Unitary Local Government in County Durham
For information on unitary local government proposals in 2007, please visit our mini-website at www.durham.gov.uk/unitary
For information on previous unitary local government proposals in 2003-2004, please see the consultation summary below.
Initial Consultation Summary - August 2003
- Introduction
- Background to the current review - Your Region, Your Choice
- Key roles for a successful unitary structure in County Durham
- How a unitary council would work
- What others have to say: INLOGOV
- Your say
Introduction
The future of local government in County Durham is in your hands. The Boundary Committee for England is currently reviewing local government structures in the County in order to identify how our existing structure of county, borough and district councils could be re-organised onto a unitary basis, if a directly elected regional assembly were created in the North East.
The County Council, along with any other interested parties, has until 8 September to submit its views to the Boundary Committee.
As a council we believe that the County would be best served by a single unitary council. In this paper we explain the background to the review and outline our initial thoughts on a single unitary model for the County and why we think it would be in the best interests of County Durham and its communities.
We would welcome any comments you would like to make on our proposals and would be grateful if you would consider them when formulating your own response to the Boundary Committee.
Background to the Current Review - Your Region, Your Choice
In its White Paper, "Your Region, Your Choice", the Government outlined its intention to offer people in the English regions the opportunity to opt for greater control of their own affairs. Next year, voters in the North East will be asked to take part in a referendum on whether a directly elected regional assembly should be established to take powers and budgets devolved from central Government.If the majority vote across the region is in favour of creating a regional assembly, the Government has said that local government in two-tier areas such as County Durham should be re-organised onto an entirely unitary basis. This would mean that the County’s present system in which the majority of council services (86% by value) are provided by the County Council, with the district and borough councils collectively providing the remainder, would be replaced by a new structure in which all of the local government services for a particular area are provided by a single, unitary council.
Boundary Committee Review
As well as presenting people with a choice about regional government, the Government also wants people in two-tier areas to choose how local government should be organised, in the event of the region as a whole voting in favour of a regional assembly.They have consequently asked the Boundary Committee for England to undertake a review of local government in County Durham, with a view to recommending at least two options to be included on the regional government referendum ballot paper. Alongside the referendum question on creating a regional assembly, voters in County Durham will also be asked to choose between these options for how local government could be re-organised.
The Boundary Committee started its review on 17 June and has asked local authorities, interested parties and the public for their views by 8 September.
The Committee will consider the views and submissions received and then publish its draft recommendations for consultation on 2 December. The public and interested parties will then have until 22 February 2004 to comment, after which the Committee will consider comments received before publishing its final recommendations on 25 May 2004.
The Boundary Committee has published guidance and procedures for how local government reviews will be conducted. We have placed copies of the guidance in the County’s libraries and it is also available online at www.boundarycommittee.org.uk.
In its guidance, the Boundary Committee says that it will need to answer the question:
"which wholly unitary structures are likely to provide the best overall delivery of local services in the existing two-tier county areas in the region, assuming the existence of an elected regional assembly?"
The Banham Review 1993-4
Local government in County Durham was last reviewed ten years ago by the Local Government Commission under the chairmanship of Sir John Banham.
The Banham Review initially concluded that the County at that time would be best served by two unitary councils – one to serve Darlington and the other to serve the remainder of the County.
The Government then revised its policy guidance to the Commission which encouraged it to seek local consensus and consider the retention of the status quo as well as the introduction of unitary councils.
The Commission undertook a second review of the County in which its research revealed that just under 50% of people wanted to retain the status quo (although a significant majority of people in Darlington wanted a unitary council for their area). The Commission’s initial recommendation of two unitaries – one for Darlington and one for the remainder of the County was favoured by 29% of people. A proposal to create four unitary councils – one for Darlington and three others based on merging the remaining districts in the County into three other units was supported by 4.5% of people.
During the review, the Commission acknowledged the importance of having a strategic countywide authority. In the light of the public opinion research it therefore concluded that the County would best be served by the creation of a single unitary council for Darlington and the retention of the status quo elsewhere.
This recommendation responded to the different preferences of people in Darlington and elsewhere in the County and ensured the retention of the County Council as a strategic countywide authority.
The current review by the Boundary Committee is somewhat different to the Banham Review of ten years ago.
The Committee has to recommend options for how local government could be re-organised if a regional assembly is created. The retention of the status quo is therefore not an option the Committee can recommend. (Although if the region votes against a regional assembly in the referendum then no change would be made to local government in the County.)
County Durham
County Durham is home to 493,500 people. It stretches from the Pennines in the west to the North Sea in the east and is bordered by the urban areas of Tyne and Wear to the north and Tees Valley to the south.
The County has a unique history and heritage. An administrative area equivalent to the modern county, has existed between the Tyne and the Tees since the eleventh century when the Prince Bishops came to govern the county palatine of Durham.
