Northamptonshire (Structural Changes) Order 2019

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Northamptonshire (Structural Changes) Order 2019.

My Lords, this order was laid before the House on 28 October. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee published its report on 4 November. The good people of Northamptonshire then had a significant wait before yesterday’s debate on this order by the Second Delegated Legislation Committee in the House of Commons. I understand that the order was welcomed and was considered fairly swiftly.

Let me start by setting out the background to this order. Your Lordships may recall that just over two years ago my predecessor, my noble friend Lord Bourne, informed this House that the then Secretary of State had concerns about financial management at Northamptonshire County Council and whether it was failing to meet its best value duty. Your Lordships may also remember the reports in the press relating to this story. An inspector was appointed under powers given by the Local Government Act 1999.

I would like to quote directly from the report of that inspector:

“To change the culture and organisational ethos and to restore balance, would, in the judgement of the inspection team, take of the order of 5 years and require a substantial one off cash injection. Effectively, it would be a reward for failure. Even under a Directions regime, it is not considered likely that councillors and officers would have the strength of purpose to carry through such a long running programme of recovery potentially crossing two electoral cycles. In the meantime, it would be the people of the county who would suffer. A way forward with a clean sheet, leaving all the history behind, is required.”

The independent reviewer recommended that local government in Northamptonshire should be reorganised into two unitary councils, one covering the areas of Corby, East Northamptonshire, Kettering and Wellingborough and another covering Daventry, Northampton and South Northamptonshire.

Turning to the detail, I will now speak of the process behind local government reorganisation. On 27 March 2018 the then Secretary of State, Sajid Javid, issued an invitation to all eight Northamptonshire councils to submit a proposal for local government restructuring. The invitation set out that the proposals should meet our long-standing criteria that restructuring, if implemented, should improve local government, be based on a credible geography, and command a good deal of local support. On 31 August 2018, seven of the eight authorities submitted a proposal for two new unitary councils. I thank all the councils for the way in which they have worked together to develop this proposal, for the significant work that has been undertaken to prepare for its implementation, and for the support that the commissioners have provided. The then Secretary of State, James Brokenshire, decided that this proposal meets our criteria for unitarisation and the additional requirements set out in the invitation.

Taking the first criteria of improving local government, a significant factor was a consideration of children’s services, particularly because they have been identified as a matter of concern. The then Secretary of State for Education commissioned a report by the Northampton- shire children’s services commissioner on how best to ensure continued improvement of children’s social care, should there be a reorganisation of local government in Northamptonshire. The commissioner recommended that there should be a children’s trust to cover the whole area. Retaining a shared children’s social care function through establishing a children’s trust will provide continuity in children’s social services across the two new counties. It will provide a stable platform to accelerate service improvement so that vulnerable children and families get the help and protection that they need and deserve. Significant progress has been made with the establishment of Children First Northamptonshire and I welcome the recent appointment of the chair, Ian Curryer.

Another vital local government service is adult social care, and the decision was also made on the basis that work continues to be taken forward to integrate adult social care and health services. I am pleased that local health and council leaders have agreed a draft plan involving the creation of community hubs.

I also want to highlight the other ways the councils expect the proposal, if implemented, to improve local government. These are by: offering more coherent geographic units for aligning infrastructure, housing and environment services to help drive growth; enabling a clear point of contact for residents at their relative councils to access all council services; delivering advantages in health and well-being by enhancing social care and safeguarding services through closer connection with related services; improving education and skills provisions; improving community safety; and finally, delivering estimated cost savings of £12 million per year as a result of the reorganisation, which will be achieved within two years of the establishment of the new councils.

Let me say a little more about the future finances of these new councils. The commissioners have ensured that the county council’s finances, while still fragile, will be a stable platform on which to establish the new councils. The councils have worked hard through the implementation process to get a firm grip on the costs and benefits associated with their unitary proposal. I understand the programme currently estimates that investment of £43.5 million is required to deliver the local government reorganisation and transformation it seeks to deliver. This investment will in part be funded by £18 million of business rates pilot funding. This investment programme is expected to yield savings of some £85.9 million annually, which will be available to invest in sustaining local services. This is a significant figure and it will be for the councils to carefully monitor and report both future financial progress and the progress that has been made towards delivering modern and sustaining local services. I am clear that the two new unitary councils have a credible geography that meets the second criterion.

