This Commentary presents new evidence on the extent to which there is a popular demand for less central control over local councils and for an end to council tax capping, and on attitudes towards changes to locally financed spending on a range of important local services such as schools and the police, whether out of self-interest or in the interests of the area as a whole. Their purpose is to monitor the public's changing attitudes towards a wide range of social, political, economic and moral issues. The research shows that there is little popular demand for reduced central control over local councils generally. However, the public continues to believe that local councils, and not central government, should have the final say over the setting of local tax rates. This is especially true of those living in Scotland and Wales, although support for local tax-setting powers is lower in London than elsewhere.
Conservative supporters are more prone than others to favour increased centralisation.
This is perhaps hardly surprising, since the survey was carried out at a time when the Conservative Party had held power nationally for 17 years but was in control of very few local councils. The 1996 BSA survey also provides evidence that increases in local spending are far less popular than higher spending nationally, with a majority of respondents content, as in earlier years, with the current levels of local spending and taxation overall. However, the reliability of this sort of survey evidence on the public's apparent willingness to support higher spending and higher levels of taxation has often been called into question. Since the extent and depth of public support for higher or lower local spending are likely to derive from an amalgam of self-interest and some notion of the public good, and it is difficult to determine accurately how individuals weigh the two considerations, we present new evidence on whether respondents perceive changes in local spending as being either in their own best interests or in the best interests of their local area. It seems likely that individuals will be more likely to support higher local spending if they perceive that such spending would bring direct personal benefits as well as being good for the local area as a whole.