The Prince Bishops left an indelible impression on the County, but its cultural and geographical identity has also been shaped by the industrial revolution which saw lead and coal mining and heavy industries dominate its social and economic development.
Although many of the County’s traditional industries have long gone, the County still has a very dispersed settlement pattern of small towns and villages which were associated with former mines, engineering, or steel and iron works.
Much has been achieved in recent years to ensure a future for these settlements, with new industries being brought into the County. That said, many parts of the County suffer from unacceptably high levels of deprivation which poses a key challenge to the realisation of the 20 year strategic vision for "Dynamic Durham" (for more detail on this vision see www.countydurhampartnership.co.uk).
County Durham is unique among English counties in the strength of identity it holds with local people. During the Banham Review, research conducted by MORI showed that 59% of residents said they identified with the County very strongly, closely followed by their local neighbourhood or village at 56%.
This sense of 'county and community' was significantly different to other parts of the country where people’s strength of identification with their county was much lower (by 40% points or more) and their association with the neighbourhood or village in which they lived was significantly stronger than with their county.
People’s identification with County Durham is based on and reflected in the County’s strong cultural traditions. The Durham Miners’ Gala is a county event which draws tens of thousands of people from communities across County Durham to a social and political rally in Durham City each July. In the County’s large rural areas, the country shows are also major draws and the County has thriving sporting traditions, particularly in cricket and football.
Key Roles for a Successful Unitary Structure in County Durham
Taking on board the Boundary Committee’s guidance and looking at the challenges the County faces over the next twenty years, we believe there are five key roles which a unitary local government structure in the County needs to fulfil if it is to be successful.National and International Advocacy
Given the development of the global economy and the reality that many decisions which significantly affect the County will still be made by central and European government, we believe it is vital that local government in the County is able to articulate and advocate the County’s needs at a national and international level.Regional Advocacy and Contribution
The North East has four distinct sub-regions and County Durham often has to argue for its fair share of jobs, investment and resources against the larger urban areas to its north and south. The County therefore needs local government which can punch its weight within the regional context. That said, many regional initiatives rely upon collaboration between the various sub-regions and the ability of local government in the County to contribute towards regional initiatives will be critical to the success of a regional assembly if one is created.Countywide Delivery of Quality Services
The Government and the Boundary Committee place an emphasis on improving the quality of council services and as a Council we are intimately aware that local government services have a significant impact on the quality of people’s lives. If the quality of services is to be improved, unitary local government has to have the capacity, resource base and managerial experience to ensure efficient, effective and economic service delivery.Partnership Working
Local government cannot address the threats and opportunities the County faces alone. A key plank of the Government’s modernisation agenda for public services is joint working between agencies to provide more joined up, citizen-focussed services. Unitary local government in the County therefore needs to be able to work seamlessly with other public services and to play a key role in bringing different sectors and stakeholders together to develop and implement the strategic vision for the County.Meeting the Needs of Communities
Neighbourhood management and community development are key concepts in regenerating local areas and unitary local government needs to be able to support local communities by acting and delivering locally. But it also needs to have the breadth of scope and operation to deliver strategic initiatives on a countywide basis from which all communities can benefit.A Single Unitary Council - Our Preferred Option
We believe that local people would be best served by a single unitary council which would work across County Durham.
Such a council would be formed by amalgamating the existing district and borough councils with the county council to create a new unitary council. This would have a major benefit in minimising the costs of re-organising the existing structure of local government in the County.
If a single unitary council was created in the County, it would be very different to the existing County Council as you know it. It would work differently and would deliver additional services, such as housing, leisure, refuse collection and environmental health. It would employ a broader range of staff, transferred from the district and borough councils and its management structure would change to reflect the additional range of functions and services it would be responsible for.
A single unitary council for the County makes sense for a number of reasons:
- It would build on the considerable track record of countywide government.
The existing County Council, along with county councils in general, has consistently demonstrated an ability to think and act strategically whilst delivering service improvements on the ground. The Council has won awards for its new library developments, its approach to modernising social care for older people and how it tackles social exclusion and truancy amongst young people.
Most notably, the Council has a remarkable record in supporting the industrial transformation of the County. Its track record in economic development and job creation in particular, has been acknowledged nationally and it has won a series of awards for its greening of the County and the reclamation work it has undertaken to rid the County of the scars and spoils left by its former heavy industries.
In the Comprehensive Performance Assessment of councils, the County Council was assessed as being a “good” authority and the Council has responded to this by launching the “Embracing Change” programme to further improve its performance.
- It would minimise the costs of restructuring and maximise on-going cost effectiveness.
