The news that the massive reorganisation of local councils, being forced through by the government, will not, as claimed, save any money, is shocking confirmation that the entire project is a half-baked and bungled waste of taxpayers’ money, say Stroud Greens.
The government based its estimates of cost savings on a 2020 report commissioned by the County Council Network (CCN) that said £2.9bn could be saved over five years. But the CCN has since revised its analysis and now says the reorganisation could make no savings and will actually cost money in some cases. And the government has admitted it didn’t do any independent analysis of the costs.
The supposed savings were key to the Labour government’s insistence that councils should reorganise, with district councils (the tier of local government closest to communities) like Stroud District Council being abolished and decision-making moving up a tier to so-called unitary authorities.
But now the CCN has reported it would be more efficient to retain the current two-tier system for smaller council areas.
Councils were not consulted and given no alternative but to draw up plans to reorganise. Stroud Greens warned when the changes were first proposed that they would take decision-making power away from local communities, reduce democratic representation and erode trust in politics, with this centralisation of decision making dressed up as ‘devolution’.
The party organised a public meeting back in March with a cross-party panel to discuss the proposals (pictured).
Adrian Oldman, coordinator of Stroud District Green Party, said this week: “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the news that this badly thought-through scheme is starting to unravel.
“Enormous amounts of everyone’s time have been taken up with working out a way to make the best of this undemocratic, half-baked project that has been imposed on councils without consultation or warning.
“The Greens always considered it to be a bad idea: removing a lower tier of local government and pushing decision making up a tier (in this case moving decision making from Stroud to Gloucester or to a regional mayor) under the guise of ‘devolution’.
“But there was always a faint light at the end of the tunnel: the promised cost savings for taxpayers. Now we know that those savings aren’t even expected to be achieved, it feels like the entire project will let taxpayers down. It will destroy grass-roots local democracy, hugely reducing access to elected representatives and presenting residents with the bill for the privilege.”
Cllr Oldman urged residents to write to Labour MP Simon Opher to ask him to put pressure on the government to halt their reorganisation plans, as now their main argument for it, saving money, has been totally debunked.