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Rush Limbaugh really ought to stay away from stories about other peoples' legitimate drug consumption.

I noticed Antonia Bance the other day getting exercised about why planning decisions are an area committee function in Being a councillor - the joy of planning.

I wonder if Antonia knows the full history of what has been the longest running disagreement between the political groups since planning for local government "modernisation" started in 2000 or so. And the reasons for the disagreement, I think, are quite profound; an apt allegory of our ideological differences. Of course all this must be set against a background in which, for a variety of reasons (and I personally don't hold planning officers primarily responsible in this), perverseness, lateness and downright badness of planning decisions are key performance indicators in which Oxford City Council seems to be perpetually well placed to top the league tables!

It is a pretty fundamental and often quoted attribute of liberalism that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people affected by them. Development control is, to some of us, an important illustration of that principle. Development control is one area of a council's functions that can involve local people quite intensely even when the matter they are concerned about is extremely local. I would go further if I could and devolve most development control decisions to Danish style local planning councils that cover only a few streets, a neighbourhood, but in the UK context the closest possible level is for the representatives directly of the area in which the application occurs to decide the issue in an open forum where local people have the opportunity to have their say.

Antonia writes that "one of the few votes lost by the minority Labour administration who ran the council 2004-6 was about the removal of planning from area committees, as it puts councillors in the invidious position of not being able to represent the views of their constituents, but instead having to be neutral in order to make Òquasi-judicialÓ decisions."

This is not a reason I've seen put quite like that before. But more importantly it is not a justification for centralised development control, but against the ridiculous government regime of so-called standards in public life that, in particular when it comes to councillors, presumes that people are complete idiots who cannot tell the difference between helping out your constituents and doing things that "fetter discretion". When the decision was originally taken to devolve development control to area committees it was not an argument that was made publicly that I remember, not least because the patronising standards regime was not in place. And further, a similar situation pertained anyway in the old system, as a planning decision is a decision of the authority, and any one of them, especially contentious ones, could be called into Full Council at which point the same prejudicial activity would have to be declared.

The proper response to this objection is to get the standards regime that circumscribes far too tightly what councillors can and cannot do and what their personal interests are in any discussion and decision (not merely development control) changed the better to respect peoples' basic honesty and ability to distinguish for themselves when someone has a personal and/or prejudicial interest if and when it comes into question.

Anyway, she goes on: "I can see it must be infuriating to have to stop being a representative of an area, and make decisions for that area taking only planning considerations into account, rather than the wider needs and opinions of residents."

However, even if you are taking a position that would be "prejudicial" by openly campaigning for or against a particular application, you would still be wise to base all your arguments on sound planning grounds in any case. The "wider needs and opinions" cannot shout louder or be more persuasive than purely "planning considerations".

And then, "in particular, making these decisions in local community centres in front of oneÕs electorate means there may be a powerful incentive to make politically-wise decisions. In these days of targets for planning decisions upheld at appeal and financial penalties for poor performance, it seems a silly system to me."

Which I just find perverse, though sadly from observation, very true. The idea behind getting decisions and their discussions made in public in front of one's electorate was so that said electorate could better understand the reasons why sometimes objections could not be taken into account (and couldn't whether they were in the Town Hall or the community centre). However one thing that Oxford City Council has resolutely refused to look into, despite several promptings from myself at least and others in the past, is to put an end to this ridiculous charade that people get five minutes to object in total and the applicant gets five minutes likewise to respond.

The justification given by the council's lawyers for this stifling of public debate has always been that under the Human Rights Act (there it goes, getting its bad rap again) a "fair hearing" in what is a quasi judicial process must mean that both sides get the same mount of arguing time. The technical term for this advice is "bollocks" in my opinion. Other authorities, most notably the one we went to visit when looking at area committees, Eastleigh, do not have this rule at all. Open discussion is encouraged, questionning of both objectors and applicant is encouraged by all in the room. When the public discussion is over and people have had reasons why their objections are not material in planning law and so on there is little left for councillors even to discuss. They frequently are able to move straight to a vote or provide to the applicant's satisfaction likewise why they won't support something. Sometimes they even have time to get agreement from the applicants to change things they hadn't realised would be contentious and so come to better decisions based on communities and applicants owning a responsibility to each other.

Contrast this with Oxford where the artificial time limit then prompts councillors often into a long speculative discussion of what the public might have said as well if they had more time, and fleshing out their objections to form tenuous but technically justifiable reasons for refusal rather than a basis on which to move forward.

Lastly, this shows a common misconception about planning and planning applicants in my opinion. There are costs, often big costs, of late decisions. Peoples' businesses, livelihoods, and homes depend on planning decisions being made reasonably and promptly. The cost of financing a site lying idle to the developer alone (let alone wider costs of dilapidation or lack of delivery of affordable housing) for a year until an appeal rules that the councillors were being perverse and small 'p' political all along are costs that can never be recovered. The result of pitting applicant and objector in a prolonged battle rather than a constructive dialogue about a way to achieve some of what both want out of a site is further antagonism towards any development and a feeling of loss of control over what's happening around your neighbourhood.
Antonia goes on: "Planning - Òcan this building have an illuminated fascia?Ó Òcan this house have a porch?Ó - also takes up vast amounts of time."

