Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,056
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Post by Khunanup on Aug 28, 2020 20:55:08 GMT
I think this "confusion" problem really is overstated. If its really an issue, the councils in a county can share a website (Dorset did this for years before the merger), you click on what you want to do (e.g. report a pothole) and the info just goes to the correct council. Try telling that to anyone who's had to report a road and verge joint issue... Anyway, two tier is remote, just as remote as whole county unitaries, for some of the very key services local government are responsible for. Adults & Childrens social care, traffic & transportation are all done at that level meaning that they're not localised at all, why should it be ok to not have more local provision for those but to have more local provision for housing & cultural services? Two tier promotes endless power struggles as well, and not just when the county is run by one party and the district/borough another... This report by the County Council Network just crystallises that one-upmanship that is such a negative product of both two-tier but also remote governance that counties and oversized rural unitaries revel in. The solution is unitaries between 200-500k on a country-wide programme where the prime mover is based on communities within those numbered boundaries rather than cash, which every unitaryisation since the '90s has been about. |
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Post by greenhert on Aug 28, 2020 20:58:52 GMT
Reports from PriceWaterhouseCoopers on local government are not trustworthy-all PwC care about is the bottom line, nothing else. This report should be ignored. And who would you turn to for a report? And who would fund said report? I could write up the report myself as an independent consultant for much less than what the Big Four accounting firms would charge per consultant! |
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cj
Socialist
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Posts: 3,285 
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Post by cj on Aug 28, 2020 21:10:08 GMT
And who would you turn to for a report? And who would fund said report? I could write up the report myself as an independent consultant for much less than what the Big Four accounting firms would charge per consultant! But importance is only ascribed with cost, the more they pay for it the more they will conclude someone else's opinions are more important than say their own councillors, their electorates or the staff.
Of course the consultants are only link selling
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,056
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Post by Khunanup on Aug 28, 2020 21:11:26 GMT
Reports from PriceWaterhouseCoopers on local government are not trustworthy-all PwC care about is the bottom line, nothing else. This report should be ignored. And who would you turn to for a report? And who would fund said report? If you needed such reports and you couldn't do it in house (or as a partnership) then I'd find a small consultancy with political nous. County Councils in particular love PWC (as does the NHS) because they tell you what you want to hear (or rather they create a report so non-committal, though always falling down slightly on the side that the commissioner wants to happen if you read between the lines, it can say whatever you want it to say) and they like to assert their dominance & splash the cash. At the moment it's on steroids because they know they're facing their power being curtailed permenantly. The own goal is that they've made it all about money which just pushes districts, boroughs & opposition parties away. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 29, 2020 8:48:40 GMT
I think this "confusion" problem really is overstated. If its really an issue, the councils in a county can share a website (Dorset did this for years before the merger), you click on what you want to do (e.g. report a pothole) and the info just goes to the correct council. Try telling that to anyone who's had to report a road and verge joint issue... Anyway, two tier is remote, just as remote as whole county unitaries, for some of the very key services local government are responsible for. Adults & Childrens social care, traffic & transportation are all done at that level meaning that they're not localised at all, why should it be ok to not have more local provision for those but to have more local provision for housing & cultural services? Two tier promotes endless power struggles as well, and not just when the county is run by one party and the district/borough another... This report by the County Council Network just crystallises that one-upmanship that is such a negative product of both two-tier but also remote governance that counties and oversized rural unitaries revel in. The solution is unitaries between 200-500k on a country-wide programme where the prime mover is based on communities within those numbered boundaries rather than cash, which every unitaryisation since the '90s has been about. If we're talking about services, surely the important thing is the functional level teams operate, not the size of the authorities? I've had much better experiences dealing with teams who are based locally than with teams based in the county town. You can theoretically retain individual teams spread out across the authority, whilst centralising the management (although this does limit the savings you make.) Although to be honest, for transport at least the most important thing is staff continuity - the worst experiences I've had trying to get something dealt with have been the ones where every time the issue comes up there's a new staff member dealing with it, and by the time you've got them to understand the situation properly they've left the council for a new job elsewhere. |
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Post by loderingo on Aug 29, 2020 10:15:30 GMT
I do wonder if the Tories have really thought these council mergers through.