The third criterion focuses on the quality and extent of support for the proposal. I am pleased to say that the proposal has a good deal of support. Over 67% of the 5,831 respondents to an independent consultation, carried out on behalf of the councils, agreed that the number of councils should be reduced. In addition, a representative residents’ survey demonstrated that absolute majorities of all residents, across the county and within each proposed unitary area, agreed with the proposal. As noble Lords would expect there was also a statutory consultation on the proposal, which received 386 responses. Responses from businesses, members of the public, parish councils and community organisations to that consultation were more mixed. However, the consultation demonstrated that seven of the eight councils in the area, all public sector partners and the local enterprise partnership support the proposal for two unitaries. As referred to previously, local partners see this reorganisation as an opportunity to review services and ensure that they meet the needs of local communities.

This order implements the proposal and reflects local preferences. It provides for arrangements to manage the transition to the new unitary councils, including the establishment of joint committees and shadow authorities to drive the implementation. Evidence from previous unitarisations suggests that elections to a shadow authority can help establish legitimacy, effective leadership and better long-term decision-making to ensure smooth transition to the new arrangements. The Secretary of State decided to modify the proposal to delay implementation to April 2021 and establish shadow authorities, with elections to those shadow authorities in May 2020. This is to ensure that the new councils would be in the strongest possible position to deliver high-quality services to the people of Northampton- shire from the outset.

The May 2019 district council elections in Northamptonshire were previously postponed to May 2020. The order provides that those May 2020 district council elections are cancelled. This is to avoid confusion for residents in being asked to vote for councillors for the new councils and councillors for a district council that will be abolished 11 months later. District councillors will therefore remain as elected members of their district council until their council is abolished. Some will serve for six years.

Finally, I would just like to mention my personal experience. My own council will soon be the new unitary Buckinghamshire Council. I am looking forward to exercising my democratic rights on 7 May in electing councillors to that new authority. I am also most encouraged by the recent local government reorganisation in Dorset. While it is the first time that I have taken one of these debates in my newish role within the department, for my officials this is of course business as usual. I am pleased to report that the implementation phase for this reorganisation is well under way. I have full confidence in the local area implementing the unitarisation by April 2021. I therefore commend this order to the Committee and I beg to move.

I remind everybody of my entry in the register of interests, as a councillor in Kirklees in West Yorkshire—a unitary council—and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The order enacts decisions made in response to the financial calamity that befell local government in Northamptonshire through its county council. It was clearly imperative that action was taken; it is my understanding that change had to be made. However, I would like to comment on and perhaps challenge some of the decisions that have resulted from the decision to reorganise local government in Northamptonshire.

First, it seems that we as a country are in danger of taking the “local” out of local government. I say that as somebody who serves a very large ward—not the largest in the country, but one of the largest—at a unitary level and understands the demands on the three councillors who serve a population of 16,000. From my experience, it means that some of the very local issues become less important to councillors, who have to deal with high-level strategic decisions, but remain very important to local people. When you have a big ward, there is a tension between the strategic and the local. If we are not careful, local people often miss out. That is more so with large wards serving rural communities.

I do not know the county of Northants very well, but I guess that some of its wards will be significantly rural in nature. In my experience, this creates a potential disconnect between decision-makers and the people they serve. There is potential for the Government to give additional powers to parish and town councils, so that they can take up some of the very local responsibilities that would previously have been the remit of district councillors. That would enable a local element to be retained in local governance. I will leave it there and hope that the Minister will have some sort of response to it.

The second point I want to make about the benefits of the reorganisation is on the projected savings of £12 million per annum. Such figures are always produced by the protagonists of the reorganisation. My knowledge of reorganisations tells me that that saving might not be the case. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee highlighted that it hoped the House would,

“seek a commitment from the Minister to review whether the benefits and savings have been met.”