Local Government Reorganisation(LGR)

We are tremendously honoured this week to have a guest article by Cllr Ernest Mallett MBE. Cllr Mallett is an Independent Surrey County Councillor and has served on the County for many years. Ernest is a real inspiration to me and many other politicians. He turned 90 in April and still serves his community as hard and as well as the day he was first elected many decades ago.

Many young Councillors think they can come in and reinvent the wheel. My advice to you would be to listen and learn from people like Ernest who can tell you all about how things really work. 

I hope that Ernest will continue to be a great public servant for many years to come. 

Henry

As being ordered and presented to Surrey Councils by JIM MACMAHON,OBE. M.P. Minister of State for Local Government & English Devolution in the United Kingdom.

(Together with actions and reactions of Surrey CC & Surrey Borough & District Councils, (B’s. & D’s) & Councillors).

LGR may sound like a boring subject, but I will try and keep it as bright as possible. First, I will state the Historical position and then give you a short ‘Executive Summary’. After this, if the subject and style is not to your liking, you need read no further.

1: RECENT HISTORY.

In 1973/74 Edward Heath decided there were too many Borough & District Councils for the government to deal with, so, up and down the land, he decided to put two councils together to halve the number. At the the same time he employed Mr. Baines, CEO of Kent County Council, to devise a new democratic structure for the new Councils. Mr. Baines did a thoroughly excellent democratic and organisational job and the new councils’ structures presented a brilliant way of working which was truly democratic.Under the new system, old Borough areas maintained their traditional Mayors and in 1976, all those areas with only ‘District’ status and Chairmen, were offered Borough & Mayor status by the Queen. About 50% of the Districts took up this offer. Later in 2000, Tony Blair decided to put the Baines structure in the dustbin and we currently have the entirely undemocratic ‘Cabinet’ system favoured by central government, now in all Boroughs, Districts and Counties..

However, prior to Blair, Mrs. Thatcher had the idea of Unitary Councils, i.e. do awaywith the main two tier system of Counties and B & D’s. and have one main authoritive Council for all council functions in any area. Later on, the idea of some Regional Control on major infra-structure came into being with the possibility of elected Mayors.Later on, Cameron came up with the idea of ‘Strong’ Leaders of Councils, which further diminished the democratic power of the ordinary councillor.

Mrs Thatcher clearly thought there were votes for her government in Unitaries, but the system began to peter out as it worked its way from the North to the Midlands, although Wales seem to have adopted it wholesale. By the time it was  supposed to happen South of London, Mrs. Thatcher had lost enthusiasm for it and it became only sporadic.

So where does this put the system of Local Government now? Well, we have a complete porridge, starting at the bottom, of Parish Councils and old Town Councils with their ancient system of Aldermen and Mayors but with minimal Council Tax precept and only very limited local community powers, then the Edward Heath Boroughs & Districts, with or without their modern Mayors, then County Councils interspersed with areas which have gone Unitary.

Frankly, the only way to describe this is as a complete mess leading to a confused public and no non-councillor having much idea of which outfit to contact for whatever. As with the Edward Heath dilemma, this multi-system makes it difficult and expensive for central government to deal with local government.

2: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF PRESENT POSITION.

So, enter the new Labour Government and Jim MacMahon with autocratic  powers. Whilst LGR was not a Labour manifesto proposal, although the government has triedto obfuscate this fact, we have Jim with a no nonsense dictate that--- ‘You will have a Unitary Local Government system whether you like it or not’…. Jim did not set out to consult the public or Parish Councils or the old Town councils. These councils are not formally catered for in the new proposed order. As it happens, the government are now giving some kind of mouthpiece to a 7 week public consultation, but I would suggest that the public should not get excited about this. Jim has autocratic control and that is the situation.

The Surrey CC proposal, only supported by 2 of the 12 D’s & B’s, is to divide Surrey into two Unitary areas of an average of some 600,000 population. The un-supporting 10 D’s & B’s appear to favour a division of Surrey into 3 Unitaries.

It is clear to me that the only representation which Jim will consider will come from the SCC Leader Cty Cllr. Tim Oliver, who, I have to say, is the most able Leader which SCC has had within my memory of the last 50 years.

3: THE MISS-MASH & GNASHING OF TEETH.

