Council leaders have demanded Whitehall get off their backs as they published a detailed report calling for radical changes in local government.
They called for an end to the hundreds of targets imposed by central Government.
Instead, councils should be free to set their own taxes, set priorities for transport and economic development, and even hold privatised industries such as the rail and water companies to account.
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The report, by the Local Government Association, urges Ministers to accept that public services should differ from place to place - but describes this as "postcode choice", rather than the traditional postcode lottery.
Civil leaders from across the West Midlands will today meet Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Local Government, to discuss plans for a city region.
The meeting, in London, comes as the Government prepares to publish a White Paper which could set out plans for a new layer of local government based around major cities such as Birmingham.
But the LGA, which represents local authorities across the country, rejected calls for new regional bodies in a report called Closer to People and Places. Instead, they called for existing councils to be given far more power.
Proposals included:
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* Slashing 1,000 targets set by central government, to save taxpayers £2.5billion.
* Decisions about transport, economic development and skills should be devolved from regional level to council level, so they are made by high-profile local leaders elected by the public.
* Councils should be allowed to set their own business rates within limits.
* Councillors should be given assistants to support them and training on how to get results for residents in their ward, so they can be "champions of their communities".
* Councillors to have their own budgets, and take responsibility allocating council money to local voluntary and community groups.
* Councillors to hold regular public meetings where the public can quiz managers of public services, including hospital executives and police chiefs, and even managers from privatised services such as rail operators and managers from water companies.
* The Government to abandon proposals to cut the number of councillors. currently 20,000 across the country.
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The report tacitly admits the proposals could lead to greater variation in the quality of services from council to council, the so-called postcode lottery. But it describes this as "postcode choice", in which services are based on local priorities.
Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, Chairman of the Local Government Association, said: "We see an erosion of democracy, a crisis of trust, a cynicism with politicians and with the ability of seemingly unreachable governance to deliver solutions.
"We must give people back power and influence over their lives, their local services, and the future of the places where they live.
"Of all the major democracies and economies of the world, England is unique in the degree of central control exerted over public services and local government.
"It is time for Whitehall to decentralise, devolve and deregulate to set people free of bureaucracy and improve the lives of millions of people."