Insights: The Gathering Storm – Part 1

Published on: 21 May, 2026
Updated on: 21 May, 2026

By Bernard Quoroll

This is the first of a number Insight pieces which I hope will contribute to the thinking about how the new West Surrey Council should evolve and engage with citizens and why it is important.

My credentials for making these assertions are that I have been successively, the chief executive of a Borough council, a unitary London Borough and a unitary county council. None had a population exceeding 200,000. All were able to balance their books annually albeit painfully for 17 years.

That means that I have had lived experience of managing every relevant kind of local authority. I have also been engaged in local authority reorganisations or had to live with their consequences, in six local authority areas. I have never been a member of a political party. I could not have done my job properly had I been so. There will be local politicians reading this who do not believe that is possible but if so, it says more about them than me.

The new West Surrey Council is, I fear, destined to be little better than a form of local administration…”

This scene-setter is not going to fill the reader with hope about a brave new world of local freedom and autonomy. That pass was sold long ago. In Surrey, the prognosis is particularly poor if you believe in local government with the emphasis on the word ‘local’.

The new West Surrey Council is, I fear, destined to be little better than a form of local administration – more like a vehicle for delivering government-appointed one-size-fits-all statutory services, than something which can be said to be at the true heart of its communities, fully representing the hopes and dreams of so many different people and places.

But first some thoughts about the wider picture. I need to start with the relationship between local and central government.

Local government is capable of being so much more than an appendage of the centre.

If local authorities had a clear and distinctive tax base and a degree of constitutional independence, as in so many other democracies in the Western world, they would be freer from central government largesse and more independent.

One reason for what we have now, is that local politicians have for decades been far too quiescent. When told by central government to jump, they have asked “how high” rather than question the wisdom of the instruction. The tribal political loyalties of local politicians have denied them the moral independence needed in a society which needs checks and balances.

They have opted instead for “playing the game” in the forlorn hope that when it becomes their party’s turn to rule, they can gain a bit of local advantage.

Professional officers and the societies that represent them, have in turn ceded some of their moral authority to speak truth unto power. That may be for understandable reasons, in a society where “mandates” has been abused by generations of politicians.

But sometimes, it is necessary to stand back and decide whether the rules of the game need changing. There needs to be a better constitutional settlement between local and central government.

A recent example of what is happening is the reincarnation of regional Mayors and so-called “devolution deals” in the name of democracy. This was a policy which emerged in a back room without ever being offered to the public in the context of a strategic vision for local government.

To call this devolution is to be economical with the truth.”

The devolution “deals” on offer are only an indirect form of central government control. It is devolution with strings. The resources being offered were previously made available via regional civil servants for regional purposes, like transport and training but were and are arguably still, and for the most part, not very local.

To get the money, you have to follow the government of the day’s policy line. To call this devolution is to be economical with the truth.

In reality, it is breeding another layer of semi-detached politicians more like MP’s-in-waiting, than addressing truly local issues in the round and making hard choices about competing priorities for expenditure. Perhaps local politicians can be forgiven for cooperating in this.

After all, conformity at least enables them to draw down some money from the centre, giving their incumbency some semblance of meaning. But so-called strong mayors are closer to central government than local people. Some new mayors are seeking political visibility more than a very local connection. Perhaps Mr Burnham should take note.

And we still do not yet know whether Surrey is going to get such a mayor and the resources that come with one, even though it is reputed to be the carrot held out to persuade local politicians to play ball. But if it does come, it may only be here today and gone tomorrow.

A measure of real financial independence would enable right-sized councils to respond to local circumstances and priorities with local remedies. The choices they make are likely to be different in every community. The mistakes they make will be limited in geographical application and educative for other councils, rather than be the result of one-size-fits-all policies imposed from the centre.

Viewed nationally, central government would have more space to focus on national imperatives rather than distracting local issues like potholes and town centre renewal. The outcome would be a better system of checks and balances between central and local authority.

Centralisation of power has been continuing unabated on a single trajectory since at least the time I started work in the 70s.”

It would empower local people to revitalise their own economies rather than be reliant on national prescriptions which are failing everywhere. Local councils could again become the hearts of their own communities rather than pale clones of the centre. In short, there is a need for a more equal kind of partnership between local and central government.

For those who might want to say “we are where we are, and we have to make the best of it”, my public service background might lead me to agree. Public servants have a long history of doing what they are told. But age and experience tells me that this is beginning to feel too much like the end of days. It is part of an even bigger picture as we inadvertently put in place, all the components of an authoritarian society.

Centralisation of power has been continuing unabated on a single trajectory since at least the time I started work in the 70s. At every Parliamentary Election I can remember, weasel words have claimed that more power needs to be devolved to people locally but despite the words, even manifesto promises have turned out to be the opposite in practice.

Why does it matter as long as our potholes are filled?, you might ask. One reason is that it infantilises local leaders and communities and denies them a voice. All humans have a need to have agency in determining their own futures and every step toward greater centralisation denies them that.

I fear that in time, the effects of AI and disinformation via social media will come to undermine all our institutions…”

Less obvious, is that AI or Large Language Models LLMs) are accelerating in use and deployment. The essence of LLMs is that they are designed to absorb all the information on the internet and in particular, everything that can be discovered about each of us as individuals.

With huge amounts of information comes influence. It is important to remember that this is not a benign process. It is being done for profit.

Governments everywhere and the owners of AI may over time become indistinguishable from the viewpoint of the citizen. Governments today are rushing to help the oligarchs go further and faster, with little understanding of its implications for the spread of authoritarianism. Regulation is on the back burner.

Couple this with the spread of disinformation via social media and the decline of trusted institutions and you may want to ponder where power will end up residing and what the consequences might be for citizens.

I fear that in time, the effects of AI and disinformation via social media will come to undermine all our institutions and destroy trust in them. If I am right, going more local could provide part of the solution.

In the next part of this series, I will seek to put the new West Surrey Council into a more local context.