Reorganising Warwickshire’s councils could cost up to £17m as initial responses are finalised

By Andy Mitchell,

Local Democracy Reporter

REORGANISING Warwickshire’s local authorities is expected to cost between £15 million and £17 million.

The estimated bill for scrapping the current council structure and creating either one or two new unitary authorities was included in a report to Stratford District Council on Monday (17th March).

Councillors were finalising their initial response to the government’s request to councils to put forward ideas of how they see the future of their area shaping up.

While Warwickshire County Council believes one new authority is the answer, establishing two new unitary authorities was the “clear preference” of the districts and borough council, SDC leader Cllr Susan Juned (Lib Dem, Alcester East) said on Monday.

Warwickshire’s main council services are currently split between WCC and the five districts and boroughs underneath. Under government plans to cut bureaucracy, a reorganisation will see all of those services dealt with through one level of local government.

The six current councils agree that Warwickshire’s boundaries should remain as they are and that the current district and borough footprints should shape any new council or councils. However, SDC and Warwick District Council would prefer to create a new authority covering their areas and leave North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth and Rugby to create another.

The initial plan which will be submitted to government will include both options - rival submissions will be created over the coming months in order to meet the final deadline in the winter.

The county council’s initial report suggests £21 million per year could be saved over five years with a single authority, figures not disputed by work done on behalf of the districts and boroughs, but the county argues splitting things like adult social care and the fire service over two new councils would limit savings to £8 million across the first five years combined.

A report for the districts and boroughs suggests £18 million per year could still be saved across two authorities, but Cllr Juned stressed it should not simply be a numbers game.

“We have to make sure that it is not just savings that dominate; local services have to work well. It must be carefully worked out and backed up by evidence,” she said.

“We know that there is widespread research that localised councils are more responsive to the needs of their communities and businesses. The message that goes to the government has to be that it is not just about size, it is about the improvements we can make in efficiency and effectiveness, not just cost reduction.

“Citizen engagement is at the risk of damage when local government becomes too distant and out of touch. At a time when we have a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis and a social care crisis, we must not forget who public services are for and what we need to achieve to meet the needs of residents.”

In the end, all bar one councillor backed plans that will see both ideas - one and two authorities - thrashed out and assessed ahead of final submissions to London in November. Cllr Chris Mills (Con, Gaydon, Kineton & Upper Lighthorne), who also serves as chairman of Warwickshire County Council, abstained.

Leader of the opposition, Cllr Sarah Whalley Hoggins (Con, Brailes & Compton), was thwarted in her attempts to refer back to budget proposals that she opposed, including £1.2m hydro electricity scheme.

She hinted that the Lib Dem group was being frivolous over spending priorities as it becomes clearer that the current district council’s days are numbered.

“I look forward to hearing in due course, whichever proposal moves forward, how we will be able to provide for special education needs, education, social care, the fire service and home-to-school transport,” she said, calling for “particular attention” to be paid to the cost of splitting current county-wide services across two councils.

“Money is short, taxpayers are suffering in every echelon of our society,” she added.

Cllr Liz Coles (Lib Dem, Stratford Hathaway) made the case for “business as usual”.

“We need to make sure we are mindful in our work to provide a smooth transition and to carry on the services we provide,” she said. “There will be an accumulation of the services from district and county into a new council but neither we nor the existing county council is that new council, so I don’t think now is the time to stop doing our responsibilities in order to serve a new council that doesn’t exist yet.”

SDC agreed that £50,000 be made available to complete the formal submission to the government, which has a deadline of 28th November.

However, one of the major hurdles the Stratford-Warwick authority will face is its size as the government has suggested the right size to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks is a population of 500,000 or more.

Warwickshire as a whole has a population of about 620,000. Stratford and Warwick’s population is fewer than 300,000. However, there can be exceptions to the rule.

Stratford and Warwick will also need to decide where, as a South Warwickshire authority, their future lies in strategic (regional) terms. The West Midlands Combined Authority is one option but includes the urban areas of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Solihull and Birmingham while Stratford is much more rural.

There are also other county councils that could become regional partners, but some have more in common with the south, and others more in common in the north of the county - there isn’t one that naturally fits Warwickshire’s diverse district and boroughs.

Other arguments for a South Warwickshire authority include councillors - and officers - being closer to the communities they serve. A single authority for Warwickshire could see councillor numbers reduced by 55 per cent, according to the SDC report, leaving 114 people to represent the entire county population - there are currently 257 include 41 at SDC.

‘Such a reduction in councillors as identified above would result in an average of 3,937 [people] per councillor, almost twice that at the current district and borough level,” the report states.

Cllr Juned concluded: “This interim plan has been agreed by all five district and borough councils in Warwickshire as a starting place for the direction we want to take. There is a clear preference for a north and south unitary option, but we have to build the data and vision for the case we will put in our final submission in November. We also have to consider the final details of the strategic authority that we will be in.

“In the final submission we will want to emphasise that the most important part of the case are the people who live here and the services we give them. Making savings is not the same as making sure local services work well.”

She added: “There is widespread research that shows that smaller, more localised councils are more responsive to the unique needs of communities and businesses in each city, town and village. It’s not being super-sized that makes a council high performing or financially stable – it’s years of hard work by dedicated public servants with clear leadership.

“We will take a balanced and measured approach which puts collaboration, evidence, partnership and communities at the heart of our final plan.”