Herald Express: What will the future of local government be?

Most people know which council collects their bins and recycling. Just as most know who charges them for parking.  

But ask someone in the street which council is responsible for providing care for the elderly or disabled, or ensuring there is adequate education provision for all local school children and the answer might not be quite so forthcoming.  

Fundamentally, most people do not mind who provides these services. What they want, first and foremost, is for them to be delivered efficiently and at a reasonable cost.  

I have hesitated to talk about Local Government Reorganisation in this column because I know it is vague, complicated and may be seen as unimportant in the context of our busy daily lives.  

But the Government’s decision to reorganise local government across England and Wales could end up having a colossal impact on some of the services that we heavily rely on in our day to day lives. Think: bin collection, recycling, potholes, parking, SEND provision and social care.  

It is going to cost a huge amount of money to reorganise local government and will take the wind out of councils for the next two years as they operate in an unpredictable environment, not knowing whether they will even exist after 2028. 

Currently, the county has a hodgepodge of systems. Torbay has one council, which delivers every service. In the rest of Devon, the system is very different.  

One County Council, based in Exeter, runs some services – such as roads, schools and social care – while multiple District Councils cover everything else, including planning, waste and recycling.  

The Government wants to scrap the two-tier system we have in Devon and create a single council that does everything, much like the approach in Torbay.  

It also wants to manage the size of these new councils, so one council for the whole county would probably be considered too big, while Torbay may well be seen as too small.  

Several proposals are on the table for the future of local government in Devon. Each council has been tasked with submitting an idea. Sadly, Devon County Council, Plymouth City Council, Torbay Council, the Devon Districts, and Exeter could not agree on a model that suited everyone, so they have all submitted different plans.  

The Government will soon respond to these submissions and give an idea of which proposal it supports. It could mean big changes for people living in Torbay, or not, depending on whether the Government agrees that Torbay should continue as a unitary council. 

If not, then Torbay could be grouped together with neighbouring areas – such as South Hams and Teignbridge – and services will be provided across a larger footprint. Judging from what I hear on the doorsteps in Brixham, this might not be such an unwelcome idea, despite what they say in Torquay Town Hall.  

The Government’s aim to simplify local government delivery is admirable, but there is a fundamental flaw at the heart of their plans. Unfortunately, it is the same flaw that plagues many of their aspirations and it is called funding.  

Local councils do not get enough money from Westminster to provide the services they are legally obliged to run. This means all the quote-on-quote ‘nice to have’ extras, like swimming pools and youth clubs, get cut when money is tight.  

In this context, it does not really matter what the council is called or where it sits if it cannot afford to do the job it is designed for. This is why the Liberal Democrats have long called for a realistic local government settlement in the annual budget, to enable councils to provide good services.  

If the Government is serious about devolving power down to where residents are, it must accompany this with funding. Otherwise, they risk bogging councillors down with a confusing, protracted reorganisation process that ultimately will lead to no improvement in service provision because the funds are not there to pay for it.