I MUST CONFESS to feeling a little envious of Duncan Kerr, our excellent Chief Executive for South Kesteven District Council, who has displayed his considerable negotiating skills by persuading the council to give him 23 weeks leave of absence to cycle round Europe.

He will no doubt return to us a lot fitter and perhaps even leaner. He will also certainly be even better informed about the workings of local government on the continent. He has undertaken to call in on several local authorities and I have made some suggestions as to the things he might particularly look out for or investigate.

Local government in this country, at least since Margaret Thatcher’s time, has been something of a misnomer. It is not really local at all. It is simply an arm of central government.

Over 90% of the expenditure of our county councils and district councils is either mandated by central government – that is to say Parliament has passed laws and regulations requiring local authorities to offer a particular service in a specified way – as it is determined by bids and conditional grants. In these cases, the local authority applies for a specific grant but has no choice or discretion in how the money is then spent.

On top of this, central government maintains an enormous Local Government Inspectorate which rates local authorities’ performance by targets and penalises underperformance, and another bureaucracy which specialises in calculating the immensely complicated Standard Spending Assessment, which determines the Revenue Support Grant which every local authority receives.

By contrast local government on the Continent (and in North America) is genuinely local. Mayors are chief executives with considerable autonomous powers. Councils in different areas make different decisions on priorities. And they make them themselves and defend them in local elections. Central government support is determined under a formula, as it is here. But the proceeds can be spent at the discretion of the local authority – just like our devolved Welsh and Scottish administrations can spend their “block grants” as they wish.

Anyone who knows, say, Germany, France, the Netherlands or Denmark will, I think, agree that the standard of local services there varies from good to outstanding. And local elections generate much higher turnouts.

I will be interested to hear Duncan’s own comments when he returns.