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Rutland County Council leader says it’s important to protect county’s identity during devolution process




It is often said that a week is a long time in politics, writes leader of Rutland County Council leader Gale Waller (Lib Dem).

The four short weeks that have passed since I shared my last column with you certainly give credence to this notion.

Immediately prior to Christmas, when I wrote about the busy year that was drawing to an end, I briefly touched on the issue of devolution and local government reorganisation. At that time, the Government’s new White Paper on devolution was just a few days old, having been published on Thursday, December 19. To summarise its contents: national government wants all councils that are not already part of a combined authority to form or join strategic authorities with total populations of at least 1.5million people. At the same time, it announced a programme of local government reorganisation which would replace all two-tier county and district councils with new unitary councils that have populations of at least 500,000.

Gale WallerRutland County Council leader Gale Waller
Gale WallerRutland County Council leader Gale Waller

Understandably, these proposals have led to questions and concerns among a large number of you who recognise there are serious implications for Rutland. We are a single unitary council with a current population of 41,000. The White Paper also indicated that existing unitary councils which were in financial difficulties and/or had poor services would also be reorganised into larger units. Rutland does not fall into this category as we have services rated at least good and have a balanced budget.

Numerous reasons have been given for such wholesale changes to our system of local government. These include empowering local areas, supporting economic growth and driving efficiencies that may help bring down costs. Devolution and the move towards combined authorities has the potential to be very beneficial for our communities here in Rutland. However, any change only works if it is done in the right way. The options in front of us are limited but we see the potential, which is why we are engaging positively with the Government and our near neighbours.

There is a clear expectation in the White Paper that councils should pursue reorganisation in a way that reflects and takes account of existing arrangements for the provision of health, policing and fire services. For Rutland, this puts emphasis on our longstanding relationships with Leicester City, Leicestershire County and Leicestershire’s District Councils. Together, we are among the councils who need to explore reorganisation before we can consider progressing onto devolution. This remains the focus of our discussions, with more work still needed to develop firm, evidence-led proposals.

The Government has indicated that interim proposals for reorganisation need to be submitted by March – although we are still waiting for confirmation of the precise date. In the meantime and ahead of this unknown submission date, Councillors who represent our communities here in Rutland will take part in an extra Council meeting on February 11, to publicly debate and discuss what’s being asked of us. This will be an important meeting and full details can be found on our website: www.rutland.gov.uk/meetings.

Our residents are rightly proud of Rutland’s special identity and we must not lose our specialness. As I have said many times before and will continue to repeat – councils perform best when their boundaries reflect the way people live their lives.

There can be no assumptions, shortcuts or knee-jerk reactions to what the government has proposed. We need to consider the critically important relationship between scale and geography as part of any discussions and must be led by hard evidence as to what is best for communities across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland in deciding the way forward for our residents.



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