I believe that at their best, local authorities are custodians of places, anchor institutions of the areas they administer. They can take a long-term view as champion for and shaper of the places that fall within their boundaries; they offer local solutions to local problems; they co-ordinate the best of local public services in response to need; they are a champion for a vibrant third sector that often fills the gaps between statutory services and adds significantly to the richness of local life; and they broker difficult decisions through the mobilisation of consent. All of this is grounded in local accountability to the very populations they serve.   

A strong, local, democratically-accountable foundation is, therefore, an essential part of a healthy society. And for that to be the case, it is critical that we get the structures right. Structures can enable or constrain; liberate or imprison. To get them right there are two considerations of purpose: first, the purpose of Local government itself. If we apply the idiom of form following function, let’s get clear on function first. Then we must dive a bit deeper into considering the purpose of the restructure itself. This is the oft-ignored piece, as without surfacing these drivers of change, we can all be following the same process but our different assumptions over what is most important will lead to an unnecessarily fractious process. In this article I will look at these two aspects of process. 

Even after almost 200 years^⁠1 of local government, questions of purpose are not straightforward ones to answer. Is local government there to represent its citizens, lead the development of local places, implement national policy, nurture communities, tackle local issues, support the most vulnerable, attract investment and growth, join up local public services, manage the environment, represent local interests at regional and national levels, mobilise consent for critical decisions, be a custodian of place in the long-term…  

The answer is probably a bit of everything, and this that makes restructuring a tricky proposition. Different people will place different degrees of emphasis on these aspects of purpose and, to compound the issue, it is too easy to jump straight into the how. Yet we need to answer the question of purpose before we can figure out how best to meet that purpose. 

To help with this, it important to consider legacy: How did we get here^⁠2? The last, national, wide-ranging reorganisation of local government was a result of the Redcliffe-Maud commission^⁠3 in the late 1960s / early 1970s, which led to the establishment of two tier local government, albeit not on a geography recommended by the review. Having worked in a two tier area I felt the frustrations of what was increasingly a blurred line of responsibility and accountability. Yet reading the papers from that time, and seeing the structures that it was designed to replace in large rural parts of the country, I realised – begrudgingly perhaps – that it kinda made sense. I just think the lines have become obfuscated with time and the slow accretion of new functions and responsibilities at each tier, while the wider waters have been muddied by the introduction of sub-regional and regional tiers of government, as well as multiple forms of governance.  

If we haven’t clearly defined the purpose of local government we will end up with a Frankenstein monster of a structure. This probably warrants a longer-term exercise looking at critical trends and stretching our thinking towards 2100. Two-tier local government has been around for over 50 years, so let’s ensure that the solutions we come up with stand a reasonable chance of being fit for purpose for the next 50. The extent to which we can we future-proof our decisions is critical. 

It follows that we must also be clear about the purpose of the restructure itself. It is almost too obvious to state, but the purpose of reorganisation must be to deliver a structure that enables local government to achieve its purpose, so far as is practicable. But that isn’t the only thing that the review will seek to achieve. We must surface the hidden assumptions in order to take account of context and help us navigate the tensions that will emerge along the way, as not all aims are mutually compatible. 

What are those time? Are we trying to generate financial savings or make it easier to invest in localities? Improve or reduce local democratic accountability? Devolve functions and powers or draw more up to Westminster? Drive accountability to local people or make it easier for government departments to hold local authorities to account? Gain operating efficiencies or  make it easier for the private/third sector to access public contracts? Increase or decrease local political influence on national party politics? Improve services for local people or marginalise local authorities from service provision? And so the list goes on. 

If the purpose is to save money, we’ll assume biggest is best (even though we know it’s not) and go for county-wide structures. If we assume local communities are most important and we should seek to optimise for quality of service and engagement, we will go smaller. If we believe local economies are most important, we might look to create local authorities that can be custodians of places that make sense to the way local economies work and the ways people live their lives. If we want every local authority to serve a similar population, we will end up with one form of standardisation and some strange lines on maps. 

Whether you see these as positive or negative depends on your values and philosophy. My assumption here is that any reorganisation will be driven by the need to reduce costs and find ways to avoid the spectre of local authorities declaring themselves effectively bankrupt, as so many are close to doing. There is a danger his process runs the risk of being a missed opportunity, for doing something simply to save money is not a particularly compelling or visionary picture of the future; it would be a continuation of the austerity logic that has decimated local services and deprived communities of vital resources. 

Without compelling answers as to the purpose of local government and the purpose of the reorganisation, and without active efforts to align the two, we will end up with a structural answer in search of a solution. The process will be all about the structure and not about what that structure is designed to enable, thus seeding the very elements of its destruction in its design. That approach doesn’t tend to end well. So let’s turn next to questions of process. 

<< Part 1 | Part 3 >>

Read all these blogs in a single article or download as a Policy + Practice paper here.

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¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_Corporations_Act_1835

² https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347685190_Local_government_in_England_evolution_and_long-term_trends

³ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/long-shadows-50-years-of-the-local-government-act-1972/