Minimum Wage legislation, and earlier this year Lynne Jones MP forced a vote to the Welfare Reform Bill on the lower benefit rates on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA). It has never been satisfactorily explained why a 20 year old worker should receive less pay for the same work or why a 24 year old JSA claimant should survive on £14 less per week than an unemployed 25 year old.

The Government states it will “allow different treatment based on age only where it can be objectively justified”.

Older citizens have organised themselves into effective lobbies through various local pensioner action groups and the National Pensioners' Convention. They also live for longer in old age than young people do as young people.

Perhaps this explains the main form of youth discrimination identified in this consultation is that "many providers of holiday accommodation impose age limits such as "no unders 21s"". Readers may wish to pause to digest the full implications of this devastating impact on the formative years of young people.

Currently less than one in ten young workers are unionised and youth unemployment is at its highest in more than 15 years.

If trade unions are to recruit young people they need to be fighting on their behalf and fighting for their equal treatment. This means challenging the blatant ageism which means a 20 year old worker will be paid £2000 less per year for the same work as a 22 year old on the minimum wage, and an unemployed 24 year old is expected to live on £700 less than a 25 year old.

To take a quote from the consultation out of context: "there is clear evidence that age discrimination harms people's quality of life and life chances". However since this Government is also keen to "ensure burdens arising from changes are minimised" such discrimination will only be brought within the scope of the Bill if significant pressure can be brought to bear. Young people need trade unions to fight with them, and as the demographics of trade union membership increasingly shows, trade unions also need young people to fight with them.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Government Equalities Office website and the deadline for responses is 30th September 2009.

Equality for Agency Workers?

For several years the UK Government blocked the Agency Workers Directive in the labyrinthine structures of the EU (much like it does the Working Time Directive to this day). Finally last year a compromise was reached and the Directive is due to come into law soon although business organisations are seeking to delay it until 2011 (the latest date by which the Directive must be implemented).

It was part of a long campaign fought by Labour backbench MPs and trade unions with motions at TUC and Labour Party conference (before such democracy was extinguished) and with Early Day Motions and Private Members Bills in the House of Commons.

In his ministerial foreword to the Government's new consultation on implementing the Directive, Business Minister Pat McFadden describes the agreement that was reached between the CBI and TUC in May 2008 as "a commitment to equal treatment for agency workers" – which will apply after 12 weeks continuous employment.

The risk is that we will see the phenomenon of agency workers discarded after 11 weeks and a new tranche of agency workers hired in their stead. Obstacles to such a practice need to be suggested in response to this consultation.

But "equal" is equal in the Animal Farm sense. After 12 weeks, agency workers will still have no rights to pension entitlement or sick pay. The UK will therefore remain the sick man of Europe on workers’ rights. Many EU countries already have full equal rights for agency workers from six weeks. In fact, because of stronger employment and trade union legislation, there are fewer agency workers elsewhere in Europe and the EU estimates that one-third of all EU agency workers are based in the UK.

As John McDonnell MP said at the time, "this agreement can only be seen as a staging post to the full implementation of Labour leader John Smith's famous commitment to full employment rights for all workers from day one of their employment."

The frustration also boiled over for Unite leader Tony Woodley, "is it fair that British workers, alone in Europe, are so quick and easy to sack?" he asked last month. "It's an absolute disgrace. Labour should hang their heads in shame."

But this Government is light years from ensuring implementation is any sooner or any more favourable to workers, indeed the Minister frames the consultation by stating that "in these challenging economic times it is even more important that in implementing this Directive we avoid unnecessary costs and burdens for business".

One of the exemptions the Government proposes in the consultation is jobseekers engaged in 'welfare-to-work' programmes, otherwise the Directive could undermine the Government's new workfare policies, which could see claimants working for £1.73 per hour just to keep their benefits.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform website and the deadline for responses is 31st July 2009.

Cells, Drugs and rehabilitation role

The Sentencing Guidelines Council is currently conducting a consultation on 'Sentencing for Drug Offences'.

The key piece of UK legislation governing drugs is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, a nearly 40 year old piece of legislation that has been amended throughout its lifetime, but still adheres to the framework introduced nearly two generations ago.

