Local Government Needs Reshuffling, Not Reorganising

It is generally understood that two tier local government, of a county council with district councils beneath it, is on its way out. The division of responsibilities makes little sense and causes great confusion, especially since many of them need to work together -- waste collection, for example, is a district responsibility, whilst managing the waste collected is a county responsibility. The proposed solution is almost always to replace two tier governance with single tier unitaries.

The trouble with unitaries, however, is size. A unitary has responsibility for things like parks, which function best under smaller authorities, but also has responsibility for highways, which are best served by a large authority. Instead of unitaries, consideration should be given to reshuffling responsibilities. Consider this list of what councils do (from NewLocal.org):

 

Elections are handled at the district level, and yet responsibility for registering births and deaths and marriages is a county affair -- district are trusted to bury or burn your dead body, but not to verify that you died. Environmental health is a district matter; public health, on the other hand, is a county one.

Many of the functions presently handled by the counties could be taken on by districts, and would function better for being under a single authority. Out of that list of wholly county matters, I propose that registrations, travel concessions, consumer protection, emergency planning, libraries, public health, trading standards, and waste disposal be transferred to districts. This would leave counties in a place to focus on matters that benefit from their large size -- adult and child social care, education, highways, and strategy.

We could of course go further. Social care really ought to be funded nationally, rather than relying on council tax -- the greatest demand is often in areas least able to fund it. With elderly care, it makes the most sense to provide it on whichever level is providing healthcare, be that nationally or under devolved administration. Many councils have proven inadequate at the provision of child social care. Education is mostly out of the hands of local government now thanks to academisation. With these gone, counties would become little more than highways authorities, at which point there would be little sense in keeping the county council when a board of the constituent districts would suffice.

At the other end, many of the present district responsibilities are ones that parish councils are quite capable of handling, and indeed are often district responsibilities simply due to the lack of parish councils to take them on. Parks, fairs, markets... many of these could be moved further down, especially if the district provides support (e.g. they may contract with the parishes to collect waste from public bins). Each area of responsibility has its own natural level where it functions best, and I feel there is much we can gain simply from reshuffling the deck to move them to their correct level.

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