New Labour and the Reform of English Local Government, 1997–2007: Privatizing the Parts that Conservative Governments Could Not Reach?

This paper assesses the impact of a decade of New Labour reforms on English local government. It focuses on assessing the outcomes of three key areas of reform: policies intended to improve the performance of local government services; measures aimed at reviving local democracy; and significant ‘non-decisions’ made in relation to crucial aspects of central–local relations, particularly local government finance. It is argued that New Labour's modernization agenda, inspired by notions of ‘the Third Way’, has had greatest impact where it has gone with the grain of New Right reforms. As a result, the most distinctive impact of New Labour policy on English local government has been that it has succeeded where Conservative administrations had failed in implementing a distinctively New Right agenda for English local government.