Reform-run county issues letter before claim over reorganisation plans

The letter, which was sent to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government on Monday (18 May), comes after the council’s incoming Reform UK leader vowed to launch a challenge against local government reorganisation (LGR) as his first act in office.

The legal threat seeks an order quashing the Ministry's plans and calls on the Secretary of State to delay LGR in the county – including postponing a structural changes order – until the judicial review proceedings are complete.

Essex has advanced the following six grounds: inadequate reasons, procedural unfairness, inadequate consultation, misapplication of the Secretary of State’s own criteria, irrationality, and breach of the public sector equality duty.

On its first ground, the council argues that "it was plainly necessary for the Secretary of State to articulate fuller reasons than he did”, but his reasons are "less than a page long", and “do not clearly articulate" why the chosen proposal met all six of the Government's criteria.

The authority also complains that the decision fails to "clearly articulate why the five unitary model met the six criteria better than the other three proposals, each of which (according to the beginning of the letter) had also met the six criteria".

The council’s second ground claims that the decision-making process itself was procedurally unfair as the Secretary of State failed to release financial modelling of the five-unitary proposal.

It says that the alleged analysis “tended to undermine the financial case for the five-unitary council proposal which the Secretary of State regarded as unreliable".

The letter adds: "If and to the extent that such modelling and analysis was carried out on the five-unitary model and the Secretary of State knew of financial weaknesses in that model, then that should have been made clear to those affected, to enable effective representations before the decision was taken."

Building on that argument, Essex also contends that the consultation process was flawed, claiming that the Secretary of State knew about “financial weaknesses” in the five-unitary model before the consultation concluded and "failed to provide consultees with critical information" to enable informed responses.

The fourth ground meanwhile argues that the Secretary of State misapplied his own criteria for reorganisation.

The letter states that the Secretary of State's decision for Essex concluded that all four "very different" proposals for Essex met his criteria.

"Even allowing for the broad terms in which some of the criteria were formulated, that is a strong indication that the Secretary of State failed properly to consider the terms of his own policy and misapplied the criteria," the letter states.

The fifth ground contends that the decision is "tainted" by both forms of irrationality ("process rationality" and "outcome irrationality") summarised by Chamberlain J in R (KP) v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs [2025] EWHC 370 (Admin) at [55]-[57].

The letter argues that the Secretary of State failed to consider "obviously relevant" factors which amounted to process irrationality.

These factors include: the combined levels of debt from Basildon and Thurrock in the proposed South West Essex Council; the absence of an urban centre there; and the disproportionate social care burden which would fall on the proposed North East Essex Council because of the much greater density of residential care homes in that area of Essex compared to other parts of the county.

The ground also alleges that the Secretary of State reached a decision that was inconsistent with his prior decision-making in Surrey, where the Government laid particular emphasis on the financial position of existing councils and adopted a proposal for two unitary councils.

On this point, the letter states: "The financial position of Essex councils (particularly Thurrock) was just as parlous as in Surrey. Inconsistency, unequal treatment, unfairness or arbitrariness in public decision-making may lead to a conclusion that a decision is irrational."

Finally, the claim suggests that the decision breaches the public sector equality duty, raising particular concern about whether the Secretary of State had due regard to the effects on those with protected characteristics of race and religious belief in the proposed South West Essex council area.

It notes that the unitary is likely to be financially challenged whilst also being home to 20% of the overall Greater Essex population and "a heavy concentration of ethnic minorities".

"Such financially challenging circumstances are likely to have an adverse disproportionate impact on the various ethnic minority groups which are overrepresented in this area compared to the position if a three-unitary model was adopted," it argues.

Councillor Peter Harris, Leader-elect of Essex County Council, said he was “pleased to confirm” that the council has now initiated legal proceedings against the Government.

He added: "As I wrote last week, the Government's proposals are ill-thought, expensive, purely ideological in nature and seek to create further democratic distance between the people of Essex and their elected local politicians.

"We will resist the premise of Local Government Reorganisation robustly on behalf of the 1.6 million residents of Essex that have sent us to County Hall to do exactly that."

The Secretary of State could also be set to face two further challenges over LGR, after incoming Reform leaders at both Norfolk County Council and Suffolk County Council threatened their own judicial reviews this week.

Responding to these claims, a spokesperson for Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “Local government reorganisation will put one council in charge of decisions in their area.

“This will speed up the construction of new homes and infrastructure, improve public services and boost regional growth to put more money in peoples’ pockets."

Adam Carey