For example, in Berkshire there are currently 6 existing unitaries all under the 300,000 threshold. The logical merger would be to merge Reading, Wokingham and West Berks into "Berkshire West and Reading" and RBWM, Bracknell and Slough into "Berkshire East".
At the moment the Tories run 4 of the 6 councils but Lab have hefty majorities in Reading and Slough. I predict that both new councils would come out as NOC being run by an alliance of "Not the Tories" (see the new BCP council). In addition, it could be even worse than that as I would expect huge local anger in Windsor to having to share a council with Slough.
I would also expect a similar picture in Oxfordshire. The Tories currently run 2 out of the 5 districts and could expect to run 4 in a good year (excluding their dead zone of Oxford City). The most likely structure here is one unitary for the whole county. The current Oxfordshire county is NOC (although the Tories are running with 3 independents) but I could easily see an election leading to a "Not the Tories" alliance taking control.
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 39,067
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Post by The Bishop on Aug 29, 2020 10:58:59 GMT
I do wonder if the Tories have really thought these council mergers through About as much as they have thought most things through, probably (ie not very) |
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Post by greenhert on Aug 29, 2020 11:20:26 GMT
I do wonder if the Tories have really thought these council mergers through.For example, in Berkshire there are currently 6 existing unitaries all under the 300,000 threshold. The logical merger would be to merge Reading, Wokingham and West Berks into "Berkshire West and Reading" and RBWM, Bracknell and Slough into "Berkshire East". At the moment the Tories run 4 of the 6 councils but Lab have hefty majorities in Reading and Slough. I predict that both new councils would come out as NOC being run by an alliance of "Not the Tories" (see the new BCP council). In addition, it could be even worse than that as I would expect huge local anger in Windsor to having to share a council with Slough. I would also expect a similar picture in Oxfordshire. The Tories currently run 2 out of the 5 districts and could expect to run 4 in a good year (excluding their dead zone of Oxford City). The most likely structure here is one unitary for the whole county. The current Oxfordshire county is NOC (although the Tories are running with 3 independents) but I could easily see an election leading to a "Not the Tories" alliance taking control. They have not, and the 300,000 threshold makes no sense for many areas. |
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,056
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Post by Khunanup on Aug 29, 2020 14:50:24 GMT
I do wonder if the Tories have really thought these council mergers through. For example, in Berkshire there are currently 6 existing unitaries all under the 300,000 threshold. The logical merger would be to merge Reading, Wokingham and West Berks into "Berkshire West and Reading" and RBWM, Bracknell and Slough into "Berkshire East". At the moment the Tories run 4 of the 6 councils but Lab have hefty majorities in Reading and Slough. I predict that both new councils would come out as NOC being run by an alliance of "Not the Tories" (see the new BCP council). In addition, it could be even worse than that as I would expect huge local anger in Windsor to having to share a council with Slough. I would also expect a similar picture in Oxfordshire. The Tories currently run 2 out of the 5 districts and could expect to run 4 in a good year (excluding their dead zone of Oxford City). The most likely structure here is one unitary for the whole county. The current Oxfordshire county is NOC (although the Tories are running with 3 independents) but I could easily see an election leading to a "Not the Tories" alliance taking control. Though as I've said previously on the thread, we don't know yet if existing Unitaries are going to be in the mix. I do think the population range is a bit of a pointer of the government at least learning some lessons, particularly if there ends up being a lower limit of 300k (which out of recent creations only Dorset and the two new Northamptonshire councils come close to) which opens the door to non-whole county unitaries. The upper limit also completely stops abominations like whole council unitaries for the biggest counties which, coupled with the lower limit, opens the door to some at least semi-sensible options. However, if it's going to be driven by cash we will still end up with some terrible authorities that are remote from the people they represent and in the process will piss off residents and swathes of Tory councillors which will make life for our governing party potentially very difficult. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Aug 29, 2020 16:09:17 GMT
