Croydon’s neighbouring district councils could be merged into one county-wide, unitary Surrey authority, under plans expected to be unveiled in a government White Paper, reports PEARL LEE, our south of the borough correspondent
Set for a shake-up: Surrey County Council could take over Reigate’s district duties under reform proposals
Dozens of councils could be abolished in the biggest overhaul of local government in more than 50 years under plans to save £3billion which is being championed in Downing Street by Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney.
Under the plans, district councils such as Croydon’s near neighbours Tandridge, Reigate and Banstead and Epsom and Ewell could all disappear, as Surrey County Council would become the single, unitary authority for the area.
It is not the first time such a scheme has been suggested.
Four years ago, Surrey County Council leader, Conservative Tim Oliver, made a submission to the then Tory government suggesting scraping the county’s 11 district councils in favour of one large unitary authority.
Such a move would make Surrey the largest unitary authority in the country, serving a population of around 1.2million people.
All in favour: Tim Oliver, leader of Surrey County Council
It would represent the largest reform of local authorities in England and Wales since Ted Heath’s government shuffled the shires and counties in 1974 and introduced the two-tier, county and district council system.
Some suggest that if successful, the move may even pave the way for more mergers among borough councils, as a route out of the crippling debts than many – led by Croydon – have accrued over the past 15 years. Some London councils, such as Sutton and Kingston, already share certain back-of-office functions, while othrs, such as Wandsworth and Richmond, even share chief execs.
But as demonstrated by the South London Waste Partnership, comprising Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Kingston, unaccountable quangos often fail to deliver real savings, or proper services.
According to a report in The Times, Surrey together with Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire “will be among the counties set for radical changes to the way they are run, with the promise of more powers and money from Whitehall”.
Vast experience: Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s Chief of Staff
There are 21 county councils across England, with 164 district councils sitting below them. County councils have powers over transport and social care, while district councils are responsible for rubbish collection and day-to-day planning permission.
According to The Times, “Ministers are thought to believe that two-tier local government structures are inefficient and have blamed district councils for building up cash reserves rather than spending the money on improving public services.
“District councils are also seen as blockers to growth by regularly rejecting housing developments.” The newspaper report suggests that Whitehall is only considering the mergers “with areas that proactively supported the reforms”. Which kind of puts Surrey at the head of the queue.
A White Paper on English devolution “will be published in the coming weeks”, the report said.
All change: Surrey’s district councils could be about to be erased from the map
Jim McMahon, the local government minister, told council leaders in September that it was “not acceptable” to not have an elected mayor, in the model of Greater Manchester or the West Midlands, adding that all English regions must have one because they are “part of our system going forward”.
The proposals appear to be more about running local services cheaper, rather than better. McSweeney, with the vast experience of a couple of years as Steve Reed’s gofer on Lambeth Council, was previously head of the Labour group on the Local Government Association, and is reported to be supportive, as is Pete Robbins, the director of local government and devolution at No10.
But councillors and council staff working for district councils are not so keen.
Sam Chapman-Allen, chairman of the District Councils’ Network, said that it was “hard to see” how “vast new unitary councils… far from local communities” would be “genuinely local and rooted in real places”. The proposals would damage “local democratic accountability”, they said.
“Drawing different lines on maps”, they said, is no substitute for genuine reform to public services such as social care.
It is research (ie. a bit of a guesstimate) by the County Councils Network, which represents the county-wide authorities, that suggests that merging every two-tier council would save the taxpayer almost £3billion over five years.
There’s more than a sense that this might just be nibbling around the edges of the real issues confronting local services after 14 years of austerity. Croydon Council is among about two dozen local authorities which have declared themselves technically bankrupt, or are “on the brink” of bankruptcy.
Croydon alone has total debts of £1.5billion.
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Yet again, the focus is on saving money, not improving services. They may claim it is more ‘efficient’ but it is certainly not more effective in providing the locally tailored services that truly local authorities are supposed to provide.
The focus is also on moving control away from local people and into the hands of a few people at the top. As we’ve seen in Croydon, giving all the power to a Mayor and the Chief Executive has made the Council even less accountable to residents and allowed the Mayor to get away with raising Council Tax by 15% while still cutting services.
In Croydon’s case there is a sensible argument to actually split Croydon up into two councils – a Croydon Council covering what is now the north of the borough and a Coulsdon, Purley and Addington Council covering the current south of the borough. The reduction in size would allow both councils to be far more responsive to the needs of their residents.
If you think small is beautiful, Peter, you’re out of date. Most people who know about local government are looking towards ever-bigger authorities with the efficiencies that provides – one CEO, for example. This has been the trend over the last 150 years and is why Bermondsey, Bethnal Green, Chelsea, Finsbury, Holborn etc are no more. ‘New Labour’ are building bigger auithorities not so far outside Lonbdon
I think you mean the rate of work is too slow (i.e. it takes too long) rather than it is inefficient (i.e. too many resources are used to complete the take. Making things bigger makes them less efficient – they are more complex so need more resource to sustain. Making humans work faster requires effectively addressing issues raised by providing the tools necessary to complete the task in the time agreed. Most people who effectively communicate with other people call this leadership.
I think what you’re saying, is that by combining multiple small authorities and simplifying the processes they undertake (and thereby reducing the quality of the output), they will thereby use fewer resources (a statement I agree with), but what we all know is that “improvement in efficiency” will be lost to “unforeseen management overheads? (is that the right term?). Fundamentally, if a new council is formed, it will need to be quicker to realise the benefits offered, and if it needs to be quicker, it needs new leadership. And then one wonders – if it needs new leadership – does it even need changing at all? Perhaps it just needs better leaders now?
Last Summer I wrote to then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government, Lee Rowley:
“Dear Mr Rowley,
I am writing to you as I am increasingly concerned with the level of Section 114 Notices being issued by Councils. One reason is because of cuts in funding from Central Government to Local Government and no doubt this has made the balancing of budgets more challenging. I also believe there are two other main factors for this. In 2011 powers were given to local authorities so they had more freedom to raise funds and invest. In 2015 the Audit Commission was abolished. As a combination of these two decisions I do not believe it is a coincidence that all the Section 114 Notices have taken place subsequently. I do not believe what is currently in place can be working, otherwise none of the Section 114 Notices would have occurred. Whilst in theory philosophically I do agree with the idea of Local Government having more power, at the same time I believe with more power, it needed to be balanced with greater scrutiny. When I see some of the decisions allowed to happen with key decision makers within certain Councils, such as Croydon or Thurrock, losing hundreds of millions with their own property company or investing in a solar panel company, I find it shocking because they weren’t even gambling with taxpayer money, they were gambling with debt. I believe these occurrences will grow in frequency.
I please request that both the freedom of local authorities to invest and the auditing process of them to be reanalysed with the notion of a more connected auditing process because although it might cost more on the surface, a consequence of not doing so could prove much more costly.”
They came back with a bunch of unproductive waffle including claiming that Section 114’s were rare. Subsequently of course multiple other Council’s issued a Section 114.
My point to all of this, is that the broken foundations need fixing, and chopping up and adding or taking away from Council’s territory isn’t the solution. Checks and balances should have always been in place to save incompetent Councils from themselves. It is unglamorous things like the Audit Commission that made a real difference. So congratulations to Lord Pickles for supposedly saving £50m a year by getting rid of it, you’ll ultimately cost the public many billions in return.
By the way, a couple of months after my email Lee Rowley publicly admitted that the local government audit system “has not worked as well as it should for a number of years”. At least he admitted it, unlike the person who responded to me on his behalf.