Friday, September 18, 2020

That’s a nice County Council you’ve got there... pity if something happened to it...

It’s been a decade since the demise of the last attempt to restructure local government in Suffolk, when some of the dying breath of the Labour Government was wasted on a futile attempt to persuade the local political leadership to agree on a new structure. It was, in truth, doomed to failure, with the Labour leadership in Ipswich never likely to quietly accept any settlement that minimised their prospects of power, plus a whole bunch of Conservative District Councillors unwilling to abolish themselves. One of the first decisions of the Coalition was to kick the idea as far into the long grass as possible.

Ironically, as Ros noted at the time, with District Councils increasingly coming under financial pressure, the resulting mergers and pooling of back office functions acted as a gradual but inevitable driver towards larger councils - St Edmundsbury and Forest Heath combined to form West Suffolk, whilst Suffolk Coastal and Waveney came together to form East Suffolk. And yes, you still had three tiers, but the outline of possible new unitary authorities was, and is, emerging.

But financial pressures continue to mount, and the pandemic has driven all local authorities closer to crisis. The lurking attraction of creating unitaries becomes ever more alluring - a former Finance portfolio holder at County level, Richard Smith, estimated the financial benefit at £80 million - and harder to resist.

I do get the arguments against it - the loss of local representation, the difficulty in campaigning for insurgent candidates, the challenge to councillors in getting around their larger patches and to grasp the issues across multiple parishes, to name but some. But, ultimately, you have to ask the question, “do you want any locally supplied services beyond the statutory ones?”. And, regardless of what some might wish, the public do want buses, libraries and much else besides.

The challenge for towns and parishes is how to stay relevant when more remote from the principal authority. What opportunities will there be to take on service provision and can they be accessed in an á la carte fashion, depending on the size and ambition of the Town/Parish? Lowestoft, or Stowmarket, will be much more activist than, say, Creeting St Peter or Darmsden.

My sense is that, given the Government’s suggestion that authorities covering a population of 300-400 thousand people work best, Suffolk’s future is, ironically, its past - the recreation of East Suffolk and West Suffolk, based in Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds respectively. Dividing the county into Greater Ipswich and “Rural Suffolk” risks creating one authority lacking in cohesion and another made up of an inner urban area in conflict with a more rural doughnut surrounding it.

So, we’ll see how this goes. I suspect that the political leadership in the county haven’t really progressed in their thinking on the subject, but that they’ll end up being driven, either by a centralising Government that firmly believes in centralising things, or by financial necessity, into restructuring. It might not be pretty for any of us...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Your history, as well as your understanding of Ipswich's place is flawed.
Suffolk County Council was formed from THREE not TWO authorities.

Due to the catastrophic Local Government Act 1972, the County Borough of Ipswich was forced into a tripartite county council with East Suffolk and West Suffolk authorities. Urban Ipswich was “Suffolkated”.

The County-Borough of Ipswich and Ipswich citizens went from total authority, control and sovereignty; to the last 47 years of having almost no voice on the all-powerful county council cabinet.

Suffolk County Council’s all powerful cabinet has been like an occupying force: based here, controlling here, but rarely by anyone elected here.
It's not just northern towns! Ipswich has not only lost its authority and voice, it lost its pride and sense of place too.


When Ipswich entered Suffolk County Council in 1974, it was the most powerful of three authority stakeholders. It was a County Borough in its own right. It was also a stake holder and direct county town of the East Suffolk Authority (you know that magnificent building in St Helens Street which Suffolk County Council left abandoned). For what it is worth Ipswich retains a 1518 Royal Grant to govern the river and shores of the Orwell.

Yet, today SCC's all-powerful Cabinet rarely contains a single person from Ipswich, fropm total authority to none.

Ipswich citizens are totally confused by two tier local government, and blindly unaware that [since 1974] major decisions effecting the town’s infrastructure, planning, economic development and growth are made by a Suffolk County Council cabinet over which they have absolutely no say, or sway. The Borough is a bystander as SCDC and Waveney look to merge and exclude it forever from any say over Ipswich's 21st century generic growth and new suburbs. Urban Ipswich has been effectively excluded from power.

Rural Suffolk Conservatives still talk of the "rotten boroughs" of 19th century, yet now bask in their rotten shires of the 21st century.

Only a Greater Ipswich Unitary will fairly restore the power stolen from Suffolk's major town.

Mark Valladares said...

Unknown,

Firstly, thank you for reminding me of the old Ipswich County Borough - it was remiss of me to forget that.

However, how big would a Greater Ipswich unitary have to be to be viable? All of the evidence suggests that Ipswich itself is too small to be financially viable. The further you spread in order to make it viable, the more likely it becomes that you create the scenario you describe in miniature. And I still think that the remaining “Rural Suffolk” authority would lack cohesion and viability, having lost the focus of an obvious “County Town”.

You could, of course, introduce proportional representation in local government, which would allow Labour some representation outside of the major towns, and grant the Conservatives more in Ipswich than might otherwise be the case. Indeed, you probably wouldn’t have a one party majority, which in itself would probably lead to a leadership reflecting the diversity of our county.

It is, I fear a reflection of the demise of political parties that they increasingly have bailiwicks they can rely upon, each of which distrusts the other - the rural districts would prefer not to be run from and by Ipswich, and vice versa. But we’re never going to see the sort of financing available to local government that allowed the luxury of multiple tiers of government - central government increasingly decides what local government can or will do, and prefers to horde power in the centre. Financial control is part of that, much though I would like to see local people making local choices on what their Council raises and spends.

Thank you for dropping by though, and for your contribution.

Anonymous said...

Dear Cllr Vallardes,
You suggest that a rural Suffolk authority (seprate from a Greater Ipswich authority) would lack cohesion? yet, seem to think that East and West authorities some how will? Ipswich has absolutely nothing in common with Lowestoft and rural east Suffolk (north of Woodbridge) and yet you are happy for them to dominate Suffolk's great conurbation and economic powerhouse.

Suffolk East and Suffolk West Unitaries will effectively mean the end Ipswich's 820 year right of governance. An act of local government vandalism.

An analysis of recent County elections and District elections shows that a unitary East Suffolk + Ipswich authority not only snuffs out Ipswich’s large Borough Labour majority, but leaves non stakeholder, rural Conservatives in near permanent and total control of all Ipswich assets at both County and Borough level.

It will cement Ipswich's loss of authority and place.

Local government based here, for here, but rarely by anyone elected from here. RIP Ipswich.

A reform of local government for non-metropolitan and non-unitary councils is long overdue, and absolutely necessary.
We can no longer afford multi-layered, overlapping districts and county council structures.
We have to re-empower and restore authority and sense of place to our urban power houses like (my home) Ipswich.

Orwell Ahead’s “Reform Suffolk” high level proposal:

a) A single shared service provider for all Suffolk. Delivering all county and district services. Operationally, replacing 1 county, 2 super-districts, 2 districts and 1 borough.
b) Essentially the shared service group will supply to three, democratically elected, streamlined executive authorities (each its own profit and democratic centre). Based on historic & geopolitical commonality; E. Suffolk, W. Suffolk and Orwell (G. Ipswich & Felixstowe).

These proposals for local government reform are common sense.
The same model is used successfully for many of the world’s top organisations. Think Volkswagen-Audi which shares many backroom operational functions, but has separate profit centres and leadership) for its brands for VW, Audi, Skoda, Porsche, etc;

Please see more at: http://www.orwellahead.co.uk/reform-suffolk