Michael Howard has promised to scrap inspections of local authorities.

In a speech to the Local Government Association's annual conference on Thursday, the opposition leader pledged to ditch Labour's "best value" and comprehensive performance assessments in a bid to cut the red tape for town halls.

The Conservative chief told councillors that the government had imposed too much bureaucracy and direct orders on their work.

While conceding that he himself had been guilty of centralisation while in power, Howard claimed he has "learned from experience".

"I can announce today that we will immediately abolish Best Value and the Comprehensive Performance Assessments, which take up so much valuable staff time, cost so much and interfere so greatly in the day-to-day work of local councils," he said.

"We will be consulting on what should take their place. But whatever we decide, we believe that councillors should debate the record of their council. And the voters should decide whether it is good, bad or indifferent."

Burdens

Promising to dramatically reduce the burdens on councils, he argued that ministers had increased the number of directives from "a stream into a flood" and stifled creativity.

"So much discretion has been taken away from local government," Howard said.

"As [new Conservative LGA chairman] Sandy Bruce Lockhart said yesterday, of all the world’s major economies, the UK government exerts the highest degree of central control over local services. 

"Labour’s 'new localism' has turned out to be simply a set of new plans, new legislation, new guidance, new financial controls and bidding systems and new inspectorates – the Surveillance Commission, the Supporting People Inspection Team, the Best Value Inspections and a whole host of others. 

"Local government inspection now costs over £1 billion a year in taxpayers' money.  The proportion of a council's grant which is ring-fenced by central government has almost trebled since 1997.

"Much of the rest of the money is hedged around with restrictions, conditions and limitations. The amount of money which can be spent in accordance with local priorities, the priorities on which you were elected, has shrunk to a shadow of what it used to be and what it should be."

Powers

He committed to giving councils "the powers they need to do their job".

"We believe in the independence, strength and importance of local councils," Howard said.

"We want to them to listen to their local communities, and to provide leadership.  We want them to pioneer, improve and maintain local services.
 
"They must not be the mere agents of Whitehall, acting as administrative cogs in the wheels of a centralised state, there just to execute the orders of central government that are handed down from on high.

"Increased centralisation undermines local communities in many different ways. It undermines local democracy. It destroys accountability. It removes local initiative. It fuels voter apathy.

"We must have a new approach. That means getting central government off the back of local government. And it means pushing power down to where it can be most effectively exercised.

"The next Conservative government will cut back the financial, administrative and auditing regulation that today weighs down local government. We will increase significantly the discretion of local councils to spend the money they receive by way of grant. We will allow councils greater freedom to set their own priorities."