One of the commonplace virtues of elections is said to be the way they enable voters to punish political incompetence and hold to account politicians who fall out of step with their values. If you don’t like it, we are promised, you can always vote them out. Or almost always. On Thursday, voters will get their say in 248 local authorities in England, but not in the council where you’d expect that particular democratic virtue to be most emphatically demonstrated.

Although Conservative-controlled Northamptonshire county council, dubbed by one local Tory MP “the worst run in the country”, is not holding elections, the county’s seven district and borough councils were originally scheduled to do so this week.

However, the communities secretary, James Brokenshire, decreed in November that the elections would not take place. As the councils are due to be abolished in 2020 (along with the county council), and replaced by two unitary councils. Although this outcome has still to be formally ratified, holding elections, he decided, would “risk confusing voters and would involve significant costs that would be hard to justify”.

How very convenient, a local Labour activist remarked to me recently. The county has become a byword for local government maladministration and poor governance, as well as a symbol of the corrosive impact of austerity cuts. In the past 15 months it has declared effective bankruptcy twice. It was the subject of a devastating inspectors report that concluded it had been so woefully managed that it was beyond repair and should be scrapped (the government agreed). Its child protection services were put into special measures. It admitted last year its older people’s services were “on the verge of being unsafe”. Its unpopular plans to close 21 libraries were ruled unlawful by a judge after a furious local resident took the council to court. Shouldn’t the county’s residents get a chance to pass judgment in the district elections?

The lengthy list of failure and incompetence is compounded by the drastic measures to stabilise the council taken by the government commissioners sent in just over a year ago. On top of a brutal round of service cuts reducing its services to a “bare legal minimum” offer, the council sold (to lease back) its brand-new headquarters just months after it moved into it, getting special permission from government ministers to divert £70m capital proceeds into its revenue accounts to stave off an unprecedented third insolvency – an accounting trick that was to all intents and purposes a financial bailout.

Moreover, this one-time beacon of low-tax, small-state ideology decided to raise council tax by 5%, some way beyond the national 2.99% limit. Normally, any council that wanted to raise taxes in this way this would be required to hold a local referendum to see if residents agreed (no council has ever dared risk this). The government helpfully exempted Northamptonshire from this democratic duty (other financially hard-pressed councils apparently also asked for this privilege, but were denied). The county, you might argue, is now a beacon of a high tax, small-state approach. You pay more, you get less for your money, don’t get a say, but are run by Whitehall.

Surely not holding elections in such circumstances is more likely to confuse and alienate voters? Nationally, the Conservatives’ local election broadcast is reliably obdurate, declaring that the party at local level has “a proven track record of managing your money wisely”. Northamptonshire and a few other (mainly Tory as it happens) councils aside, authorities of all stripes have managed their budgets reasonably well given the scale of funding cuts visited on them over the past nine years. The pressing issue for voters, however, is not that councillors are able to balance a budget but how they’ve balanced the budget: the price of financial stability has been harsh cuts to services, from Sure Start centres to rural bus subsidies, and big hikes in fees and charges, from parking to social care.

This week’s local elections ought to reflect public dissatisfaction with the cuts. They ought to allow voters to consider why there appears to be no end in sight for austerity in local government, or why there is no national plan to fund that cornerstone of local services: social care. Instead, Brexit anger may dominate. Leave or no leave, however, those local issues won’t be going away.

• Patrick Butler is the Guardian’s social policy editor

• This article was corrected on 30 April 2019. Northamptonshire county council was never scheduled to have elections this year, but seven district and borough councils were.