This approach to drug policy has been ossified by Daily Mail hysteria and political timidity. Everyone knows the current approach does not work and is maintained for conservative moral reasons.

There are differences of approach between decriminalisation and legalisation, but even those who are pro-prohibition (partial or full) have to concede the current sentencing for drug-related offences is farcical.

The more worrying factor is the current 'direction of travel'. By reclassifying cannabis from class C to B last year, the mere possession of the drug is liable to up to 5 years imprisonment, and if intent to supply can be proven then up to 14 years in the slammer can await.

Of course maximum sentencing does not necessarily equal actual sentencing but nevertheless if we compare relative imposed sentences then we get a measure of the moral panic around drugs:

In 2004 the average custodial sentence for those convicted of rape was 79.7 months, for GBH 50.1 months, for causing death by dangerous driving 44.4 months. Yet for importation or exportation of drugs (something mostly done by drug mules, rather than Mr Bigs) it averaged 84 months (seven years). The UK courts are therefore sending a message that walking through an airport with some drugs is worse than rape, viciously battering someone or killing them through driving dangerously.

A 2007 report for the Home Office showed drug dealers saw prison "as an occupational hazard and was not considered a serious deterrent" – as with any crime, as the perpetrators are either sanguine about being caught or do not consider they will be. This is why there is no correlation between the death penalty, sentence length or the harshness of the prison regime and crime or reoffending.

But instead of logically assessing this reality, in recent years the Government has created more laws to deter: 'confiscation orders', 'serious crime prevention orders' and 'the power to close down premises'. Will this work? No, but it will continue to feed the Daily Mail’s addiction to the moral panic of drugs. Even the consultation paper concedes that "it is not clear that lengthy custodial sentences contribute to crime reduction" and "imprisoning drug offenders for relatively substantial periods does not appear to represent a cost effective response".

If we were serious about tackling drugs then the criminal justice system would not even be involved for drug users – but the health service, as it is for alcoholics and nicotine addicts.

We should be asking, in the words of John Lennon, "why do people take drugs of any sort? . . . is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurised, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?".

If you can inject some logic into this debate, then please respond to the consultation paper 'Sentencing for Drug Offences', which can be downloaded from the Sentencing Guidelines Council website. The deadline for responses is 15th July 2009.

Pregnant pause

In October 2008, the European Commission published a proposal to amend Directive 92/85/EEC, more commonly known as the Pregnant Workers Directive. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) is therefore consulting on the proposals.

For the UK it is a largely irrelevant document. Our maternity leave entitlements are already well above the EU minimum in key areas – with leave of up to 52 weeks compared to the current EU minimum of 14 weeks, which is proposed to be increased to 18 (although the European Parliament is lobbying to extend that to 24 weeks). Maternity leave currently varies from 14 weeks in Germany to 18 months in Sweden.

Likewise the UK already also meets the minimum safeguards of the proposals in terms of the rights to: reasons for dismissal during pregnancy or maternity leave; return to work in the same or equivalent post; and to request flexible working.

Nevertheless, both the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) and Institute of Directors (IoD) are apoplectic. In their draft response, the BCC states the need to "avoid increasing the administrative burden for employers in managing maternity leave". The pain of pregnancy for employers is often forgotten as we recklessly focus on mother and child.

But why this outrage? Because the proposal states that mothers may be entitled to additional leave in cases where the child is born late, so there is no reduction in the post-natal leave entitlement. The IoD also states that this proposal is "problematic".

Other proposals that meet with business ire include that to increase maternity pay to full pay (subject to a national ceiling). Currently the UK provision is 90% of salary, but 100% with a ceiling could be better for lower paid women, as long as the ceiling was set in pounds earned rather than as a proportion of wage. "This would have major cost implications" barks the IoD, while the BCC responds, "as the UK government says itself, 'the principle of full pay is a significant spending risk'". Business Minister Pat McFadden told Parliament, "we want legal clarity that we are not being directed to pay full pay".

Yes sadly even at a time when the poorest and most vulnerable workers – often women – are being squeezed most and when the Government is failing to bring down child poverty, it still resists even moderate improvements for working people.

The TUC said in November 2008, "The Government should not use the recession as a reason . . . increasing maternity pay would not be a huge extra cost to business and would help companies recruit and retain highly skilled female employees".

