County Council plans for one Mega Council for Leicestershire will make decision making more remote

Leicestershire County Council’s Conservative leadership has today brought forward proposals which would see the abolition of all the Boroughs and Districts in Leicestershire and the creation of one large mega Council for Leicestershire.

 Speaking against the plans in the debate Liberal Democrat leader of the opposition on Leicestershire County Council Michael Mullaney said “I speak against the proposals to abolish Hinckley and Bosworth and all the other Borough and District Councils in Leicestershire to create one mega Council for Leicestershire.

 “Firstly it will mean local government no longer being local. A single authority for Leicestershire will create an authority of around three quarters of a million people. People tell me they already feel that decision making is too remote from their everyday lives. How much more remote will it seem if decision making is taken by such a large authority?

 “The message from the government which the County Council is echoing with it’s plans for one Council for all of Leicestershire is that big is better. The government seems to think that with local government in huge financial difficulty it can make councils that are too big to fail. But we remember that Birmingham City Council financially failed and it was the largest council in Europe.

 “Scrapping all Boroughs and Districts will mean the loss of local knowledge. Local housing teams often know many of the tenants in their areas. Local borough councils do lots of work with local voluntary and community groups. It’s this local knowledge that risks being lost if we see a huge Mega Council created.

 “Leicestershire County Council as set out in it’s budget statement today  is facing a deficit of nearly £100 million by 2028/29.

 “It is certainly the case that local government is in financial difficulty across the country. But is scrapping all Boroughs and District Councils and creating huge Unitary Councils the answer?

 “The government seems to think that single county Unitary Councils will be more financially viable. Yet Shropshire which scrapped its districts some years ago to create one Unitary for the whole of Shropshire has said loudly recently that it is near financial collapse. So clearly getting rid of Borough and District Council and creating huge Unitary Councils in there place is not a guaranteed solution to the problems of local government finance.

 “The government seems keen on these plans to scrap boroughs and districts and create huge Mega councils to save money.

 “Yet the evidence for this is very uncertain. There have been local government reorganisations recently in Cumbria and Somerset, these ran into the costs of 10s of millions of pounds. To now do this to the rest of England to abolish all Boroughs and Districts in the whole country is likely to costs 100s of millions if not billions of pounds to do.

 “It will also cause huge disruption, it will mean council officers spending all their time preparing for re organisation of Councils rather than delivering services for local residents.

 “I and the Liberal Democrats believe that the plans to scrap all the Boroughs and Districts in Leicestershire to create one Mega authority would be a disaster. It would mean local government no longer being local. It will mean decision making being more remote from people’s everyday lives. It will mean many discretionary local services that local Boroughs and District Councils like Hinckley and Bosworth currently provide like the programme of local events and support for voluntary and community groups being lost. 

“It will mean huge disruption as people have to prepare for the old councils being abolished and the new mega council being created. It means the potential loss of local knowledge where local council officers who know their local areas being lost. It will cost a huge amount of money without guaranteeing any real savings.

 “Scrapping the Boroughs and Districts in Leicestershire and creating a single Mega Council for the County is wrong. These plans should be dropped and we in the Lib Dem group will continue to oppose them tooth and nail.”