Agenda item

For Full Council to debate the final proposal for Local Government Reorganisation and to agree any recommendations for Cabinet to consider.

Members considered the final proposal for Local Government Reorganisation (LGR).

 

Prior to debate, the Deputy Monitoring Officer provided further detail regarding why the Council was being asked to consider the proposal for Local Government Reorganisation in Greater Lincolnshire and make recommendations to Cabinet.

 

The submission of LGR proposals were an executive function under the Local Government Act 2000 Section 9D(2). This was in accordance with Part 3(b) paragraph 3.2.1 of the constitution which detailed that all functions other than those listed in Part 3(a) (Council Functions) would be the responsibility of the Cabinet.

 

LGR was not part of the Council's Policy Framework, or one of the specific functions of Council. However, due to the importance of LGR it had been considered appropriate for Full Council to scrutinise the proposals, to express a view, and make a recommendation to the Cabinet to be considered at its extraordinary meeting to be held on Monday 24th November.

 

Note:  Council Procedure Rule 14.4 was suspended to allow the Leader of the Council and a seconder for the recommendations to speak for up to ten minutes.

 

The Leader of the Council gave a presentation on LGR, which was appended to these minutes. Further information was highlighted as part of this presentation:

 

·       Briefings on the ramifications of LGR had been given on several occasions to councillors, officers and parish and town councils. Around 30 different parishes had sent representatives along to these briefings, demonstrating positive engagement with the LGR process.

·       It was not possible to merge two unitary authorities (North Lincolnshire Council and North-East Lincolnshire Council) against their will. It was not their current will to merge, so government would have to move further legislation to allow this to happen.

·       The ‘Kesteven Proposed Submission’ contained Unitary 1 (including North Kesteven District Council (NKDC), South Kesteven District Council (SKDC) and South Holland District Council (SHDC)), and Unitary 2 (including East Lindsey District Council (ELDC), West Lindsey District Council (WLDC) Boston Borough Council (BBC) and the City of Lincoln Council (CoLC)). North and North-East Lincolnshire Councils would remain as separate unitary authorities.

·       Rutland County had not been included in the final proposal. The reasons for this were:

o   Rutland was outside the Greater Lincolnshire Invitation area. It was in the Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland Invitation Area. Proposals which cross over different invitation areas were possible but would require a very strong rationale. The inclusion of Rutland into Unitary 1 would involve a very significant risk of being regarded as non-compliant with the statutory requirements.

o   A cross-invitation area proposal ought to have the clear commitment of all parties and, thus far, there had been no clear indication of support from Rutland CC.

o   There was further risk from uncertainty on the degree of modelling required by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) on impacts to the neighbouring Invitation Area.

o   The inclusion of Rutland within a proposal for Lincolnshire would require clear proposals for the remainder of the Leicestershire and Rutland invitation area.

o   Rutland currently had separate provision of several key services including Fire and Rescue. Clear arrangements for the delivery of these services would have needed to be included within the proposals.

o   Rutland was not part of the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority and therefore the inclusion would arguably not meet Criterion 5 which required that proposals supported devolution.

o   Compliance would be a matter of MHCLG discretion. MHCLG had communicated that if Rutland CC were to be included, it would have to be as part of the core proposal, not as an additional variation. It was considered that the risk of non-compliance was too high for a proposal that included Rutland CC to be submitted.

o   The Leader of the Council personally felt that the best outcome for residents in Rutland would be for them to be included in this proposal; however, it was of higher importance that SKDC did not get subsumed by a distant decision-making authority.

o   Therefore, the Rutland option was not taken forward.

 

·       The government had indicated a target population for new unitary authorities of 500,000 people; however, they had also said there was a ‘floor’ of 300,000.

·       The SKDC bid had utilised external consultancy support and advice on the areas that the Council was not currently responsible for, such as fire and rescue, and adults and children services. However, government grant monies had been available for this consultancy in addition to a sum of money that had been approved by Cabinet. Of the sum approved by Cabinet, £55,000 of the £75,000 had been spent to date.

