The leader of Douglas City Council has raised concerns over proposed local government reforms set to be reviewed by the Legislative Council.
The reforms would grant the Department of Infrastructure authority to impose new responsibilities on local authorities.
Speaking to Manx.News, Devon Watson said there “three things that that the council is really, really worried about”.
Local Authority Reform
Mr Watson said: “It will give the Department of Infrastructure the ability to impact how we introduce new by laws, how we deal with our own internal standing orders.
“And it’ll give the Department of Infrastructure the ability to put require local authorities to do anything that they consider that we should be doing. It’s an open ended process.
“So if they were to decide at the end of the day that local authorities have to deal with tree cutting, if we have to deal with certain types of waste collection that they currently don’t do, if they have to handle certain things around library provision that some of the smaller local authorities don’t have the ability to do, then costs for ratepayers are going to rise throughout the island, and that’s why every single local authority that’s engaged with the protests has expressed their concern to their local politicians, and has also expressed their concern to say, Hey, listen, this will mean that rates will have to go up In the long and medium term in order to fund these commitments, and we’ve got no idea what these commitments are going to be going forward.”
Democracy
Watson highlighted that this bypasses local democracy and could force smaller authorities to consolidate, impacting local identity and services.
He said: “The way that the process should work is that members, people in local authority, should say, we want this to happen, and therefore we’re happy to accept an additional rate or a reduction of rates or whatever, in order to make that happen. But this circumvents that process of local democracy.
“And instead, what you’re going to see is you’re going to see the department deciding that, OK, maybe we might not be able to afford to do X, Y and Z, therefore we’re going to push this down onto local authorities, and then they’re going to have to cover those costs.
“And that’s not a democratic process that is not a process that is accountable, and that’s not a process in which local voters have any say. And that is something that we’re really concerned about, is that by removing the ability of local representatives to make determination on how services are provided, you’re going to get costs that you don’t have the ability to consent to pay for.”
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