Introduction
David Marlow [00:02]
Ministers are expected to say within days what’s next for England’s council reorganisation. Well, are they actually finally going to tell us what the reform is for, or is it going to be just more of how many councils there should be, and with what population each?
Mike Spicer [00:21]
And with Scotland now proposing six to ten regions and up to 160 community authorities, is it any closer to an answer? I’m Mike Spicer,
David Marlow [00:31]
and I’m David Marlow. Welcome to LED Confidential, the podcast that tries to lift the lid on those intractable, enduring challenges facing those of us working in and on local economic development and placemaking today.
Where England and Scotland stand
Mike Spicer [00:44]
So, David, a month ago, within a day of the announced pause to England’s local government reorganisation, or LGR as we’ve come to know it, we published a draft LEDC manifesto for both reform programmes. It was based around eight principles and four asks of both governments, and the core of it was: LGR has to be for something, and that something is inclusive, sustainable growth and cohesive places. It shouldn’t be framed by either of the two myths that have blighted England’s reorganisation. One is the unitary myth, as we’ve come to call it, that taking out a tier simplifies anything when you are currently adding a strategic authority tier. The other is the savings myth, that LGR can yield major financial dividends to the Treasury and the councils themselves.
So, if we look at England first: on the seventh of September, Angela Rayner withdrew earlier decisions for Essex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Norfolk and Suffolk, and paused 14 more. Ministers talked about weeks rather than months for more clarity on where LGR is headed next. And there are legal challenge deadlines and political rumours that suggest we can expect this soon. Jim McMahon told Labour conference that reorganisation would come back stronger. So by the time you hear this, the government may well have spoken.
On to Scotland. Our manifesto went out a week after the programme for government opened a three-month conversation about councils that are too small to be strategic or too big to be local. On the 21st of September, ministers put numbers on it: six to ten regional authorities and 120 to 160 community authorities, with councillors elected by ward sitting on both. The regional tier gets an enhanced role in economic development and business support, and the community tier gets planning, licensing and town centre regeneration. There are no costings yet, nothing on the city region deals and how that fits in, and initial conclusions are due by the end of the year. So, David, where are you coming from on all of this?
The David Waite test, Rewiring and the longevity problem
David Marlow [02:54]
I would love to be positive, and I would love to say that they read our emergency LGR briefing and changed their views accordingly. I fear that I can’t really do that. Although Scotland looks a little bit more consistent with what we were saying than England, albeit that we don’t entirely know what the English ministers are going to say, I do think that both governments are still failing what I would call the David Waite test. That’s what he came up with in the episode he did with us over the summer, which is, broadly speaking, that you start with what you’re trying to achieve, and then work out the structures from that. Whether it’s unitary or multi-tier or whatever, you sort it out that way. I think both governments are still not quite clear on that, although arguably Scotland is a bit closer than England.
On England, I do think Rewiring changes things fundamentally, in the sense that co-terminality with health, with policing, with environmental catchments and so on, and with cultural national bodies, might actually be as important as the final boundary and number of councils. Secondly, I do think Rewiring shifts the focus to delivery capacity, and I’d reference our episode on civil service secondments and how that isn’t really the capacity building that we all need. I hope that government, and there are some signs of this informally, gets the Devo and LGR sequencing right. In a sense, press ahead with creating a purposeful strategic authority, and then almost see what local government would work best in the sense of the strategic tier. I think there is an asymmetry, let’s be honest, in England. What is right in LGR terms for non-metropolitan geographies with non-mature strategic authorities is inevitably going to be radically different from what is going to be continuing, actually quite small unitaries in metropolitan areas with more mature mayoral strategic authorities.
My last point before handing back to you is that what all this means is that I think it’s just going to fail the longevity test. Until we get a proper constitutional settlement about what subnational government is actually for, these structures are going to inevitably be at the risk of churn from changes in national government. Does that resonate with where you’re coming from, Mike?
Why LGR is more disruptive than devolution
Mike Spicer [06:11]
So I think that’s the big picture. If I can take it down a level or two into the practicalities, and I don’t know how many of our listeners will agree with me when I say this, my lived experience is that LGR is a significantly more disruptive process than devolution. Let me give you a couple of examples of why I think that’s true.
The first thing is that there are strategic authorities that already operate with two-tier local government. That’s not unusual. We can all name strategic authorities that already have county councils and district authorities as members. So it is absolutely possible for a place to acquire and establish a strategic authority under the current structure of English local government, and devolution can proceed without LGR. I think that’s the first thing.
The second thing is that LGR introduces some real challenges to the devolution of funding. If you have pots of money and responsibilities that you expect will be discharged in the future from a strategic authority, there is a potential for discontinuity of institutions if county councils disappear. You could have cliff edges in funding: services or programmes where the county council is currently the accountable body, and it disappears, and you’ve potentially got a gap of a few years before the strategic authority is in any position to take on those things. So I do think that running them concurrently presents a real challenge of how you keep services running in a way that is respectful of residents and speaks to their issues, and if LGR is paused, that actually resolves some of those timeline issues.
So at a practical level, I wonder, David, whether the government behind closed doors has started to think, do you know what, actually Devo is easier than LGR. Why don’t we focus a bit more on that? And actually LGR is starting to give us problems that we don’t really need at this point in the parliament. Obviously there are mixed messages coming out of government over whether this is a pause or a kind of quietly dropping of certain proposals. It may be that by the time this goes live, everything will be back on the table again. We don’t know, but I wonder whether they’re having those debates, David. I don’t know whether you agree.
What happens next
David Marlow [09:04]
I think those debates are ongoing, and they’re ongoing at all the different tiers. One of the regions that I’m working in at the moment, which is one of the LGR and Devo areas, does expect an announcement during October, and they are working on the basis that the pause was a pause, more or less to firm up any potential legal challenges, maybe a little bit of tweaking at the edges, but a pause.
And building on your point, I wonder whether government will pick a mix. I think it is going to proceed where it can with Devo, on a fast track, but with LGR it will just pick a mix. Where they think it can be landed in a way that is sensible to the Rewiring agenda and their priorities, they’ll go for it, and where it’s just going to indulge them in these awful logjams of judicial reviews, conflict and paralysis or bureaucratic congestion, they’ll just drop it. So my expectation would be cherry-picking, actually.
Mike Spicer [10:28]
So basically, we’re about as far away from the David Waite test as we can be. If that turns out, which is sad,
Closing thoughts
David Marlow [10:36]
isn’t it? Which is why I finished with the longevity point, and I think we do need to draw it to a close, and obviously come back to it when, similar to appointing a pope, some smoke appears from the hallowed towers of Whitehall and Westminster. But look, I hope listeners have enjoyed our brief look at the current status of local government reform on both sides of the border. Please let us know how it’s playing out in your area. Our manifesto set out eight principles and asked you to challenge them: how do they look today? Do share your suggestions for how we might get into these issues in greater depth, with guest or themed episode suggestions. And as ever, you can connect with us and all things LED Confidential through our website, www.ledconfidential.co.uk, where you’ll also find the manifesto, the episodes behind each principle, our bonus material, and a way to send us your suggestions. Until the next time.