By value, the County Council currently delivers 86% of local government services in the County and employs approaching 80% of the County’s local government work force. Transferring district council functions and staff to the new unitary council, rather than splitting the County Council into a greater number of smaller units is by far the least expensive option for re-organisation. We estimate that it would cost two and a half times more to create three sub-county unitaries than it would to create a single county unitary.
- A single council would also offer considerable economies of scale achieved by removing duplicated administrations and bureaucracy.
The money could be used to meet the initial costs of re-organisation. But it could also be used to keep council tax bills to a more reasonable level and contribute to improving the quality of front line services, as well as investing in new opportunities for the County.
- It would be able to “punch its weight” within the region and also contribute in a positive way to regional initiatives.
County Durham has to compete with other parts of the North East for jobs, resources and investment. The County Council has been a strong and influential advocate of the County’s interests within the regional context and where it has been in the County’s interests to do so, contributed to regional initiatives by providing funding and more importantly specialist skills and expertise to help make things happen.
- It would combine county and community.
Countywide approaches to local government have demonstrated their effectiveness and worth. But by harnessing innovations in electronic service delivery which support face-to-face, on-line or telephone customer service, a single unitary council would also be able to significantly improve the interface between a council and the communities it serves. This would help to improve people’s experience of council services and overcome perceived concerns about remoteness.
Better connecting with communities extends beyond service delivery into participative democracy and local partnership working. The Council’s approach to how a single unitary would work in local areas includes the development of local area boards where a broad range of organisations and groups who have a stake in the interests of their local communities can work together to plan and decide what should be done locally.
- It would deliver better quality services.
By managing the full range of council services, a countywide unitary would be able to better co-ordinate services such as housing and personal social care, and leisure and recreation with cultural amenities. It would also be in a better position to co-ordinate its services with those of other bodies such as the emergency services, the strategic health authority, Business Link and the Learning and Skills Council.
Sometimes, a local authority is not in the best position to provide the services people need and want. A single unitary council would be able to support other service providers from the community and voluntary sector and through local area boards, enter into service delivery agreements with those town and parish councils who have the capacity and willingness to take on a larger local service delivery role.
Modernising and improving service delivery is intimately associated with moves to e-government, where information and communication technologies (ICT) are used to make services more citizen focussed and accessible.
A single unitary council would be able to develop customer support systems capable of handling customer enquiries for council and other pubic services, from wherever they are received - through staffed community access points across the County, via the council website, over the phone or via council staff who work in the community, away from council offices.
Improving the quality of customer services via ICT requires fast and reliable telecommunications services in the County. The County Council is currently working in partnership with Derwentside District Council to lead a consortium to develop Durham Net, a broadband infrastructure for the County. Durham Net will provide council offices, community centres and schools with the necessary internet connections and bandwidth to support the delivery of a greater range of on-line services which can be used to handle customer enquiries and enable people to do more from the comfort of their own homes.
- It would be in keeping with people’s sense of belonging.
A newspaper editor once said that three things define a community’s identity– its council, its sports team and its newspaper (he went on to say that it was the job of the latter to criticise the first two!). Public opinion research has shown that people’s strength of identification with County Durham is uniquely strong and we believe that a unitary council which coincides with the area that people most identify with would have greater legitimacy and public acceptance.
How a Unitary Council would Work
A modern and effective council cannot work in isolation. In developing our proposals for a single unitary council, we have focussed on how such a body would work and connect with others who have an equal stake in improving quality of life in the County.
Our model of local governance for the County (figure 1) is based on an acceptance that a unitary council should work with local communities, their town and parish councils and strategic partners from other sectors to deliver “Dynamic Durham”, the strategic vision for how the County could be in 2023.
Figure 1: Model of local governance in County Durham
Empowering Local Communities through Area Boards
If local people opted for a single county unitary, we would establish a network of local area boards (technically local area committees) as an inherent part of the council’s structure. The boards would enable us to empower local communities and build a direct connection between local communities and the council’s policy development and decision-making centre.
The boards would put local communities at the heart of the council and bring the council closer to local communities than the existing county, district and borough councils.
Area boards would enable decisions about local services and matters to be made locally and would enhance local democracy and community planning.
They would be made up of the elected councillors for the area they serve and other individuals and organisations representing local communities and businesses. This would include town and parish councils where they exist and or local community associations and networks.
Area boards would be more than consultative forums and would control area based budgets and have a range of executive and non-executive functions.
One of the most useful executive functions available to local government is the power to promote the social, economic and environmental well-being of an area, under Part 1 of the Local Government Act 2000. The power is very broad ranging and enables local authorities to do almost anything which they consider to be in the best interests of the area and communities they serve.
Although conferred on principal authorities (in County Durham’s terms the existing county, district and borough councils) if a new countywide unitary council were created, we would delegate the power of well-being to local area boards. This would mean that within certain parameters and financial limits, area boards would be able to implement what they determined locally is in the best interests of local communities.