I do wonder if the Tories have really thought these council mergers through. For example, in Berkshire there are currently 6 existing unitaries all under the 300,000 threshold. The logical merger would be to merge Reading, Wokingham and West Berks into "Berkshire West and Reading" and RBWM, Bracknell and Slough into "Berkshire East". At the moment the Tories run 4 of the 6 councils but Lab have hefty majorities in Reading and Slough. I predict that both new councils would come out as NOC being run by an alliance of "Not the Tories" (see the new BCP council). In addition, it could be even worse than that as I would expect huge local anger in Windsor to having to share a council with Slough. I would also expect a similar picture in Oxfordshire. The Tories currently run 2 out of the 5 districts and could expect to run 4 in a good year (excluding their dead zone of Oxford City). The most likely structure here is one unitary for the whole county. The current Oxfordshire county is NOC (although the Tories are running with 3 independents) but I could easily see an election leading to a "Not the Tories" alliance taking control. Though as I've said previously on the thread, we don't know yet if existing Unitaries are going to be in the mix. I do think the population range is a bit of a pointer of the government at least learning some lessons, particularly if there ends up being a lower limit of 300k (which out of recent creations only Dorset and the two new Northamptonshire councils come close to) which opens the door to non-whole county unitaries. The upper limit also completely stops abominations like whole council unitaries for the biggest counties which, coupled with the lower limit, opens the door to some at least semi-sensible options. However, if it's going to be driven by cash we will still end up with some terrible authorities that are remote from the people they represent and in the process will piss off residents and swathes of Tory councillors which will make life for our governing party potentially very difficult. Given the state of local government finance I expect the bottom line to rule. And money does matter, at that. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Aug 29, 2020 18:04:41 GMT
Reports from PriceWaterhouseCoopers on local government are not trustworthy- all PwC care about is the bottom line, nothing else. This report should be ignored.FTFY |
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 29, 2020 18:37:56 GMT
Reports from PriceWaterhouseCoopers on local government are not trustworthy- all PwC care about is the bottom line, nothing else. This report should be ignored.FTFY But they do have lots of lawyers DW ??!! |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Aug 29, 2020 18:41:55 GMT
But they do have lots of lawyers DW ??!! This is true, but valid opinion I would say. |
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 29, 2020 18:42:54 GMT
But they do have lots of lawyers DW ??!! This is true, but valid opinion I would say. But their lawyers might not. |
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Aug 29, 2020 20:05:51 GMT
This is true, but valid opinion I would say. But their lawyers might not. Their lawyer's view, should we trust they hold a trustworthy view worthy of our trust, that they speak a trustable truth? |
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,056
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Post by Khunanup on Aug 30, 2020 1:20:01 GMT
Though as I've said previously on the thread, we don't know yet if existing Unitaries are going to be in the mix. I do think the population range is a bit of a pointer of the government at least learning some lessons, particularly if there ends up being a lower limit of 300k (which out of recent creations only Dorset and the two new Northamptonshire councils come close to) which opens the door to non-whole county unitaries. The upper limit also completely stops abominations like whole council unitaries for the biggest counties which, coupled with the lower limit, opens the door to some at least semi-sensible options. However, if it's going to be driven by cash we will still end up with some terrible authorities that are remote from the people they represent and in the process will piss off residents and swathes of Tory councillors which will make life for our governing party potentially very difficult. Given the state of local government finance I expect the bottom line to rule. And money does matter, at that. The issue is that the vast majority of districts/boroughs are in decent financial shape whereas almost all the counties are not (mainly down to the counties having far more costly statutory responsibilities and little straightforward revenue raising opportunities and vice versa for the districts/boroughs). Therefore the drivers for the unitaries (on their terms) are the ones with financial problems but the ones who don't want them (or want smaller, more local unitaries instead) don't have financial issues to anywhere near the same extent. And with the apparent guidance we're going to see, the counties are going to be relegated to bystanders as all but the smaller counties get systematically split up (which is long overdue) and even some of the smaller ones might if the districts/boroughs get their act together. What I think is interesting is that the districts/boroughs in parts of the country are working well across party lines to come up with alternatives, whereas at county level this is almost entirely being pushed by administrations that are overwhelmingly Tory and opposition councillors are opposing it alongside the districts/boroughs. |
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Post by islington on Aug 30, 2020 9:36:11 GMT
I've been following these discussions with interest but I haven't a lot of experience of the mechanics of local government so I've mostly kept out of it.
