Publications

Local government

John Healey MP

Minister of State

Minister for Local Government

IDeA Seminar on Local Government Re-Organisation

Date of speech	20 September 2007
Location	Holiday Inn, Bloomsbury, London
Event summary	IDeA seminar on Local Government re-organisation

Draft text of the speech - may differ from the delivered version.

Thank you for inviting me to join you this afternoon and thank you to the IDeA for hosting this event. You may have a lot of questions and I hope, over the next 24 hours, you will also have a lot of points of view to contribute to shaping the process that lies ahead for all of us.

I'm not even three months into my new job and I am extremely lucky. I have one of the best jobs in government and certainly one of the biggest jobs at Minister of State level. Although not everybody has always seen that. Some of you may know what Churchill wrote in 1907 when he was trying to influence some of the appointments Asquith was making in government. And he said, in writing, of the local government job: "There is no place in government more laborious, more anxious, more thankless … more full of hopeless and insoluble difficulties than local government."

Well local government reorganisation is difficult territory but it is certainly not insoluble. This conference is an important event for us. Not least because, when I look down the list and I look round the room, what's clear is that you are all either experts in this field or you are affected directly by the proposals that are in train. Therefore the examination and the contribution you make over the next 24 hours to the detailed issues involved will be important to shape the way forward.

Can I also acknowledge immediately how important the Local Government Association [LGA]'s practical and leadership role has been in this programme so far, and will continue to be. As Sir Simon [Milton] said when I announced the decisions on 25 July: while "Opinion has undoubtedly been sharply divided on the merits of creating unitary authorities … now it is time to focus on the successful creation of new authorities."

The LGA has been making good, in practical ways, those words.

One other reflection - I have to say that since I got this job I have also been really impressed by the commitment to the cause of local government that I have found in virtually every council and every player that I have dealt with so far.

I have also been very impressed by the arrangements and activities in place to provide mutual aid within the local government sector. And to do so in a very effective way across political parties. That too will play an important role in the months ahead on restructuring.

But above all, let me acknowledge how hard it must be for the authorities from the areas involved in reorganisation - all authorities - whether you were part of preparing the proposals that we are minded now to implement, or whether you were involved in proposing ways forward that haven't been accepted. It is the time now for us all to pull together and to work together as Sir Simon and the LGA have urged.

I have to say that it is not necessarily an easy matter for the officials and for us in Communities and Local Government Department either. But I give you this commitment - I am determined that we discharge our duties and our role in this, fairly, openly and in partnership with you.

Teams of officials from my Department are already visiting the bid areas, already meeting with Leaders, Chief Executives and others in affected local authorities. Yesterday we had teams in Durham and Cheshire. On Monday we will have a team in Cornwall, Tuesday in Northumberland, Wednesday in Shropshire, Friday in Bedford. Not sure what they are doing on Thursday. But that is a sign of how determined we are to make sure our discussions are as full as possible with those involved and affected.

We will continue to meet regularly with your implementation teams. We will also continue to meet regularly with the Expert Group we have set up. But above and beyond that, at this conference I want to invite you to tell us if there are more things we can do, if there are more practical ways in which we can assist, because in the Department we have no intention of just sitting back and at the centre we have no intention of just issuing edicts.

Whilst this reorganisation process is ours, the proposals are not. All the proposals for change are yours, which makes this local government reorganisation and restructuring different from previous ones.

It's not imposed by the government, it's proposed by councils. It's not done to draw different bureaucratic boundaries but it's done to deliver different governance for the areas you represent and serve.

You yourselves have made a strong case for unitary government in your own areas, over the last year. But this debate has been going on for many years and the long-term trend has been towards unitaries.

Our interest is the same as yours. And that is to see stronger strategic leadership and cost efficiencies - always part of the case for unitaries - but also greater community empowerment and citizen engagement in new and innovative ways.

So we invited councils to put in proposals for unitaries where they judged it would help realise these benefits. Of course you know that in some areas, councils said that they believed the weaknesses in two-tier areas could be tackled and the same goals reached without structural change. And these will then be our two-tier pathfinders - nearly 40 authorities in 5 different areas from which we look to see similar efficiency, similar quality, similar accountability changes and gains as we look to see from those where we are implementing new unitary authorities.

But all of you here are involved in or affected by the proposals for unitaries that, as we announced in July, we are minded to implement.

One of the stated aims of this event is to go back a little further in time to learn from previous reorganisations. That is also why we set up our Expert Group in March with members that range from local authorities and local government trade unions to Society of Local Authority Chief Executives [SOLACE], the LGA to our own department. Let me thank publicly those who are here and those who are not here serving on the Expert Group for their work so far and for the willingness that all without exception have shown to take on these changes and challenges.

Importantly, however - and this is part of the theme of the conference - the Expert Group includes some in local government who have been through reorganisation before. Some of our officials in the department have also been through reorganisation before. It seems to me that there are several lessons we can take on board from those experiences.

First, as you are all well aware, it is important to start thinking, planning and organising the changes as early as possible. Many of you have preparations well in hand already for the transition. Really I think at this point I can only stress how important it is that all the local authorities involved co-operate and work closely together on that. The discussion and plans for implementation need to begin without delay and certainly need to begin before the formal processes are set up through the Orders that will come via Parliament from the centre.

