ABSTRACT
Localism holds the key to economic, social and political success in the future. There was little or no evidence that the commitment to localism, which the Localism Act purported to embody, was shared by other departments of state that had responsibility for services delivered by local authorities. To what extent did the Localism Act involve a dilution of centralism and a related strengthening of the role of local authorities. There was a fatal ambiguity in the act that arose because of confusion about the meaning of localism. The main barriers to the development of localism lay in central government itself, and localism would not develop its potential unless there was a fundamental change in the working of central government. Nowhere is the mismatch between Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG's) localism rhetoric and the actions of other departments more striking than in the Department for Education.