But you can't beat a good list. Over the years there have been a lot of unitarizations (if that's a word), Bucks and Nhants most recently, so it is surprising, to me at least, that there remain as many as 24 two-tier counties. Here they are.
Cambridgeshire Cumbria Derbyshire Devon
East Sussex
Essex Gloucestershire
Hampshire
Hertfordshire Kent
Lancashire Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
Norfolk North Yorkshire Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire Somerset Staffordshire
Suffolk Surrey Warwickshire
West Sussex Worcestershire
I'm assuming that existing UAs will be left alone, at least for the time being, even if they fall far below the suggested minimum of 300,000. This isn't because they necessarily make sense as local government units, because I'm sure a lot of them don't (especially the smaller ones); but as a matter of practicality and political deliverability it makes sense to tackle one issue at a time so my guess is that any existing UA will not be disturbed unless it runs out of cash.
Focusing on two-tier counties, therefore, I'd suggest that only a few are small enough to be a realistic candidate to form a single unitary authority along the lines of Cornwall or Wiltshire. Cumbria must surely be the prime candidate here, followed by Glos, Oxon, Som and Worcs. Maybe a case could be made for Cambs, Leics or Warwks but for geographical or other reasons I'm guessing that they would probably be split.
Could each of the Sussexes form a unitary?
So that leaves at least 14 counties, probably more, that would need to be split into two or more unitaries - some of which (e.g. Herts, Lancs, Surrey) seem to lend themselves to subdivision much better than others.
Sorry if this is a slightly rambling and inconclusive post but this is because, uncharacteristically for me, I'm not advocating for a particular point of view (not yet having arrived at one).
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Aug 31, 2020 12:49:00 GMT
I do wonder if the Tories have really thought these council mergers through. For example, in Berkshire there are currently 6 existing unitaries all under the 300,000 threshold. The logical merger would be to merge Reading, Wokingham and West Berks into "Berkshire West and Reading" and RBWM, Bracknell and Slough into "Berkshire East". At the moment the Tories run 4 of the 6 councils but Lab have hefty majorities in Reading and Slough. I predict that both new councils would come out as NOC being run by an alliance of "Not the Tories" (see the new BCP council). In addition, it could be even worse than that as I would expect huge local anger in Windsor to having to share a council with Slough. I would also expect a similar picture in Oxfordshire. The Tories currently run 2 out of the 5 districts and could expect to run 4 in a good year (excluding their dead zone of Oxford City). The most likely structure here is one unitary for the whole county. The current Oxfordshire county is NOC (although the Tories are running with 3 independents) but I could easily see an election leading to a "Not the Tories" alliance taking control. No,that would be an awful structure. The council structure needs to change, but not that way. Firstly, they need to bring the Vale of White Horse DC and parts of South Oxon DC west of the Thames into Berkshire and merge them with West Berks, as is their logical place and historical connections. Purley, the part of Tilehurst in West Berks, Calcot and Holybrook need to be moved into Reading, as does Earley, North Shinfield,Lower Earley and Woodley from Wokingham. The rest of Wokingham needs to be split between RBWM (Twyford, Remenham,Wargrave,Hare Hatch,Hurst,Sonning and Ruscombe) and the rest being put in a new East Berks with Bracknell Forest. I would bring the area of the former South Bucks DC and Wraysbury,Datchet & Eton from Windsor and Maidenhead council into Slough. After that, you should merge the remaining unitaries in Oxon to be Cherwell + West Oxon and Oxford + South Oxfordshire, the latter unitary being a bit sprawling and services would have to be centralised in Oxford, but there's no good solution for rump South Oxon. I don't agree with the 300,000 mininum at all. |
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Post by greenhert on Aug 31, 2020 14:11:22 GMT
I've been following these discussions with interest but I haven't a lot of experience of the mechanics of local government so I've mostly kept out of it.
But you can't beat a good list. Over the years there have been a lot of unitarizations (if that's a word), Bucks and Nhants most recently, so it is surprising, to me at least, that there remain as many as 24 two-tier counties. Here they are.
