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Unitary Authorities

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) on raising this issue. Listening to the debate has made me think of the last year or so that I have spent covering local government and reminded me—I am sure that the Minister will sympathise when I say this—that the real danger for those of us covering such issues is that we get sucked into discussing only local government structures and finances and acquire a pointy head. There is a risk that we miss the bigger picture, which is ultimately about the people who consume public services and benefit from their delivery. From the comments that we have heard today, it seems that the only thing that is more disruptive than reorganisation is the threat of reorganisation. Authorities turn inwards on themselves to consider the issues, but they do not stand to benefit from the changes that might derive from any local reorganisation. There have been failures in the process. As a result, we have not only introspection, but further delays. Until a few weeks ago, people in all the areas affected thought that they could have elections to a new authority as early as June, but those have now been put off again. The threat is that people will lose faith in the whole political process and think, ““What is the point of elections? There are going to be local elections in June, but we don't know how long the local authority will exist.”” There is a lack of certainty. From the point of view of people working in local service delivery, the appeal of looking purely at structures is even stronger. I took part in a New Local Government Network conference, where I sat on a podium with representatives from the health and police sectors. We talked mainly about how to improve local accountability for public service delivery, but what struck me was that they were vehemently in favour of unitarisation across the country. They said that it would be much easier to deliver public services if those involved knew that they were working on the same boundaries, but that missed the whole point. Coherent boundaries might be more convenient for people working in the police and health sectors, but those who receive services on the front line just want to know that they work, not whether the boundaries completely match up. That is the approach that my colleagues and I take: there should be no dogmatic presumption for or against changes to local government structures, as long as they provide people with improved services. Bigger is not always better, but we must not presume that smaller is always better either. What stands out for me—I am sure that other hon. Members will have had similar experiences—is that changes can create duplication, even where there is co-operation. Let me give an example. A road runs along Falmouth beach, and the town council is preoccupied with ensuring that it is regularly cleaned because that is where most of the tourists go. However, responsibility for cleaning it lies with the county council. Cornwall county council therefore gives a pot of money to Falmouth town council, which then subcontracts the cleaning of the road to Carrick district council. That arrangement is fine, as long as it works, but it did not work. Somebody came to me and said, ““The road's not being cleaned. Can you help me sort it out?”” I ended up going round in circles about three times before somebody would accept responsibility and make a commitment to resolve the issue. Such issues need to be addressed, and local government reorganisation might be able to address some of them. Unlike the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring), I am not against all change in any form at any time.