·       Funds had been spent on engaging with residents. A good response had been achieved. An impressive response had also been seen at NKDC. SKDC residents spoke of the issues important to them (at the attached slide ‘Key Messages’)

·       Other proposals from around the county included:

o   A continuing authority model at Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) (existing footprint of the Council).

o   Lincoln City – expanded city with an authority they have called ‘rural Lincolnshire’ outside of the city boundaries.

o   ‘Greater Lincolnshire for all’ – ELDC, BBC, SHDC together proposing BBC, ELDC, SHDC, NKDC, CoLC and SKDC as a second authority.

 

·       The government required bid submissions to explain how different workstreams fitted together, including fire and rescue. Until very recently it had been possible to move the whole of Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue to the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC); however, a message from government conveyed that in the medium term the PCC may become the responsibility of the Combined Mayoral Authority.

·       Part of this process would look at reconciling the fire service in Lincolnshire with the different service in North and North-East Lincolnshire.

·       External support had looked at various models for Adult and Children’s Social Care to keep those services financially viable, but also local.

·       Disaggregation of services had been considered within the submission.

·       There would be an enormous cost to all authorities regardless of which submission was successful. This would be due to establishing a shadow authority, creating a staffing structure, and the basic administration involved in re-organising a sizeable area.

·       At years 3 and 4 of LGR residents would start to see a financial benefit of reducing to a single tier of governance.

·       A benefit to being within a unitary authority was simplification for residents. Within a two-tier system of governance (with the addition of parish and town councils) it could sometimes be a struggle to discover who was responsible for which service.

·       The proposed LCC model would reduce the number of councillors from well over 200 to 70. This would give Lincolnshire one of the highest number of electors per councillor in the country.

·       SKDC’s U1 proposal would see a worse ratio of electors to councillors than the current setup; however, the ratio was more positive than that seen under the LCC model.

 

Following this introduction, councillors debated the proposals before them. The following information was highlighted during debate:

 

·       Very few members of the public wanted LGR. However, it was a reality that SKDC had to face. This was the best possible compromise keeping councils as local as possible, broadly within a new South Lincolnshire. The main alternative seemed to be coming from County Hall, requesting a whole county unitary model. If government agreed to this Lincolnshire would be a huge, remote authority.

·       The SKDC proposal was the best option. Councillors needed to move forward and concentrate on what they had been elected to do.

·       Rutland was outside Lincolnshire’s jurisdiction, and only ever added up to higher taxes for SKDC residents. SHDC wished to remain with BBC and ELDC. The obvious route was to follow LCC’s continuous authority model with no need to bring in consultants.

 

An amendment was proposed as follows:

 

1.    That this council issues a formal apology on behalf of the Leader for the mishandling of the local government reorganisation negotiations, including the expenditure of tens of thousands of pounds, and the conduct criticised publicly by the Leader of Rutland County Council.

 

2.    That the council’s submission on local government reorganisation shall align with, and mirror, the decision taken by Lincolnshire County Council at its meeting tomorrow.

 

This proposal was seconded.

 

Recommendation 2 was ruled out of order as it proposed an unknown course of action; the decision of Lincolnshire County Council was not known at this stage and therefore SKDC Councillors could not follow a decision that hadn’t been taken.

 

On being put to the vote, the remainder of amendment was not agreed and therefore the amendment was LOST.

 

Debate ensued on the substantive recommendations:

 

·       The Conservative group had encouraged a free vote, and in general were relieved that Rutland had been removed from the submission.

·       In addition to LGR, the government had enforced a complete reorganisation of the NHS. The Integrated Care Boards (ICB) had now expanded to group Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire together.

·       In Grantham St. Vincent’s ward reorganisation could see the area moving from one County Councillor and 3 District Councillors down to 2 councillors. This was a massive ask for campaigning in the future.

·       No proposal for children’s services was perfect, each had risks and some offered opportunities.

·       The LCC continuous authority option had important strengths. However, the LCC option represented a missed opportunity – part of the purpose of LGR was to shape services for the next 30-50 years. Their model would create an even larger council with a larger set of pressures, whilst not reflecting the diversity of the county.

·       The LCC suggestion to reduce the number of councillors to 70 widened the democratic deficit.

·       This was the best compromise to ensure value for money services. LGR would do nothing to fix a crisis in local democracy. Residents were increasingly disengaged, and this would be worsened by making local government distant from the people it represented.

·       The best compromise would be returning to pre-1974 boundaries, restoring Lindsey, Kesteven and Holland.