Cambridgeshire Cumbria Derbyshire Devon
East Sussex
Essex Gloucestershire
Hampshire
Hertfordshire Kent
Lancashire Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
Norfolk North Yorkshire Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire Somerset Staffordshire
Suffolk Surrey Warwickshire
West Sussex Worcestershire
I'm assuming that existing UAs will be left alone, at least for the time being, even if they fall far below the suggested minimum of 300,000. This isn't because they necessarily make sense as local government units, because I'm sure a lot of them don't (especially the smaller ones); but as a matter of practicality and political deliverability it makes sense to tackle one issue at a time so my guess is that any existing UA will not be disturbed unless it runs out of cash.
Focusing on two-tier counties, therefore, I'd suggest that only a few are small enough to be a realistic candidate to form a single unitary authority along the lines of Cornwall or Wiltshire. Cumbria must surely be the prime candidate here, followed by Glos, Oxon, Som and Worcs. Maybe a case could be made for Cambs, Leics or Warwks but for geographical or other reasons I'm guessing that they would probably be split.
Could each of the Sussexes form a unitary?
So that leaves at least 14 counties, probably more, that would need to be split into two or more unitaries - some of which (e.g. Herts, Lancs, Surrey) seem to lend themselves to subdivision much better than others.
Sorry if this is a slightly rambling and inconclusive post but this is because, uncharacteristically for me, I'm not advocating for a particular point of view (not yet having arrived at one).
The majority of those counties would need to be split up into multiple unitary authorities (even under the restrictive population criteria) with the exceptions of (most of) Cumbria, East Sussex, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Worcestershire. Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire really need two unitary authorities each (even discounting existing unitary authorities). West Sussex is too large to form one unitary, not only because of geographical and population size but also because of the diverging identity and needs of the south coast of Sussex (Worthing, Adur, and Arun should form a separate authority to Chichester, Horsham, Crawley and Mid Sussex). |
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Post by bjornhattan on Aug 31, 2020 14:24:11 GMT
I do wonder if the Tories have really thought these council mergers through. For example, in Berkshire there are currently 6 existing unitaries all under the 300,000 threshold. The logical merger would be to merge Reading, Wokingham and West Berks into "Berkshire West and Reading" and RBWM, Bracknell and Slough into "Berkshire East". At the moment the Tories run 4 of the 6 councils but Lab have hefty majorities in Reading and Slough. I predict that both new councils would come out as NOC being run by an alliance of "Not the Tories" (see the new BCP council). In addition, it could be even worse than that as I would expect huge local anger in Windsor to having to share a council with Slough. I would also expect a similar picture in Oxfordshire. The Tories currently run 2 out of the 5 districts and could expect to run 4 in a good year (excluding their dead zone of Oxford City). The most likely structure here is one unitary for the whole county. The current Oxfordshire county is NOC (although the Tories are running with 3 independents) but I could easily see an election leading to a "Not the Tories" alliance taking control. No,that would be an awful structure. The council structure needs to change, but not that way. Firstly, they need to bring the Vale of White Horse DC and parts of South Oxon DC west of the Thames into Berkshire and merge them with West Berks, as is their logical place and historical connections. Purley, the part of Tilehurst in West Berks, Calcot and Holybrook need to be moved into Reading, as does Earley, North Shinfield,Lower Earley and Woodley from Wokingham. The rest of Wokingham needs to be split between RBWM (Twyford, Remenham,Wargrave,Hare Hatch,Hurst,Sonning and Ruscombe) and the rest being put in a new East Berks with Bracknell Forest. After that, you should merge the remaining unitaries in Oxon to be Cherwell + West Oxon and Oxford + South Oxfordshire, the latter unitary being a bit sprawling and services would have to be centralised in Oxford, but there's no good solution for rump South Oxon. I would ideally want to see an urban focused UA covering the city of Oxford and its immediate suburbs. Kidlington, Wheatley, Sandford on Thames, and the northern parts of the Vale could all join the city to form an authority, which wouldn't be far off 300k. It would cross the traditional county boundary, and you'd be left with rump South Oxfordshire (Thame in particular would be really on a limb), but it probably reflects natural ties a bit better. |
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