I certainly would not object to more funding

Some have wondered whether we need an English Parliament or regional assemblies of some kind to offer parity with the other parts of the Union.

I believe we need to think about what this vote and other pressures on local government mean for Swindon.

At this point you might expect a council leader to make a plea for more funding.

It is true that Swindon has less spending power per dwelling (the Government’s measure of how much we get) than most other comparable places. I certainly would not object to more funding, but that would not address the real difficulty we face.

The real questions are: How do we pass both the funding and the real decision-making power to elected and accountable local authorities? And is our local government structure right for the 21st century?

England, for many decades, has had one of the most centralised local government systems of any modern country.

Whitehall delights in giving councils money only for the schemes that it deems best.

For example, the transport experts in London wish to promote cycle lanes; therefore we as a council have to devote time and money bidding for this money.

Now, that is not to say that cycle lanes are a bad idea. Clearly they are useful, but if we were to ask residents where they wanted £1m of transport funding to go, I suspect potholes and road maintenance might just be a higher priority.

At the last full council and cabinet meetings we discussed the proposal by the Diocese of Bristol to build a “free school” to provide secondary school places.

Some councillors have challenged why the church should be building it and not the council. Again, this is a consequence of central government’s policies, just as a decade ago the only way we could get funding for seven much needed new schools was through the Private Finance Initiative.

Personally I am keen to see a wider range of schools, whether they be church schools, free schools, academies, university technical colleges or even a satellite campus from a grammar school.

The key point is that the local council should be free to decide and not simply have the only option made available from London. How we govern ourselves is not an abstract or sterile debate. We now have a unique opportunity to investigate what councils should do and how much can we prise from the distant hand of Whitehall for your local civic offices and accountable councillors.