Over the border: Major council reform will see ‘uncertainty and stress’ for staff, contractors and residents says Uttlesford boss
Politics / Tue 7th Jan 2025 at 10:15am
MAJOR plans to merge Essex councils together into large authorities will create a “period of uncertainty and stress for staff, contractors and service users” Uttlesford’s council chief executive has said reports the Local Democracy Reporter.
Council boss Peter Holt also says the process, which could take around four years, is “just putting off some of the harder and more unsettling decisions that need to be taken.”
Mr Holt has prepared a report ahead of the extraordinary council meeting of the North Essex council on January 8.
It comes after the Government announced a huge change to the structure of councils, which is expected to see all councils abolished and replaced with new combined authorities in Essex, as well as other parts of the country. It is yet to be revealed exactly how it will affect Essex. Under the current system for councils in Essex, there is a two-tier system, with 12 district councils, two unitary councils and one county council. Powers, responsibilities and services are split up between district and county councils, while unitary councils run all services independently from the county council. In Essex, the district councils are Basildon, Braintree, Brentwood, Castle Point, Chelmsford, Colchester, Epping Forest, Harlow, Maldon, Rochford, Tendring, and Uttlesford. The unitary authorities are Thurrock and Southend, and the county council is Essex County Council.
The report by the council boss suggests that the start date, vesting day, for a new set of unitaries in Essex and close-down date for the current 15 councils to be abolished would likely be either April 2027 or April 2028, with a shadow authority elected about a year earlier, likely May 2026 or May 2027, respectively.
It reads: “Although a vesting day of April 2028 may on the face of it seem to afford a welcome degree of more time to merge councils, in many respects, it is just putting off some of the harder and more unsettling decisions that need to be taken, and thus extending the period of uncertainty and stress for staff, contractors and service users. This is because the really hard decisions are taken by the newly-elected members of the shadow authority, which is generally only elected in the year before vesting day. An April 2028 vesting day therefore means elections to the shadow authority likely in May 2027, so those difficult decisions being taken from May 2027, instead of from May 2026 shadow elections if ‘Vesting Day’ were April 2027.
“Clearly, concerns about the loss of closeness to residents is likely to be more acute the larger each new unitary authority is. Councillors may also feel that different alignments of areas would make Uttlesford’s rural character more or less likely to be subsumed into more densely populated neighbouring areas.
“Various changes presaged in the white paper would require extensive public consultation in due course. There is no opportunity for meaningful public consultation between the late December 2024 publication of the White Paper and the 10th January 2025 deadline for applications to Government to cancel the May 2025 County Council elections. The potential reforms promoted within the White Paper would lead to substantial changes affecting all council staff, including potentially a change of employer, likely new terms and conditions in a new unitary council, and some redundancies, especially amongst senior staff.”
Categories: Devolution
adam
2025-01-07 12:01:21
Get the staff fired, we can cut taxes then and the staff can go and do something productive and not obstructive working for the government. The real issue is most public sector workers are over paid and under worked.
Nicholas Taylor
2025-01-07 12:50:04
Adam, I feel sure from this comment and many others you have made in the past that you have never worked in local government. Just which staff would you cut, those monitoring food establishments, those that write and monitor contracts such as waste disposal and street sweeping, those that ensure rent is paid, those dealing with the letting of homes and business premises, those dealing with public safety, those dealing with child protection, domestic violence, planning applications and many many more. If it was all so rosy as you suggest, how come councils across the country are crying out for staff who have the qualifications and bottle to do such jobs. The proposals put forward by the Labour Party will if they go forward be a disaster for the future of Harlow, our elected representatives would be a small cog in a very large wheel
Guy Flegman
2025-01-07 17:27:24
Actually Adam is nor far from the mark. The problem with the public sector is even outlined in Nicholas’s comment with too many people monitoring and checking things than doing things. As they say far to many people at the blunt end at the expense of the pointy end. Every time there is a problem in public sector the person responsible does not sort it. Instead they either create a new dept to look into it or higher expensive consultants to advise as no one wants to take responsibility for anything. I know professionals at the pointy end of the public service who spend nearly a 1/4 of their time form filling for someone else to analyse rather than getting on with their job, only for the analysis to come back and say you are not using your time efficiently and you need more staff. You really cannot make it up.
Nicholas Taylor
2025-01-07 18:33:42
Guy, I guess you have never worked in local government. It is nothing like the picture you are painting. In my day as a housing manager at Harlow Council there was for instance about 100 staff managing the councils housing stock OF SOME 10,000 homes, maintaining waiting list, allocating homes, making sure rent was paid, dealing with tenancy issues, neighbour disputes, tenancy changes and more. Have you any idea what this involves, do you know anything of the laws involved? I guess not. How many staff (managers) monitoring performance, five. As for setting up a new department, well frankly I have never heard so much poppy cock!
Guy Flegman
2025-01-07 19:25:00
I have family members who work in the public sector and have worked on government contracts with the UK government and multiple EU projects. I also have friends in government and the civil service and the health service. The word “ gravy train” pretty much sums it up. Take your response above the private sector would not employ 100 people to manage 10000 rentals. I do not mean to offend, as any organisation that is not held to proper account( ie, failure means everyone looses their job as in the private sector) will always become boated and inefficient it’s human nature.
Nicholas Taylor
2025-01-07 21:57:37
Well Guy, I can only speak of staff in local Governemnt and the fact that you doubt that 100 staff are needed to manage 10,000 properties demonstrates to all that have worked in such a field that you have no knowledge of just what is involved in such work. Just today you will have seen on the news hundreds of flooded homes, who do you think comes out with the fire and police services to deal with those who need to be rehoused, help make insurance claims, open rest centres, etc, yep, a pool of staff from the local council who can be called out day or night to help, 365 days of the year.
Guy Flegman
2025-01-07 22:48:06
In the private sector you have to navigate your private insurers. Not rely on someone else to bail you out. And yes a very close family member used to work for circle housing so I understand where you are coming from. But unless you have run a private business employing 50 plus people with all the responsibility that this entails , I find it difficult to see your point of view. As a plus I support your efforts as an in independent politician in a system that is loaded against you., but your experience of the world appears to be somewhat limited.
Guy Flegman
2025-01-07 22:57:47
I should add that a close family member managed to house all the homeless in london during the pandemic via the public service they worked for and got royal recognition for it.. so I do understand the difficulties. I just like to highlight that the vast majority of people involved focus on the process instead of the goals.
Nicholas Taylor
2025-01-09 00:15:09
Guy, the Council own many commercial buildings in Harlow and would have to deal with buildings insurance claims. Many household residents whether in the public or private sector have no contents insurance so council officers will often help find items to fill a new home via local charities. They will also need to provide accomodation for those in the private sector who need accomodation in an emergency. As a manager in local government you have the same responsibilities towards staff as in the private sector. I might suggest that in the private housing sector,a landlord would not register hundreds of housing applicants each year, deal with 500 to 600 properties being vacated and re-let each year and of course they would not have any staff dealing with housing benefit appllications as a council does. The private sector would not have staff to deal with licences and the monitoring of homes in multiple occupation either. I can only assure you again from my experience, that 90% of staff are at the sharp end of the business within a council. I think you might just get the picture!
Guy Flegman
2025-01-09 22:10:53
We will have to agree to disagree on this I am afraid.
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