Second it is really important that everyone sees the change as leading to an entirely new organisation. Not as the existing county or district councils with somehow added functions. What we are preparing for is something that is quite different.

These are unitaries based on your proposals, with plans for new levels of community participation, new ways of empowering citizens, new forms of governance, and new ambitions for improving service delivery.

Third, it is important to keep everyone informed of the plans and progress. Not only staff but that wider group of interested stakeholders - from business, other public agencies, the voluntary sectors, and, above all, local people.

And finally - and I know I really do not have to say this - while the change inevitably means there will be considerable focus on internal matters, it is very important never to lose sight of life outside the town hall door. Your residents will expect you to go on delivering high quality services and meeting the needs that they have.

Of course, there are circumstances and a situation today where history doesn't really help. We have the major changes also going on in local government as a whole - the next generation of local area agreements with the new performance framework, the enhanced role of Local Strategic Partnerships and partnership delivery with public, private and voluntary agencies, the imminent Comprehensive Spending Review and three-year settlements, the direction for local government that the Prime Minister has set out recently in the Governance of Britain Green Paper and the Sub-National Review of economic development.

All this is a huge challenge for the councillors as well as officers. It is a time for strong, visible political leadership. And at the centre of being able to see this change through will be effective decision-taking arrangements both at political as well as officer level.

In most areas - we set this out in the discussion paper published last month - the Joint Committee will be critical to match a Joint Implementation Team at officer level. I see this Joint Committee as essentially a body that can provide the political leadership and decision taking for the process. A body that will be led by the authority leading on the proposal. A body which, ideally, has input from all the councils concerned. But a body with the size and constitution that mean it will be effective in the decision-making responsibilities that it has to take on.

What you are setting out to do in your areas is new and innovative. In each proposal - and this is in large part why we are minded to put them into practice - you are creating something unique that is designed demonstrably to improve your area and make life better for your citizens.

Nowhere is it as simple as a unitary replacing a two-tier system. I see these new unitaries very much as flagships for the future of local government in general - in terms of leadership, in terms of opportunities for the participation of citizens, in terms of empowerment, in terms of partnership and in terms of securing excellent services for those you serve.

As you know, I published our outline thinking and ideas on implementation last month. That is out for discussion, out for consultation and above all this is the basis for our discussion from the department with you over the coming weeks. You decide on the details of how you implement your programme and I make decisions on the framework we need to provide for you to do so.

The key areas highlighted in that document are: representation, co-operation, staffing arrangements and finance. Let me briefly run through the questions on each of those four areas.

On representation: Should there be a shadow or a transitional authority - and, if so, how long for, who should sit on them and when should there be elections?
On co-operation: How do you establish a Joint Implementation Team and who should be on it? Are there benefits in having very clear milestones? What about the arrangements for local area agreements [LAAs] and performance assessment?
On staffing arrangements: Who should transfer and how? And what sort of compensation arrangements should there be?
And on finance: How do you deal with grants, how do you deal with setting budgets, with council tax, and with the assets and liabilities that are involved?

I am sure you will be discussing all these issues in detail over the next 24 hours - and I look forward to having a report on those discussions.

Let me just say this. While some of the principles and the objectives that we set and we need to share will be consistent in all areas, the specific arrangements may well vary. Those are decisions that I need to take but they depend very much on the views, recommendations and assessment you make of what will make this work best for your people.

I know that most people want certainty about what will be happening. But that's rarely possible in a period of change. So let me set out briefly the context you are working in, and the timescales, as far as I can be definitive at this stage.

The decisions I announced in July were what we were minded to do. That remains the case as we take the legislation through its final stages in Parliament. I expect to complete the passage of that legislation when Parliament returns in October. That means we should be able to take final decisions around the end of November.

Of course, we are still open-minded about those decisions. However they will be the same as the decisions in July unless substantive and material new evidence and information demonstrates they should be different.

We will then turn those final decisions into draft Orders for Parliament to debate and to, I hope, pass. The Orders need to contain the transitional arrangements for each place. That will be part of our continuing discussion with you, with the Expert Group and with others.

Now of course I know - of course you know - there are judicial reviews in progress. We will await the judgement of the courts and I don't propose to say any more about them here - or I may start having to answer to High Court judges as well as to Gordon Brown. However I would urge you to keep going on the preparations. That, I would suggest to you, is good administrative practice. That is certainly the view that the courts took earlier in the summer when they first considered the Judicial Review litigation.

I am happy to stay to take questions. I am happy to hear views as well except I will not say any more on Judicial Reviews as I hope you will understand.

However before I do, let me finish by making three short points.

First this process and what we are aiming to achieve through the process is about major change. It is not about finding compromise or the lowest common denominator. Because you are taking, as I have argued, local government in important and innovative new directions.

Second, we need to get all the implementation details right and now is the time, in discussion with you, to make sure we are doing just that. The government and the LGA will fully support you throughout this process.

And third, what you are implementing is your programme, your proposals, for your place. And for those of you who argued for the status quo or for proposals that we have not accepted, let me say that I believe you have just as important a role to play now as those who originally championed the changes that we are minded to implement. And again, I say to you, the government and LGA will fully support you to do just that.

For my part I look forward to working with you all over the next few months to put this into practice.

Thank you very much.