Localism, as outlined by Local Government Minister Eric Pickles MP, means cutting council costs by sharing services and increasing the number of elected mayors.

Former Bradford Tory group leader Ronnie Farley, with his partner Marilyn Box, has spent the last 15 years putting on non-party political seminars for prospective councillors across the country.

He said: “Some people think what Eric Pickles is proposing is financially-driven rather than politically-driven. I think if it is financially-driven it is a good thing.

“The big argument on rates is complicated. Business rates are paid direct to central government and then reallocated. Eric Pickles is considering that business rates should be kept locally.

“But there are problems with that. Take Westminster City Council. It could run the whole of Westminster three times over on what it is able to collect.

“At the moment, Bradford is allocated funds from a central pot. Like the rest of the North, it would lose out on what they could raise locally.

“Bradford is a great big unitary authority. But there are a lot of small district and borough councils that don’t have a lot of services, but they all have separate IT and legal departments. The idea is for them to work together and share one IT department between six or seven councils.

“Working together sounds attractive, and it will have to come in because the money isn’t there. Councils can’t go on doing what they did before. The same applies to big authorities.

“In Manchester, ten local authorities have got together to form the Greater Manchester Council (Bolton, Bury, Manchester City, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan) sharing things like legal services. Why have ten different heads of service when you can have one? The idea is spreading.

“Local government has been hit hardest in this budget. It’s no good throwing up their hands and crying about it, they’ve got to do something about it.”

Some are. Nottinghamshire County Council has done a £7.4m five-year deal with Logica to use the company’s software for PR, payroll and procurement services to cut costs of £47m over ten years.

The London Borough Councils of Newham and Havering are involved in a project called East London Solutions, which has reportedly led to savings of between 20 and 30 per cent.

Bradford Council has been engaged in talks with Kirklees, Calderdale, Leeds and Wakefield on six areas where sharing could mean significant savings across legal services, highways, data, human resources and regulatory services covering environmental health, licensing, trading standards, building control and planning enforcement.

Council leader Councillor Ian Greenwood says: “Formal consultations are going on with the trades unions, so I can’t say too much at the moment. But if you have 20 employment lawyers across the region, to have 12 based in one place might be a better option.”

Ronnie Farley is convinced that change must come. “My feeling is the Localism Bill has got to lead to something, because the finance just isn’t there. It’s what local government should have been doing years ago. But national politicians are not very good at giving power away,” he says.

But that’s what Eric Pickles is apparently proposing by saying that Bradford, along with 11 other big authorities, must hold referenda on elected mayors.

Since 2001, there have been 37 such referenda, resulting in 11 elected mayors. There were 12, but the people of Stoke later voted to get rid of their mayor.

Sceptics think cross-council co-operation overseen by elected mayors may mean more regionalism of the kind favoured by the European Union. Mr Farley thinks it does.

“A lot of people think elected mayors are an American idea; but when it was first proposed by the Labour Party about ten years ago, it was based on the Spanish system, which is absolutely regional. But who opposed the system? It was the Tories. Now they are bringing it back,” he adds.

Bradford Council’s Conservative group is still antagonistic to an elected mayor.

Tory Group leader Councillor Anne Hawksworth said her colleagues were of the view that an elected mayor would be unlikely to improve the quality of life for people or local services.

Arguably, given the waste in the current system, any proposed improvement should be considered seriously before it is dismissed.