The consultation document can be downloaded from the DBERR website. The closing date for responses is 22nd June 2009.

ConsultationWatch is published fortnightly in the Morning Star

Only the market for energy saving?

Government's newest department, of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), is hosting a consultation entitled Heat and Energy Saving Strategy (HESS), which promises to be a step change in energy saving.

HESS sets out the strategy to cut carbon emissions by 30% from existing UK buildings by 2020, towards the ultimate target that emissions from buildings will be approaching zero by 2050. This aspiration has of course been widely welcomed. Friends of the Earth (FoE) called it "an ambitious target", and WWF-UK, "critical to the UK achieving our carbon budget targets". Yet both questioned the means: FoE stated it could "kick-start the economy" – as part of the 'Green New Deal' strategy, and WWF-UK stated "we need to see funding for this strategy as a matter of urgency".

As Green New Deal advocate Alan Simpson MP states, "The process of turning our homes, communities and cities into their own localised power stations requires huge amounts of work and skill. The employment prospects are vast. Jobs and investment cannot be banked offshore or relocated".

The consultation document states, "if the level of ambition set out above is achieved, then there will be approximately 34,000 jobs". Bear in mind, unemployment rose by 165,000 last month alone.

The thing is there is no funding – not in the consultation document anyway. Instead we have "new finance models", "a new voluntary code of practice with the building trade", "carbon pricing mechanisms", and the intention to "stimulate greater competition by encouraging new companies to enter the market to provide energy services".

Whenever we need delivery, New Labour looks to the market . . . and fails. Despite the wreckage of market failure hanging like an albatross around New Labour's lame duck government (London Underground PPP, the banks, PFI) it has lost none of its faith. From housing and postal services to welfare and the environment, if we need it New Labour will give it to the market to exploit.

Unlike some of its European neighbours, the Government will not invest, nor allow local authorities to invest, in decentralised energy systems. In parts of Europe 80% of their energy system is community-owned. Instead, the UK government will be "convening a Heat Markets Forum to ensure an appropriate market framework is in place."

It is this woeful poverty of ambition and market-based approach that requires a fundamental rethink, based on the more ambitious experiences of our European neighbours and a shift to community-controlled provision. The deadline for the consultation is 8th May 2009, and the consultation documents can be downloaded from the DECC website.

What rate for business?

The Business Rate Supplements Bill currently before Parliament gives councils the right to levy a business rate supplement (BRS) to fund local economic development.

This consultation paper 'Business rate supplements: a consultation on draft guidance to local authorities' sets out draft guidance to be issued under clause 26 of the Bill for the consideration of local authorities, businesses and business representatives, and any other stakeholders in relation to when it might be appropriate to fund a project through BRS, how to levy the BRS, and the circumstances under which to conduct a ballot.

The Bill arose from the 2007 Review of council tax by Sir Michael Lyons, but is a much diluted version. Lyons recommended that the large homes of the super-rich should be charged double what they are currently paying to allow for a rebate of £150 per year for the poorest. He recognised that council tax was regressive, but New Labour has done nothing to address this injustice, nor the injustice of £1.8bn of Council Tax benefit goes unclaimed every year due to the complications and stigma of claiming.

On business rates, Lyons noted that in 1993, local government raised 23% of its expenditure through business rates, now it's just 17%. According to Lyons’ calculations, the average household could be about £250 a year better off if business paid the same share of taxation as they did in 1993. Neither the Bill nor this consultation gives local government the ability to challenge this.

Instead, in an act of tokenism it allows local councils to levy a supplementary rate of no more than 2%, and in a further blow to local democracy only for hypothecated expenditure on local economic development (which this consultation seeks to help define), and if the BRS will fund more than one-third of the total costs, then businesses must be balloted (by value and number) – as if business had a democratic legitimacy. The consultation paper makes it clear that "a BRS is not a new means to fund existing expenditure or a resource to support general service expenditure".

Despite the fact that the Bill and this consultation will not restore anything like the powers to local government taken since Thatcher, it is a (pigeon) step in the right direction.

The consultation paper 'Business rate supplements: a consultation on draft guidance to local authorities' can be downloaded from HM Treasury website. The deadline for responses is 17th April 2009.

