According to recent reports, Suffolk – and a number of other counties – will soon be part of a major shake-up of local Government.
The East Anglian Daily Times, along with national media, has suggested we could be heading for the end of District councils. We would still be ‘three tiers’ of local Government – but instead of Parishes; Districts and County Councils, we’d be something like Parishes; Unitary Authorities and Combined Authorities, led by a Mayor.
By unitary authorities, we are talking about the responsibilities of district councils being hoovered up into the County council – or two halves of the county, if our current five districts in Suffolk became two unitaries.
This is not unprecedented, and many parts of the country already have unitary authorities where the ‘upper tier’ council covers all the key day to day local government tasks: highways; social care; planning etc.
Whereas, at present, a resident of my constituency – now entirely contiguous with the Babergh District – is governed under split arrangements: Babergh does the bins and planning; Suffolk County Council does highways; waste disposal and recycling; social care and non-academy schools. Of course, both do more besides, but these are some of their top responsibilities.
I’ve been a strong supporter of creating a unitary authority in Suffolk since before I became an MP.
I think it would greatly strengthen our county if we had a single powerful Suffolk authority, avoiding the duplication that is the bane of the current situation; saving millions of pounds; giving far greater coordination; and ensuring a more strategic approach to issues like planning – ideal, considering the huge housing targets being imposed on our county.
But there’s a reason that tops all those practical benefits: legitimacy, one of the most important principles of politics. Legitimacy is the idea of people respectfully accepting the right of a particular branch of Government to exert its power – even if one didn’t vote for the current incumbent.
To explain, I return to my experience standing as a Babergh District Council candidate for Bures St Mary in 2013, in a by-election that occurred on the same day as the county-wide elections to choose a new Suffolk County Council administration.
At every door I knocked on, it wasn’t so much a political sell, as a case of having to explain the difference between the two main tiers of local government.
I suspect most people understand the basic concept of ‘local government’ versus ‘national’ – that which looks after the bins versus that which looks after the nuclear deterrent etc. But my experience was that few really understood the detailed nuances of split responsibilities in our current ‘two tier’ system of district and county authorities. Such a lack of understanding undermines the legitimacy of the council in question.
Whereas, if we had a single Suffolk unitary – without districts – I am sure it would be far easier for people to understand who was responsible for what, at a local level. For example, only recently, I had a constituency case relating to a permissive footpath. We had to go to significant lengths to find out if this was a matter for Babergh DC or Suffolk CC – and I’ve seen many similar cases where the two respective bureaucracies knock the ball back and forth, when asked ‘who’s in charge on this one?’
When it comes to political authority, identity is another crucial concept. Governments, at all levels, should typically reflect a recognisable entity. This is one of the key reasons why I happen to believe if there is to be a Suffolk unitary, it should be based on the established, uncontested, and historic boundaries of Suffolk itself, not split into gerrymandered halves.
Whatever one might argue, there is no real ‘en masse’ identity within our county other than, well, the county. People understand what Suffolk means; its borders are universally recognised; its capital is a matter of a fact, and its obvious foundation of a merged local grouping seems indisputable.
To be clear, in my experience chatting to Suffolk councillors and political activists, there is generally good support for a unitary – but strong differences over the specifics thereof. When this was last a subject of debate, some supported a ‘West and East Suffolk’ option, others a three-way split with Ipswich an island of unitary self-government. That said, many also supported my preference for ‘one Suffolk’.
I just wonder if it would be worth it to go to all the trouble of forming a unitary, only to blunt the benefits by creating two or three such authorities. This would reduce the money we save; reduce the total ‘clout’; reduce the ability to plan in a strategic fashion; reduce the legitimacy, identity, and efficiency.
Whatever direction we take, the one thing we need to know for certain is that any money we save is spent in Suffolk – an outcome that is far from assured.
Published in the East Anglian Daily Times.
