Statement on Local Government Reorganisation

Guildford Liberal Democrats are backing three unitary councils for Surrey as the best option for local people. Three unitaries will deliver better value for money and more joined up services while still being able to properly represent the different local needs of different communities.

The government is pressing ahead with plans to reorganise local government and has given local councils in Surrey until the end of this week to submit initial proposals for how this should be done. Following a careful analysis of potential options, the borough and district councils have produced proposals recommending the creation of three unitary councils in Surrey. Meanwhile, the county council has produced an alternative proposal for two unitary councils, focusing only on financial savings, whilst ignoring all other factors, such as ensuring a local focus for the new unitaries.

Guildford Liberal Democrats have long believed that simplifying local government into unitary councils, responsible for all services, would be more efficient and more effective, provided that Guildford did not end up in a unitary council so large that it would be remote and unaccountable to residents. For this reason, three unitary councils for Surrey (one in the north, one in the west and one in the east) has always made sense as the best way to reflect the different economies and communities of the county, and this has been confirmed by the analysis conducted by the districts and boroughs.

Julia McShane, Leader of Guildford Borough Council, commented:

“Simplifying local government makes sense, up to a point. Guildford and Waverley, two very similar councils, have already been sharing senior management and working together for years, generating significant savings, and it is clear that more money could be saved by joining up services under one roof instead of having, for instance, traffic wardens for the county council monitoring parking spaces on the street and traffic wardens for the borough council monitoring parking spaces in off-street car parks, each with their own separate management structures.

“However, if councils get too big they become too remote and are unable to properly respond to the needs of different communities. Our part of Surrey, with its combination of market towns, countryside and villages, is very different from the suburban sprawl adjoining Greater London which you find in the northern part of Surrey, and has very different needs. And, as the recent bankruptcy of Birmingham shows, a very large council is not necessarily any more financially stable than a smaller one.

“This is why we believe that three unitaries, of around 400,000 people each, would strike the right balance for the people of Guildford borough, and for the people of Surrey as a whole. Large enough to be efficient and effective, but small enough to properly represent the different communities within them and to align with the different economic geographies within Surrey.

“But two unitaries, as the county council is proposing, would be too large to work properly. The county council is already forced to have multiple different service delivery regions because Surrey is too big for anything else, and so going down to two unitaries would not deliver much in the way of additional savings yet would completely drown out the voices of local communities by being too large and remote. A unitary council running from Staines to Hindhead could not possibly do justice to the different needs of different towns like Guildford, Staines and Woking, let alone of different villages like Ash and Cranleigh. It is for this reason that we are opposed to a two unitary model.”

Under the proposals for three unitaries, there would be about 80 councillors per council, with three elected for each of the existing county council seats, a reduction from the current number of 534 borough and county councillors in Surrey. This, along with reductions in management costs and other efficiencies, would result in net savings of £20 million a year by 2030. The estimated payback period for savings to recoup the costs of reorganisation is 2030 for two unitaries and 2031 for three unitaries.

However, a major issue looming over the entire issue of reorganisation is the level of council debt in Surrey, including more than £2 billion of debt at Woking, more than £1 billion in Spelthorne, and the county council’s own estimated debt of almost £3 billion by 2028.

At the moment the level of debt across Surrey is so great that any possible new unitary councils, regardless of how many or how few are created, would be bankrupt on day one without some sort of government bailout, which is what Lib Dem council leaders and MPs in Surrey are emphasising to central government.

Zöe Franklin, MP for Guildford constituency, in particular has been speaking with government ministers about the debt issue and is expecting to meet with ministers soon to raise the issue of the level of debt across Surrey and the importance of ensuring that local residents are not left saddled with an unaffordable financial burden as a result of the unwise decisions by Conservative administrations at other councils. She has also made clear that she believes that a three unitary model would be in the best interests of residents.