Late last year, the government announced it was going to introduce directly elected mayors, strategic authorities and unitary councils in all “two-tier” areas. The days of district and borough councils blaming county councils for failures in local services – and vice versa – would finally be over. Voters would no longer be confused about which councillor to hold responsible for their inability to get disability adaptions to their social-rented house, or whether the burnt-out litter bin outside their house that hadn’t been replaced was the responsibility of the district that collected from the doorstep or the county that ran the roads.
Time for change
Almost all councillors in Norfolk and Suffolk agree that we need a strategic authority to take control of our regional roads, to ensure that the right amount of housing is built in the right places, and to make the case for the infrastructure investment that our two counties so badly need. And almost all are agreed that the councils that sit below that strategic authority – which will also have their leaders sit on that authority – should be unitary councils.
But how many councils?
The question which we cannot agree on is – how many? In fact, there is a high degree of agreement between councillors from the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Parties, and between them and the local MPs. Both Norfolk and Suffolk divide easily and naturally into three each – based in Norfolk on Kings Lynn, Norwich and Great Yarmouth, and in Suffolk on Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich and Lowestoft.
The Conservatives, on the other hand, are campaigning for one unitary council for Norfolk and one for Suffolk. One unitary council each would effectively mean a takeover of district councils by Norfolk and Suffolk County Councils. Property of district councils would be transferred to the counties. Investment in services that matter to local people, such as Ipswich buses, or the Seagull Theatre in Lowestoft, would be in the hands of a council that was run in many cases by people from the other side of the county. Incidentally, when the Conservatives (briefly) ran Ipswich Borough Council, they tried to sell off the bus company. And Conservative-run Suffolk County Council did sell off the Seagull, but it was rescued by volunteers and is now funded partly by East Suffolk District Council. These are just two examples of decisions that are insensitive to local needs, but which we can expect to be repeated by a distant single county unitary.
Too big to serve
A single Suffolk council, with a population of over 760,000, would be one of the largest councils in the country. Norfolk at 859,000 would be significantly larger. To put this in context, Croydon, which is the largest of the London Boroughs, has a population of around 400,000. One problem with very large councils is that the number of councillors has to be limited. Suffolk County Council currently has 75 councillors, and at that size it is already difficult for individual councillors to have any impact on the direction of the council, or to intervene in council meetings. Some authorities have 100 or more councillors, and their individual impact is even less. But even with 100 councillors, each would have to represent around 7–8,000 residents. At that level it becomes impossible for a single councillor to visit every resident who needs their help, or to know everything that happens in their ward.
The county councils claim that they can deliver adult care and children’s services more effectively and less expensively because they are large. But big councils such as Birmingham and Croydon have not been efficient, or effective, or good value for money. Indeed, a study in March this year of 21 county councils, 60 existing unitary authorities and 34 metropolitan districts shows that county councils do not deliver lower costs, and smaller unitary authorities are best at helping people to stay in their own homes. The ideal size for services appears to be 250-350,000 people, which is roughly what we would achieve with three unitaries in each of Norfolk and Suffolk.
In Suffolk we know that adult care services and children’s services are best delivered on the frontline in smaller areas than a whole county, because the county council has already conveniently divided up much of its provision into area teams based in – you guessed it – Ipswich, Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds. And it stands to reason that when a unitary council in each of those areas also has control of housing and other local services, they will be able to meet the diverse local needs of those communities far better than a single authority with councillors and officers that may never have visited the places involved.
More than just numbers
The figure that the county councils never tire of quoting is the supposed 500,000 minimum size for new unitary councils. This would, if taken seriously, effectively rule out all but six of the existing fifty-six unitary councils in England. I don’t believe the government, which will rule later on this year on the number of unitaries we get, will be swayed by this number – not least because it was produced by Price Waterhouse Cooper as part of their report commissioned by – wait for it! – the county councils.
A skewed consultation
However, the amount of publicity and the number of meetings encouraging people to support single county unitary councils far outweighs the publicity for having three unitary councils in each county. This is not surprising, given the level of resources available to county councils. “Their” money is of course actually council-tax-payers’ money, but it is the county councils that get to decide how it is spent – and Suffolk has set aside £1.9 million in order to get its own way. Admittedly, some of that money will be spent on necessary reorganisation that will be inevitable whatever the government’s final decision may be. But I asked Suffolk County Council how much was intended for propaganda purposes, and I was told that there will be no account of the hours of staff time spent on trying to persuade the public. As with any council action, it is staff time which is the major expense.
Should accountability trump money?
But in the end, this is not about money. It is about whether or not we believe in local democracy and local services. If bigger really was always better, and local democracy really didn’t count, then surely we might as well have everything run from Whitehall. Labour, Lib Dem and Green councillors all believe that the people of Suffolk and Norfolk really want local councils that will deliver local services and will be accountable to them on a local basis. That’s why we’re confident that we are on residents’ side when we call for three councils for each county.
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