If either of these applications come to committee it would be because someone had made enough of a fuss to get them there through a call-in. They would both normally I am sure be delegated to officers. If you find these ones boring, control your fellow councillors!

"The system works quite well for major applications, which are still decided centrally by a committee of councillors called the strategic development control committee - councillors from the south-east area get to comment on those in our areas, but donÕt make the decision. But where it comes to the more minor decisions, it just doesnÕt seem like the best use of eight councillorsÕ time."

If you are prepared to delegate such decisions, even to other councillors, then why not to officers? One aspect of the development control system that did change under Labour's previous administration in Oxford was to reduce the number of applications dealt with by officers. It should have been the other way round. Open discussion leading to better understanding by both public and applicants of their rights and their responsibilities to each other followed by a realisation that officers did in fact usually get it right and could therefore be trusted with more delegation. And as I have already noted, you are still bound by the same regime of unfettered discretion since at any time you could find yourself making the actual decision as a result of a call-in to full council.

"IÕd rather have a real chance to hold local services to account on behalf of residents of Rose Hill and Iffley, and give local people the opportunity to stand up and have their say. IÕd happily attend a city-wide planning meeting at another time, either as an advocate for local residents if thereÕs something controversial, or to be part of a panel deciding on applications for other areas."

I don't see the dichotomy here. You could have as many meetings as you want each month - if there was the business to fill them. Centralised planning committee was very onerous. Imagine all those undelegated decisions that come to each area committee bundled up, add another bunch where councillors call in ones from other areas that they couldn't do under the original area committee structure but would be necessary in a centralised structure for consistency, and we used to have two scheduled half days per month and often overspilling to the Friday's adjournment day as well. All you succeed in doing is abrogating responsibility to someone else on matters that are usually really local and properly dealt with locally, and shutting the public out of even more discussion and "planning education" by holding them centrally and almost certainly during the working day.

"Members of the licensing committee (like me) arenÕt allowed to decide on licence applications for pubs in the ward we represent; why is planning different?"

The real question is why you are barred from taking part is a discussion of something as important as a license to your local area. Two wrongs do not make a right. Yet another example of Labour's utter mistrust of local councillors deep down.

"By all means letÕs devolve decisionmaking as much as we can, but itÕs not meaningful devolution when you end up with four-hour long meetings discussing alterations to buildings, by the end of which there are just the councillors and clerks in the room, even the Oxford Mail journo having given up."

Then look at ways of improving that rate of throughput. Whenever I've been along to an area committee (and okay, it's the one with twelve members) it always seems to me that every one of the councillors has to have a five minute opinion of the scheme under discussion, often including spending at least another five minutes discussing and explaining to objectors not why their points can't be accommodated but why they can't ask a question after their five minutes set-piece is finished!

The arguments for centralising development control all seem to focus on how much easier it would be for councillors to meet targets somehow and ignore the basic tenet that decisions be taken as closely to the people they affect and by people who are accountable to them as possible. There is no "out of the box" thinking going on about how to make better decisions, better owned by both applicants and objectors, and a better understanding of development control issues and why sometimes people can't have everything just how they want them.

Okay, I may give the impression that I dislike US politics. But I never cease to be amazed at local government in particular. Relations of mine have been mayors of Decatur (pop c 55,000) and of Double Springs (pop c 1000) in Alabama. But with the controversy raging in Virginia today I was looking at precinct returns there and local ballot measures.

Take Arlington. Population 200,000. The county board of five people from what I can work out run the county with a budget of $900m. They have five elected officials - Sheriff, Revenues Commissioner, Treasurer, Attorney and Clerk of the Circuit Court. Fully half of their budget is raised in local property taxation, and only a tiny fraction - 10% or so comes from state or federal coffers, with the rest apparently raised from local fees and other little taxes like taxes on restaurant bills.

Those five people are technically part time just like British local councillors, but all draw a salary of between about £12,000 and £15,000 a year. Lots of other people get involved on a voluntary basis on advisory boards and consultative bodies (for example the 13 person housing board). The schools budget accounts for about $330m and that, whilst set by the county board, is run by the schools board, again of five people.

43% of the population are minority ethnic and sixty languages are spoken by kids in the county's schools.

This tight little ship maintains property taxes at less than 1% of assessed value and its bonds (for it has the power to contract debt as it put to the electorate yesterday for five major projects totaling just over $200m dollars to spend on capital projects over the next five years, including schools buildings, transport systems, public spaces and so on) are Moody's AAA rated.

Remind me, why do we need 48 city and 16 county councillors to represent Oxford with a budget of about the same sort of figure, plus hundreds of directly employed staff, none of whom are ever accountable to the citizens? Why is getting people to participate in helping those councillors to make decisions (as if they ever listen when they do consult!) like pulling teeth? What is wrong with us in the UK? Why do we seem to need vast numbers of people to do things on our behalf?

And these structures are many and varied across the US. So why the hell is Ms Kelly, who would no doubt be proud of Virginia for other reasons today, deigning to offer English local councils just a few tightly regulated options as to how to run the place. Don't try telling me that on a small island we need more homogeneity. We don't, we need local innovation and public entrepreneurship. We need to tell our Whitehall and Westminster overlords to sod off and leave us to decide for ourselves, locally, how we pool our citizens' skills (and boy, do we have them by the truck load in Oxford) to make local communities work.