Five thoughts on local government reorganisation

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From the Bevan Foundation's media library
ViewsJune 17th, 2015

The leaking of a map ahead of the Public Service Minister’s announcement on the reorganisation of local government risks overshadowing the real issues.  Here are five thoughts ahead of the announcement.

1.  Big is beautiful but not always

There is no doubt that bigger authorities are better able to administer some key local government services. Strategic planning and transport, education and social services all demand scale. Size can bring vision, specialist expertise and economy and flexibility in the use of resources. For these services, big is beautiful and a reduction in the number of local authorities is right. It might even be that 8 or 9 authorities are too many, particularly in respect of strategic planning and transport.

But sometimes small is beautiful as well. Local authorities ought to be more than just the deliverers of services, and councils that don’t obviously connect with the places they serve struggle to be civic leaders and place-makers. The performance of Wales’ biggest councils also shows that big isn’t necessarily better.

Despite the clarion calls of the city-region lobby, most of Wales consists of small towns and villages, and we ignore the governance and provision of services in these communities at our peril. It remains to be seen if the proposed role for town and community councils will fill this gap.

2.  Reorganisation is always a distraction

Anyone who worked through the 1996 reorganisation (which includes me) will tell you that the run up to and aftermath of reorganisation is a massive distraction. The jockeying for senior positions, insecurity amongst staff and the hasty disposal of assets have a hugely negative impact on strategic thinking and innovation. To have this distraction when councils face a threat to their very rationale from the most sustained budget cuts for a generation is at best extremely challenging.

3.  Reorganisation brings opportunities too

In theory, reorganisation should be part of a wider process of innovation in service design and delivery. Here is our chance to do things differently and better, whether it is to integrate departments, streamline admin or go totally digital – who knows! I heard yesterday about an initiative in Scotland where health and social care were being brought together into a single authority, for example.  The challenges facing local authorities demand some radical changes, so we can only hope that the advent of new authorities releases some creative energy.

4.  Déjà vu

The new proposed authorities bear an uncanny resemblance to the pre-1996 counties (only Rhymney Valley (now part of Caerphilly CBC) is likely to end up somewhere different). The new authorities come with so much baggage. Who would have confidence in Clwyd social services for example? Who would be inspired by the return of a Mid Glamorgan education service? The ghosts of these authorities (sometimes literally – there are many old county council signs still in existence) risk being a straightjacket for the new.

If the leaked map is what the Minister announces later today, we may have missed a trick. If the Welsh Government is serious about city regions, then where is Greater Cardiff? Why is Bridgend tacked on to Rhondda Cynon Taff and Merthyr rather than merged into a Greater Swansea? The geography of the south Wales valleys has always made drawing up local government boundaries difficult – but corralling the most deprived areas of Wales into a single unit didn’t work in 1974 and is unlikely to work forty years on.

5. It doesn’t really matter

At the end of the day, the name, size and geography of a local authority don’t really matter. What’s important is leadership and vision by senior elected members and chief officers, robust representation and engagement of people, and superb quality services delivered efficiently. The boundaries are only a small part of that.

Although we like to claim the strength of Wales’ communities, like it or not people’s attachment to the places they live in is declining, expectations of local state support for people’s lives is falling and budgets are being squeezed out of recognition.

We need authorities up to the challenge of the 2020s – it remains to be seen if the solution lies in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Victoria Winckler is Director of the Bevan Foundation. She was Head of Policy, Research and European Affairs at Mid Glamorgan County Council from 1987 to 1996, and also served as secretary to a transition committee which planned the creation of one of the new authorities. She briefly worked at Bridgend County Borough Council before becoming Head of Economic and Environmental Affairs at the Welsh Local Government Association 1996 – 2002.

2 Responses

  1. Cllr. Bob Dutton O.B.E. says:

    Having served as a Chief Executive Officer adviser at the 1995 Local Government Reorganisation and been a Councillor since 1999 I agree with much of your Director’s comment.
    The 1995 LGR secured a move towards power to the people and local communities in Wales ahead of the game which is the way things are now moving in England in which Councillors and groups representing the people are demanding the right and the devolved finance to deal with their own local priorities.

    The large counties of pre 1995 were pedestrian in operation, extremely expensive and inefficient to run but regrettably nothing was done to make Social services and education into more cost effective operations. The current cost cutting exercise is a legacy of the incompetent money management that went on as more and more demands were made on Social Services (and will continue to be made with an increasing ageing population). National Procurement Frameworks will do much to bring order to a world in Social Services where units exist in local authorities doing the same thing but not knowing of each other’s existence.
    The time for belt-tightening and efficiencies is long overdue.
    As for Strategic Planning, local authorities in the present regime have demonstrated they are capable of coming together and working together to present items in respect of Regional and Local Transport Plans, Economic Planning, Education and Social Services. Taith and Gwer are examples in North Wales. In North East Wales local authorities have linked with LAs on the English side of the border to create the Mersey/Dee Alliance which works with business, Universities, Colleges andTransport authorities like Merseyrail to identify and lobby for finance for strategic priorities as a part of the Northern Powerhouse. The creation of an interesting and exemplar cross country border City Region for this area is a major aim.
    Highway authorities have worked closely together in the North and Mid-Wales Trunk Road Association.
    There are other excellent examples of active and effective LA co-operation in all other parts of Wales.
    At a time when there are declining resources available to the public sector in the UK it seems unwise to expend £80 – £100 million or more on LGR when the indications are that any savings will not be achieved for at last a further three years down the line and that of course does not take into account further pressures on Social Services with the needs of the ageing population and the need for increasing spend on our failing infrastructure.

    Instead of moving forward Wales is in danger of going backward into a much derided world of centralisation and micromanagement by a group of politicians and civil servants in Cardiff.
    Those of us who worked on the 1995 LGR saw this as an opportunity for reasonably sized (in accordance with previous reports on the most efficient sizes for LAs) in Wales to demonstrate to the UK and world what could be achieved by a progressive system.
    The few interventions in the system since 1995 have actually demonstrated how good the present system is, they are not an argument for demolishing the current operation!
    It is perhaps significant that the main criticisms of poor performance of the public services in Wales are around the Health Service and Education both in the overall interventionary control of the Welsh Government!

    The case for another LGR is not compelling as claimed, it is very, very weak and the justification for the impact on staff, morale, the confusion of service reorganisations , the concerns of members of the public and councillors and the sheer unadulterated cost,as your Director has pointed out cannot be sustained!

  2. Dr Paul Worthington says:

    Your Director’s comments are pertinent, challenging and interesting. It’s very clear that there are real pros and cons about LGR; I have worked in the NHS for over 25 years, been through more reorganisations than I care to remember and the results have been mixed.

    There is a clear need to ensure that LAs are fit for purpose; big isn’t always better – it can lead to services being less sensitive to local needs and slow to be responsive. Equally, smaller can often mean a lack of the necessary skills and being of unsufficient size to lever real change. If we are talking big, what’s really important is the local sub-structures, ensuring robust and honest lines of communictaion (up and down) and strong leadership throughout the organisation/s.

    However, if we’re talking small, then let’s pull no punches. We can rehearse the pros and cons of LGR as much as we like, but the financial and service pressures are real. And they aren’t going away, nor will the problems just resolve themselves if we all choose to stand still. Bigger organisations do offer opportunities for economies of scale and we have to look at how those economies pan out over 3, 5, 10 years, not just the immediate costs in years 1-2. We need a solid answer to challenging financial and future service delivery questions, and the status quo isn’t it

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