Row breaks out between Oxfordshire councils over unitary proposal

A row has broken out between local authorities in Oxfordshire over claims that the creation of a unitary council for the area would save up to £33m a year.

Oxfordshire County Council commissioned research by accountancy firm EY as part of its efforts to identify major savings. The county's Cabinet has just recommended a budget for 2015/16 which requires more than £20m of savings.

The unitary proposal would see the county combined with four districts and Oxford City Council into a single local authority.

Two other models of council reorganisation were also considered: two councils based on Oxford and the rest of the county; and three councils covering the city, north Oxfordshire and south Oxfordshire.

The authors of the EY report suggested that a single council would be better able to plan for the expected growth in population by combining responsibility for housing, schools, planning and transport. Council reserves could for example be pooled into a single £250m pot.

This model would also deliver the biggest potential savings, the report claimed. This would include by:

• Reducing the number of chief executives and senior managers that are duplicated across the current arrangements;
• Reducing the numbers of councillors and their costs. Oxfordshire said there were currently 309 Oxfordshire councillors at county and district / city council levels, with expenses of more than £2m per year, and this total could be reduced to under 100 councillors;
• Potentially reducing council tax levels for 80% of Oxfordshire's residents to the current lowest rate in the county.

Cllr Ian Hudspeth, Leader of Oxfordshire, said: “We are beyond the point where further savings can be achieved by finding more efficiencies or ‘salami slicing’ of services and we must find a different way of being able to provide essential services to our residents.”

He added: “After looking at all the options for reducing our costs and still needing to find more savings it was clear we needed a game-changer to protect frontline services in the longer-term. Creating one council for Oxfordshire could well be that game-changer and we need to have a debate about that.

“By saving £33m a year, which means council tax could be reduced, I would argue this presents the best deal for Oxfordshire residents. It would also create a once-in-a-generation chance to invest in Oxfordshire’s transport network, including road and public transport improvements.”

However, the Leader of Oxford City Council, derided the proposal, describing it as “an ill-disguised bid to grab the carefully managed resources of the districts to plug holes in its budget".

Cllr Bob Price said: "Instead of wasting its money – and everyone else's time – the county council should be using its influence to reverse the harsh cuts in government funding.

"It's particularly disappointing that the county council – which is currently slashing crucial services for elderly, disabled and homeless people – is wasting resources on this exercise. There is a funding problem not a structural problem for counties."

Cllr Price pointed out that none of the main political parties was proposing a top down reorganisation of local government in the next Parliament.

He added: "The issues we face in the city in delivering high quality services to a multi ethnic, urban community are very different from the other parts of Oxfordshire. This unitary plan would take decision making and decision makers far too far away from local communities."

Oxford City’s Leader noted that when local government reorganisation was last considered by the government, the Oxfordshire districts proposed a three unitary model – North, City and South – delivering joint services as necessary.

"This model had the obvious benefits of keeping local councillors close to their communities, delivering economies of scale and the benefits of collaboration,” he said.