http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013 ... governmentIn a word, yes. The interesting thing is that both the Labour guy in the first link and the Tory guy in this one are saying that there is scope for change and cost cutting. But the process is too top down. There was supposed to be an emphasis regionalism to prevent central government from micromanaging localities, that's supposed to be one of the Tories big underlying ideas.
But the chancellor is expecting immediate savings from a process that should be expensive up front. Worthwhile changes would require local autonomy in areas such as property taxation - it's no more sensible to freeze council taxes than it is to freeze energy prices, both ideas cause bad planning and misplaced debt.
But also, planning laws, the remainder of the funding mechanisms for local authorities and all the other local agencies they deal with but don't control (including increasingly schools), arbitrary boundaries of every type. These all have to be reconfigured before local authorities can be expected to cut into fat instead of muscle. But there's no sign of a plan for that. Just vague ideas, poorly justified, for mayors and local assemblies that have been rejected.
It's a shame. Historically, we often think of the most important rulers and the best governments as those who have conquered territory, built big eyesores, patronised wonderful arts, or enacted magnificent reforms. But in nearly all cases (possibly excluding Atilla the Hun) those other things were only made possible by reforming their bureaucracies.
