Cllr Naomi Bennett: What the White Paper on devolution means for Cambridge

Opinion | Cllr Naomi Bennett, a Green Party councillor on Cambridge City Council, explores the government’s plans to shake-up how local authorities are organised.

1. Abolition of familiar councils

The White Paper calls for the abolition of the two-tier system of district councils and county councils.

“We will expect all two-tier areas and smaller or failing unitaries to develop proposals for reorganisation.”

2. New larger councils

Supporters of the Cambridge Unitary Campaign might be pleased to read this – at least until they see how large the new unitary councils are expected to be.

“New unitary councils must be the right size to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks. For most areas this will mean creating councils with a population of 500,000 or more.”

Some supporters of the unitary campaign argued for a five-mile extension of the Cambridge City Council boundaries. However, it seems clear that any new unitary would be much, much larger.

Cambridge city’s population was about 145,000 at the 2021 census. South Cambridgeshire was a little higher at 161,000 with East Cambridgeshire coming in at 88,000 residents. Huntingdonshire’s population in 2021 was just over 180,000. All four together accounted for just 574,000 residents, just over the desired minimum threshold.

Of course, other combinations are possible, but this gives a flavour of the expected size of the new super council.

3. Will there just be a single layer of local government?

The White Paper envisages two main layers of local government. ‘Strategic authorities’ is the new name for mayor-lead Combined Authorities. The next layer down will be ‘Principal Authorities’ which will be the new super-councils made up of district/county combinations and unitary councils.

It is not clear what will happen to the next layer down of parish and town councils. It is equally unclear what will happen to peculiarly Cambridge creations such as the Cambridge Development Company and the Greater Cambridge Partnership.

4. Is this devolution or centralisation?

It is fair to say that supersizing local councils is not the most obvious way to empower local communities by giving back control.

We obviously don’t know what the territories of the new ‘Principal Authorities’ will be. However, creating a council of this size is likely to throw together some very different areas. Will they share a common dream or values? Will they understand each other’s needs?

We know that there are people who live in Huntingdon and Ely who almost never visit Cambridge (and vice versa). Poor public transport makes it very hard to travel about the region and explore its more rural corners.

How happy will, say, Cambridge residents be if the majority of local councillors represent areas outside the city?

5. Where would the new Principal Authority council headquarters be?

Cambridge residents may see Cambridge as the natural seat of government and the centre of our little world. This view is not necessarily shared outside Cambridge. The size of the proposed budget of £41million to modernise the Guildhall might make South Cambridgeshire’s modern offices seem a tempting alternative.

Of course, the new council could keep all the civic buildings. However, Labour hope to make £2billion of savings from these changes. The sale of some of our civic buildings seems like an obvious target.

6. £2billion savings? Really?

This is the figure in the White Paper but no information is given as to where these savings might come from. Most local authorities already have some arrangements to share services to save money so it is hard to see how substantial further economies of scale could be achieved. Sales or lettings of civic real estate will only achieve one-off profits.

It is unfortunately all too common for reorganisations to fail to make the hoped-for efficiency savings. In some cases, costs can go up because reorganisation costs such as redundancies etc outweigh any savings.

7. Finally…

These are my personal opinions and not necessarily those shared by the Green Party.