By Steve Warburton

There are times when it seems barely a week goes by without some proposal to change local government structure somewhere. Either a proposal to merge authorities into one larger one, split larger ones into smaller ones or, as with the most recent proposals for Gloucestershire and Lancashire, throw the whole lot up in the air, let it settle into three chunks and figure out what to name them at some point in the future… yet to be defined. The only consistency is that whatever proposal is on the table will, of course, save millions. That’s a mantra we’ve heard since the 1974 creation and then subsequent break-up in 1996 of Avon, Cleveland and the rest into unitary district councils, with no great evidence of massive efficiency improvements.

The Scots and Welsh have had unitary authorities across the patch for some time. The Scottish structure is perhaps the happiest, as most in Wales agree many Welsh authorities are too small, although the almost annual review of local government structure in Wales always seems to be filed under ‘too difficult’ for any reorganisation to happen.

In England it’s nothing short of a complete mess: We have counties, districts, unitary counties, unitary districts and metropolitan districts. These are overlaid by combined authorities which are nothing of the sort, merely a sort of joint committee with limited powers and responsibilities. After some abortive initial attempts to include selected district councils, it seems Central Government only signed off combining an authority which is already a unitary or county. Then there’s York, which sits remotely as part of but not fully a part of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority!

Elected Mayors, of course, provide another level of complexity. Some areas have them, some don’t. Some had referenda which decided the electorate didn’t want one, but got one anyway. If you live in Bristol, Liverpool or Middlesbrough (among others) you have a choice of two, for they both had combined authority Mayors superimposed on their own versions. Just having a one-person mayoral role without the accompanying governmental structure is a pathetic sop. Token government by personal foible: – Liverpool bus lanes anybody? Bendibuses in London?

In the north east there was a single (mayorless) combined authority set up, stretching from County Durham to the Scottish Border, complete with a surviving PTE which continued to look after only that part formerly known as Tyne & Wear, but that seemed to be far too simple because then along came a smaller combined authority called ‘North of Tyne’ (with Mayor), which sometimes combines with the combined authority, sometimes doesn’t and sometimes gets overlooked entirely. The latter may be wise – who wants to see ‘Welcome to North of Tyne’ signs by the roadside.

In fact, all of the former PTEs linger on in a sort of limbo, sometimes part of a combined authority, sometimes not. What they all have in common and oddly preserved in aspic is oversight of transport matters in an administrative area abolished nearly twenty five years ago. The ‘new’ combined authorities such as Tees Valley or West of England seem to survive without such a body. We now have Transport for the North, (perhaps others to follow) whose precise role seems ill-defined but seems to already be a source of resentment among some of its constituent areas for its perceived Manchester and West Yorkshire focus.

Then there are Local Enterprise Partnerships which cover a different set of combined local authorities and seem to report to no-one. In the beginning, some local authorities joined more than one but someone, somewhere decided that wasn’t playing the game properly.

The current government seems to have the view that local government reorganisation is best left to local government to sort out. This approach is fundamentally flawed since expecting politicians and council executives to agree to hand over power and responsibility to another body is simply never going to happen. It’s akin to turkeys voting for Christmas. Hence why district proposals suggest abolishing counties and counties suggest abolition of districts as the only way forward.

The former Metropolitan counties and the so-called ‘new’ counties of Avon, Cleveland etc. were all abolished more on the grounds of political expediency than structural sense. Creation of Humberside, joining unrelated authorities either side of the Humber, was probably a mistake, but all the other cases made a lot of sense in having a single authority as a voice for the likes of Teesside or Greater Bristol, as indeed did the Metropolitan counties. Having broken up, it is notable that combined authorities now cover both Teesside and Bristol.

It would make a great deal of sense if one or more combined authorities did just that – combined their constituent authorities. But this would only happen if such an arrangement was imposed. It will never happen voluntarily.

The Covid-19 crisis has underlined just how ‘undevolved’ the supposedly devolved regional government is and this includes London. They have insufficient revenue-raising powers of their own and must run Oliver Twist-like to central Government for refilling of the bowl. This has, if anything, further centralised government.

It is with Central Government that the deficiency lies. It needs to decide what structure of local government it wants to preside over. How much power and finance it transfers will be highly political and could resurrect past conflicts. It’s difficult to see any Westminster government surrendering too much control, particularly while the Treasury retains financial responsibility.

In the last election manifestos, Scotland dominated devolution policies with Tories and Lib Dems determined that independence should not happen. SNP policy on this was understandably clear! Tories referred to an English Devolution Bill but failed on detail; Labour wanted to make Mayors more accountable and re-establish the Government Region Offices (presumably, but not explicitly at the expense of LEPs). But nothing in there to address the overall malaise.

Is it naturally the case that one size does not fit all? There may well be a case made for a different approach for the urban conurbations. The latter should include Greater London. If there is any serious attempt at devolution it’s hard to argue that London is that much different from Birmingham or Manchester. Yet the same structure could easily be adapted for Birmingham and Devon, just adapted by population characteristics.

I notably did not use the word ‘Metropolitan’ here. Just because an area was decreed to be ‘Metropolitan’ in 1972 should not imply it automatically is now, nor that they would be the only ones, nor indeed that they covered the right areas in the first place. It’s easy to think of examples (while naturally setting cat among pigeons) – why ever was Coventry tagged on to West Midlands, leaving a big hole in Warwickshire? What logic tagged Wigan onto Greater Manchester? Conversely, why was Cramlington left out of Tyne & Wear, or Widnes out of Merseyside?

The current mishmash does nobody any good and leaves the public at a loss to know who does what. The Government itself doesn’t even seem to know; why else would it give combined authorities funding for school buses when those authorities have no duties in relation to school transport at all? The time is ripe for a new Local Government Act.