Last week’s CPS seminar on public services in the post-bureaucratic age provided an opportunity to see first hand how Conservative policy is developing. The role of the voluntary sector was a key theme and the depth of analysis to be found in Greg Clark’s recent green paper shows the Party’s commitment to getting the relationship between state action and voluntary action right. Unsurprisingly, another key theme was decentralisation: how people can be given more say in how public services are delivered. Reflecting on the thoughtful contributions to the discussion I have concluded that if we really want decentralisation to work then Conservatives should start thinking seriously about a written constitution.

If structures that depend on civic engagement and community action are to be developed and sustained then there needs to be a degree of certainty about their permanence and status. Local decision making will only be taken seriously if people believe that the decisions they make have genuine authority. Planning provides a good example of why this is the case.

During the seminar the Shadow Housing Minster Grant Shapps suggested that giving local communities more control over planning could result in more housing if they receive the full benefits from development in terms of tax income. Research by Policy Exchange a couple of years ago suggested that local communities were more sympathetic to new development in Germany for this very reason. But Germany has a federal system enshrined in a written constitution, local communities know that the federal government cannot interfere. By contrast, a planning bill, currently being forced through parliament, will take control over big infrastructure projects away from local councils in England and give it to a new quango. Even if central government did allow local councils to keep all the tax revenue to be derived from a population influx, what is to stop a future government simply taking this revenue away?

If we want to make decentralisation work then we should consider a more formal constitutional settlement. It is yet another reason, in addition to those I mentioned in my very first blog, and Harry Snook outlined last week, why Conservatives should start taking this subject seriously.