·       There should be caution around projected savings attached to LGR.

·       There had been no meaningful cooperation from Rutland to date. However, it was pleasing to see that the door was still open for Rutland should RCC and the government agree that it was the optimal solution for them to join Lincolnshire’s reorganisation bid.

·       The existing administrative borders around Stamford were not sufficient for residents of the town and the surrounding villages. There was also a short section of the A1 in a separate mayoral authority to Lincolnshire. One member wished to petition the Secretary of State to receive relevant boundary changes for Stamford and the A1.

·       In terms of geography and history BBC sat nicely within the South Holland block. It had a lot in common with fenland areas, and its population would not take it over the government’s suggested population target.

·       LGR had been spoken about many times in recent years. The government were aiming to save money through scale. It was not a surprise to see councillors opposing lower numbers of councillors.

·       There were very clear arguments on paper why unitary councils were more beneficial to residents than a two-tier system of governance. In the past, every single time this had been looked at the promised cost savings attached to creating a unitary authority never appeared. Local democracy was lost – whilst gaining more spending power.

·       Lincolnshire was not resorting to a single tier of governance as it had recently gained the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority.

·       One member suggested that if a good argument was made then the government would listen, as had been seen in Cheshire.

 

The Leader of the Council was permitted to respond to questions that had been raised during debate:

 

·       No representations from Boston Borough Council towards SKDC had been made to join the SKDC bid. It had not been suggested by any members of officers from within SK. In informal meetings there had been mention of including Peterborough or Boston; however there had been no momentum behind these suggestions. Boston also came with a price tag attached to flood defence areas. SKDC paid around £1 million to Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs), Boston paid £5 million. Boston’s inclusion would also skew the population figures between SKDC’s UA1 and UA2 options.

·       The Leader of SHDC had said that if their proposal of ‘A Greater Lincolnshire for all’ failed then joining within SKDC would be their ‘Plan B’. However, this statement was not binding.

·       Merging across the invitation areas was problematic – there was no power to merge existing unitary authorities. Within Lincolnshire there was no consensus behind one option, so all local authorities were putting forward submissions they considered to be best.

 

In summing up, Councillor Lee Steptoe emphasised that most political groups on the council had come together to back the LGR recommendation to Cabinet.

 

A recorded vote was requested – the results of the recorded vote on the printed recommendations were as follows:

 

For:              Councillors Matt Bailey, Emma Baker, Rhys Baker, Ashley Baxter, Pam Bosworth, Pam Byrd, Richard Cleaver, Helen Crawford, James Denniston, Phil Dilks, Barry Dobson, Paul Fellows, Tim Harrison, Gloria Johnson, Anna Kelly, Gareth Knight, Philip Knowles, Zoe Lane, Robert Leadenham, Bridget Ley, Virginia Moran, Charmaine Morgan, Chris Noon, Habib Rahman, Susan Sandall, Max Sawyer, Ian Selby, Vanessa Smith, Lee Steptoe, Paul Stokes, Elvis Stooke, Rosemary Trollope-Bellew, Sarah Trotter, Murray Turner, Jane Wood, Paul Wood (36)

 

Against:        Councillors Ben Green, Graham Jeal, Peter Stephens (3)

 

Abstention:    Councillor Paul Martin (1)

 

Having been proposed and seconded, and following the recorded vote it was AGREED:

 

DECISION:

 

That Full Council recommend to Cabinet the proposal to reorganise Lincolnshire into two new unitary authorities in the south alongside the two existing unitary authorities to the north:

 

·       Unitary Authority 1 being comprised of the geographies of: North Kesteven; South Holland; and South Kesteven.

·       Unitary Authority 2 being comprised of the geographies of: Boston Borough: City of Lincoln; East Lindsey and West Lindsey.

·       The existing unitaries of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire would remain unchanged, with optionality for a future merger.

 

The Chairman wished to thank the following for the huge amount of work on LGR: Kath Marriott (Chief Executive of NKDC), Cllr Richard Wright (Leader of NKDC), Councillor Ashley Baxter, Richard Wyles and his team, Charles James for his sterling work compiling the proposal, and the strategic leadership from Chief Executive Karen Bradford.

 

Note:  The meeting adjourned at 3:20pm and reconvened at 3:38pm.