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Labour’s latest U-turn on local government reorganisation is a spectacular example of a government announcing a grand vision before bothering to work out whether it was deliverable, affordable or apparently even legally sound.
For two years councils have been told to reorganise at breakneck speed. Councillors and officers have spent countless hours and millions of pounds developing proposals in the face of multiple government rethinks, reworks and policy shifts made on the hoof.
Communities have been dragged through consultations and councillors and officers have been press-ganged into facilitating these top down imposed changes, supposedly in the name of devolution.
All to pursue a back of a fag packet ministerial fever dream dumped on councils with no notice that wasn’t in Labour’s 2024 manifesto. Even the initial edict from government was rushed and issued a week before the Christmas break in 2024 with a demand for a response within the first 10 days of 2025.
All this was imposed on councils at probably one of the worst times for this country, where our communities are facing multiple challenges that we all needed to be focused on, especially things like the cost of living and climate change.
And now Labour has simply pulled the plug on much of the process with the same casual lack of regard for due process or even common courtesy. In a similar demonstration of utter contempt for local authorities and council leaders: the first we knew of any of this was when it appeared in the media. This came after less than 3 hours notice to councils, with virtually no forewarning, just Angela Rayner banging out a press release.
This isn’t “rewiring the state”. It’s making it up as you go along. I am of course relieved that this gives us some sort of reprieve in terms of one of the worst aspects of this process, represented by the half-baked decision by the government to pursue the 3 unitary option in Oxfordshire. Many commentators, myself included, regarded that as a brazen example of gerrymandering and a land grab for the Labour run City Council as well as being potentially disastrous on a financial and operational level.
However, we’ve now gone from one of the worst outcomes for local democracy to another phase of indecision and confusion which could further paralyse local government, not only in Oxfordshire, but across the country. Labour promised to restore trust in politics. In terms of local government, together with a growing list of broken promises from our already tarnished new PM, it’s doing a very impressive job of destroying it.
Cllr Ian Middleton