James Hulme, NLGN
Pubilc Servant

Previous attempts at reorganisation have lacked coherency and left local government lacking an easily understandable structure, says James Hulme, head of communications at New Local Government Network, so can these new structures really bring people closer to their local democracy and services?

In local government circles, the unitaries debate has joined politics and religion as subjects best avoided at the dinner table. The often fractious and controversial battles within two-tier councils has undoubtedly caused friction within the local government family, but perhaps now is the time to let the dust settle and review what impact the new unitary councils will have on devolution and bringing local people closer to their local government.

The government certainly seems to think that greater unitarisation will lead not only to streamlined services but better governance. There will therefore be intense scrutiny on the nine new unitaries due to take shape in April 2009 to provide better and more effective leadership and corporate governance. The local government minister, John Healey has set them an ambitious target of becoming flagship councils for the rest of the country and, given that he is regarded as one of the hardest working Ministers in government, he is unlikely to let them rest on their laurels.

What though will be the impact on individual communities? The government’s ambition – stretching back to when David Miliband was Communities Secretary – has always been to make councils more accountable to the needs of 21st Century communities; something that was seen to have failed by the previous round of restructuring under Sir John Banham. Miliband saw unitary councils as a key part of delivering his double devolution of filtering power from the centre, through local government and down to communities.

On a very simple level, it was argued, unitaries would simplify the horribly complex structures of local government and ensure that wherever people lived they understood what their council delivered. In many ways local democracy needs to be clearer and more transparent, if only to more coherently demonstrate the many positive things it delivers for its citizens, so that they can understand its true worth. An often quoted example in favour of more unitaries highlights the confusion in areas where grass verges were maintained by the parish council, the pavement was kept clean by the district council, while the county council looked after the road. Wouldn’t any change be an improvement on the currently painfully low public understanding of the difference between councils and county councils, district and parish councils, let alone regional government?

Moreover, with “empowerment” being the current buzzword in the corridors of CLG and a White Paper soon to be published which will deliver direct control over more services to local people, are unitaries likely to play a significant role? It is possible that further unitarisation could go hand in hand with beefed-up powers for smaller town or parish councils, enabling local citizens to have a closer grasp on issues such as regeneration and anti-social behaviour. With elected mayors also at the forefront of current CLG thinking, could a unitary structure go hand in hand with new mayoral governance arrangements?

However, critics including Michael Chisholm in this very publication point towards the piecemeal nature of unitary reform and argue that new unitary councils will have to cover a much larger population than current ones. Would this not lead to local people feeling more detached from their local decision makers? Indeed, as many District Councils have complained, creating one council would produce an authority too remote to deliver truly local services or community leadership.

There is also the not inconsiderable issue of the cost of further unitaries, figures of which vary depending on the source. In an era of tight public finances, the government could look towards further unitalisation to deliver efficiency savings or conversely could decide that the costs to manage the unitarisation process is prohibitably high. There is also the political sensitivities which Ministers, mindful that some areas still bear the scars of often bitter arguments over unitarisation, might wish to avoid. A government that has just had a hiding at the local elections might wish to wait a while before making further enemies.

Accordingly to John Healey, the new unitary structures have “a once in a generation opportunity to shape their communities”. Hyperbole aside, their experiences may well go a long way to deciding whether the government goes further down the route of unitarisation or whether local government reorganisation is put back on the shelf for another 20 years. Previous attempts at reorganisation have lacked coherency and left local government lacking an easily understandable structure. If these new structures can bring people closer to their local democracy and services, half the battle may well have been won.