Poverty of ambition

In 1999, New Labour proclaimed that it would "end child poverty within a generation". Now there's a consultation to redefine that pledge.

Child poverty was defined as those living in households with less than 60% the median income. Under New Labour there are 600,000 fewer children living in poverty today. However 3.9 million remain in poverty by this definition – and the Government failed to meet its 2004/05 target to cut child poverty by a quarter.

A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that the effect of current policies, "will be to keep child poverty roughly at its present level by 2010 and reduce it by only 260,000 by 2020". This would only be sufficient to reach the missed 2004/05 target. Worse still for the Government, their own statistics show that child poverty has increased in each of the last two years.

Now the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is running a consultation 'Ending Child Poverty: Making It Happen'. In the Queen's Speech for the current parliamentary session, the Government promised to enshrine its child poverty pledge in legislation. Apparently "legislation will ensure that there is a clear vision and definition of success". However, what the consultation proposes is to re-define what is classed as success, dilute the clear original vision and share the blame for failure more evenly with local authorities.

The consultation proposes three targets, the main one of which is "reducing the proportion of children in relative low income to 5-10 per cent by 2020". While a retreat from the current target, this is still ambitious considering that currently 23 per cent of UK children fit that category – exactly the same percentage that did in 2001 (this compares with 17% in Belgium and just 10% in Denmark). However, the consultation paper states that "action to meet these targets is subject to overall affordability and . . . child poverty strategy, to be refreshed every three years". So if the target is still not being met, expect it to be "refreshed" in three years' time!

The Child Poverty Action Group, said: "so far, the lack of high quality childcare and ill-considered welfare reforms for parents have undermined progress on child poverty", and is urging drastic action in the Budget – now delayed until 22nd April. Gingerbread, the single parent charity, has stated that it would be pushing Government to accept a more ambitious target than that set out in the consultation.

This is a consultation about how to fiddle the statistics, pass the buck, and create grandiose yet meaningless commissions and reports.

The consultation paper can be downloaded from the DCSF website and the deadline for responses is 11th March. At a time of recession, when more families will be plunged into poverty, the Government is bailing-out banks while bailing-out of its commitments on child poverty. It's up to us all not to let that go unnoticed.

Democracy locally, decisions centrally?

The Department for Communities and Local Government is consulting again in the 'Communities in Control: Real People, real power' series. This time the subject is 'Changing Council Governance arrangements – Mayors and Indirectly Elected Leaders'.

Despite the grandiose exhortations throughout the consultation paper "to strengthen participatory democracy" and to "deliver genuine empowerment to local people", this is solely about making it easier to change council governance arrangements to the Government's preferred mayoral model.

Labour councillors overwhelmingly opposed the mayoral system during the passage of the Local Government Bill in Labour's first term, labelling it as 'dictatorial', centralising power in hands largely unaccountable during the term of office, as the role and powers of ordinary councillors are curbed.

There are currently only 12 councils in England that have the mayoral model and one of those – Stoke-on-Trent – has recently voted to return to the 'leader and cabinet executive' model. Of the 37 where local authorities have sanctioned referendums, over two-thirds have rejected the idea, and none have approved it since Torbay in 2005.

The Government is therefore reforming the process to make it easier. Already the Secretary of State has the power to order a referendum to take place, as it did in Southwark in 2002. However, more often it requires a petition supported by just 5% of the electorate. This hurdle is too high says the Government, and the consultation proposes lowering the threshold to as little as 2% of the electorate, which the Government bizarrely claims would "encourage local people to get involved" by requiring fewer of them to get involved!

The Government is also proposing to allow petition signatures to be added online. Another proposal is that if the local electorate make the wrong decision and reject the mayoral system, then the 'moratorium period' during which another referendum cannot be held will be reduced from 10 years to 4 years.

The average turnout for these referendums has been around 25%, slightly lower than for local elections, and so it hardly seems to have generated greater public engagement. Neither does it seem a worthwhile use of council taxpayers' money to ask them the same question every four years.

The consultation paper can be downloaded from the DCLG website, and the deadline for responses is 13th March 2009.

The Conservatives are even more keen on directly-elected mayors now it seems.