So 1: & 2: is all you need if the subject is not overly interesting. Now I will give you a view of what is going round in circles, taking up a great deal of council administrative time and throwing up aspirations which are never going to be realised and are either causing benign false hopes or gnashing of teeth.

We will start with the Surrey CEO’s view which is entirely the most sensible if it were legally possible. It is given the size and complexity of the County’s responsibilities, the obvious way to avoid complex disaggregation would be to turn Surrey into one Unitary and simply for Surrey to absorb the 12 D’s & B’s, which only have minor responsibilities. Unfortunately, the government has made this untenable by insisting that the new system must be able to have an elected Mayoral system added to it. The government specifies that such a system has to serve more than one Unitary, hence two Unitaries with all the County disaggregation involved with numerous staff and complex facilities , all of which have to be segregated into two parts for transfer to two new Unitaries.

If the different councils’ revenue budgets are considered the complexity of change becomes apparent. Typically, the average net revenue budget of the D’s & B’s is around £20Million.. The County’s budget is over £1.26Billion.

The two largest departmental budgets at County are, Elderly Services & Public Health at £526Million & Chidrens, Families & Adult Education at £314Million. These two responsibilities are tending towards £800Million which indicates the large staff and complex facilities involved. Splitting these responsibilities up is clearly complex and expensive. In fact, the original estimate for costs of forming two new Unitaries were some £78m and are now £85m.

Just take the bureaucracy costs of planning change, currently said to be at over £380,000.

It should be noted that SurreyCC’s original LGR report was over 200 pages, it was then hastily rewritten due to changes of mind, but was still over 200 pages. Once further information was to hand, the report was further amended into 300 pages. This kind of activity is clearly expensive.

What is currently claimed is that whilst formation of the two new Unitaries will cost £85million, the yearly savings on the present council system will come in at £23million.Frankly, unless there are such published and audited figures for the formation of past Unitaries in the areas where they now exist, I am not prepared to believe that there will be any financial savings whatever. If we take the 1973/74 Edward Heath simple amalgamations as an example, council staff salaries doubled and the Union’s price for co-operation was that any council officer not able to obtain an equivalent or better job in local government, would remain on full indexed salary and pension until he or she was so employed! I would not expect such generosity will apply this time round but clearly there will be increased costs to be set against any possible savings.

So , what is happening on the ground? As far as I am concerned it is self-delusion orgnashing of teeth in the D’s & B’s as they slowly realise that their combined requirements are going nowhere. As far as those councillors who are deluding themselves are concerned, they are rushing around in circles like March Hares or Rabbits, thinking they can save their Parish Councils or their old Town Councils. They have come up with the idea of ‘Neighbourhood Committees’. (I should mention here that the Southern half of Surrey has numerous Parish Councils where voting support is much valued for D’s & B’s councillors as well as County Councillors. Surrey has one old Town Council at Farnham. There are almost no Parish Councils in the Northern part of Surrey)

Anyway, Surrey’s Leader, Tim Oliver, is doing his best to support the idea of Neighbourhood Committees, but it is clear to me, that Jim, on behalf of the government, will not be allocating any formal role, finance precept or legal status, to any such representation. My view is that a few Neighbourhood Committees might come into existence but they will soon disappear for lack of finance and/or for lack of any legal or voluntarily allocated ability, to be taken any notice of by the new Unitaries. In other words, my advice to all those rushing around in circles to get Neighbourhood Committees into the frame, they are simply wasting their time.

So, finally, we are now waiting until what is expected to be October 2025, for Minister Jim MacMahon to declare the result. I expect the opposing 10 D’s & B’s to the County proposal, to be ignored as will all the rabbits running round in circles with their own ideas on how they can modify or reform the system.

AUTHOR: Ernest Mallett.

Independent Surrey County Cllr. For West Molesey for 20 years. 

Previously, Cllr. 31 years on Esher Urban District Council and Elmbridge Borough Council. Variously Leader, Chairman of many Elmbridge Committees especially concentrating on Housing Slum clearance, Mayor and when Chairman of the all-powerful Policy & Resources Committee, a major influence in getting the Esher new Civic Centre built, the Brooklands Weybridge World Class Motor Museum into beingand recovering Hamilton’s 1700’s Parkland Gardens at Cobham, Surrey.