This would extend to the local management of some services and the allocation of area based and appropriate operational budgets.
Boards would also be responsible for a range of non-executive functions such as planning permission and permitted development orders, enforcement, land use regulation, tree preservation orders, requirements to maintain land properly, some highways and public rights of way matters, local licensing, litter control, noise and nuisance abatement and street naming, to name but a few.
The range of non-executive functions available to communities through the local area boards of the unitary council, will enable people to have much greater say and control over the development and upkeep of the places in which they live.
We also see area boards as a key consultative mechanism for the new unitary council. They would be a means of engaging and involving other stakeholders in the council’s work and in the wider community planning process which the boards would lead at the local level.
They would play a key role in providing local feedback on the development of council policies and strategies and contribute to the council’s scrutiny functions, including the overview of local health services.
The structure of area boards would reflect closely those localities and settlements to which people relate most naturally and where possible, correspond to the operational areas of other agencies.
We would consult the public, town and parish councils and others on the precise structure, but at this stage, we envisage there would be at least 11 area boards, based on the County’s main settlements, which would include the County’s main settlements.
In a number of other areas in the County we would want to consult local people on how they could be best served through the area board structure. This could involve local people deciding which area board they would want to serve their community, or, within reasonable limits, the creation of additional boards to serve distinct communities or localities, particularly in the County’s rural areas.
Strategic Partnerships
Currently there are eight local strategic partnerships in the county – one for each district and the County Durham Strategic Partnership as an over-arching partnership for the County itself. Quite simply, we think this is too many.The development of local area boards would allow the County to reduce the number of local strategic partnerships and retain a single partnership with a focus on the strategic issues which affect the whole county.
As with the current County Durham Strategic Partnership, a single partnership would have a number of sub-partnerships each focusing on specific themes which are important to the County’s development – the economy, lifelong learning, the environment and healthy and safe communities for example.
A single strategic partnership for the County would enable greater joint working between the principal agencies and authorities serving the County. It would also offer the regional assembly an obvious partner to engage with on sub-regional work.
Engaging and Supporting Town and Parish Councils
In many parts of County Durham the existing structure of local government has three tiers. Town and parish councils form the third tier and play an important role facilitating local democracy at community level and providing relatively small-scale, but nevertheless important and valued services for the towns and villages they serve.
Some parts of County Durham, where urban district councils used to exist, are not parished. But in the remainder of the County, there are 138 parished areas, most of which have town and parish councils.
As a Council, we have a longstanding commitment to supporting the development of town and parish councils. During the previous Banham Review, we developed a policy paper called “Working with Local Councils” which set out how a unitary county council would work with town and parish councils, if a unitary county was the final outcome of the review.
As part of our approach to the current review, we want to explore again with town and parish councils how a single unitary council could better engage with them and support their development and work.
We recognise the important role that town and parish councils play at the local level and would want to work with them through the local area boards. This offers town and parish councils a greater say in council policy decisions and also the prospect of more influence over the other partners involved with the council.
Where there is local willingness and aspiration, we would support the development of new parish councils through a parish support unit which would also support existing parish councils with legal and financial advice, ICT equipment and staff development where desired.
Our "Working with Local Councils" policy paper was a precursor to the current Government’s Quality Parish Council initiative. Through the parish support unit we would support those town and parish councils which want to attain quality council status, with a view to delegating services and non-executive functions to them, by negotiation with other stakeholders through the local area boards.
What Others have to Say: INLOGOV
Last year the district and borough councils in the County commissioned the Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV) at the University of Birmingham to conduct a review of options for unitary local government with the express intention of identifying alternatives to a single unitary council.The INLOGOV study explored seven options and concluded that there were two which were viable and would present the public with a real choice:
- A single unitary council with a strong local area substructure.
- A sub-division of the County into three unitary councils based on amalgamating two pairs and a trio of existing district councils.
Your Say
The Boundary Committee deadline for initial views on the unitary options for the County was 8 September 2003.You can have your say by writing to:
Local Government Review Team
Boundary Committee for England
Trevelyan House
Great Peter Street
London
SW1P 2HW
Alternatively the committee has an online form on their website at www.boundarycommittee.org.uk
As a Council we would also welcome any feedback or comments on our proposals. If received in good time, we may be able to adapt our submission in light of the comments you make, before we make our own submission to the Boundary Committee on 8 September.
However, we plan to continue developing our proposals over the Autumn and will take any comments you make into account when developing our proposals further.
If you want to comment on our proposals please write to:
Corporate Policy Team
Durham County Council
County Hall
Durham
DH1 5UF
Tel: 0191 3834964
Fax 0191 3833657
Online Feedback: Corporate Policy team.
