Moves to create supersize councils would be “the greatest act of
municipal vandalism in living memory” and mean local government
“would cease to exist”, a new independent report on council
reorganisation reveals today.
It comes ahead of the Government’s forthcoming Devolution and
Local Recovery White Paper, and amid reports that a number of
county councils want to abolish local district councils to create
some of the single largest councils in the western world.
The report, Bigger is not better, the case for keeping ‘local’
government, by Professor Colin Copus, Professor Steve Leach, and
Associate Professor Alistair Jones at De Montfort University,
also demonstrates that the search for an ideal sized council is a
pointless equivalent “search for the Philosopher’s Stone”.
It concludes that English councils are already the largest in the
western world, and creating even larger councils would risk
fuelling public distrust in government by watering down their
voice on critical doorstep services like waste and planning.
The report also demonstrates how bigger councils are not
necessarily better or more efficient, but risk delivering less
responsive services through remote bureaucracies that could be
similar in size to some small countries and US or German states.
The report provides a rigorous assessment of over 300 pieces of
independent research from around the world and is conclusive
that:
Larger councils lead to falling public trust, falling engagement,
and a reduced sense of belonging to their local area and
council.
Size of councils does not make a difference in quality or
efficiency of services
The public have always remained resistant to losing control to
larger councils, as they consistently vote against their creation
in local referendums.
The District Councils’ Network (DCN), which represents 187
councils, is warning that now is not the time to get bogged down
in reorganising local government, which will distract from the
efforts to beat the pandemic and drive the local recovery.
Commenting on the report, Cllr John Fuller OBE, Chairman of the
District Councils’ Network, said:
“COVID-19 has shown that bigger or cheaper local government is
not better local government, and as this revealing report shows,
larger councils would wipe local government as we know it off the
map altogether.
“Devolution has to be about decisions being taken at the level
closest to the people affected by those decisions, not
centralising them into administrations with populations way over
a million people, and across geographies almost as large as
Northern Ireland.
“Right now, in the midst of an international health and economic
crisis, we must be focused on recovery, not reorganisation.
“This means protecting communities from COVID-19, and enabling
them to bounce back achieving jobs and growth, and using
devolution to empower local responses around the towns and cities
where people live and businesses prosper.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
Secretary of State statement yesterday on inviting Cumbria, North
Yorkshire, and Somerset, including associated existing unitary
councils, to submit proposals for moving to unitary local
government
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2020-10-12/hcws502
