Saturday 15 June 2024

Suggestion: The Administrative Divisions in England should be reformed and restructured to simplify responsibilities

Waste collection vehicle in the London Borough of Islington

In this article, I will be suggesting how the administrative divisions in England may need restructuring to simplify responsibilities to provide services and to reduce complications, including administrative costs, with the different layers of public bodies.

I'm not an expert in the field of local government, as I can explain the basics, but various functions are part of the Critical National Infrastructure, such as the emergency services, finance, transport etc. I have drafted this article as we are in the General Election period in the UK, so forgive me if you see any inaccuracies.

This is a supplement to my suggestion on creating a new South East Regional Transport Authority to subsume Transport for London, the railways of the former Network SouthEast and other transport responsibilities in general for Greater London, Home Counties, and the South East of England.

According to Wikipedia, “an administrative division is a term for an administrative region within a country that is created for the purposes of managing of land and the affairs of people. The area typically has a local government with a certain degree of autonomy, and is on a level below that of the sovereign state.”

In England, there are numerous different types of local authorities, which are:

21 county councils

Their responsibilities include:

education
transport
planning
fire and public safety
social care
libraries
waste management
trading standards

164 district, borough or city councils

Their responsibilities include:

rubbish collection
recycling
Council Tax collections
housing
planning applications

10,480 Parish, community and town councils

These operate at a level below district and borough councils and in some cases, unitary authorities.

They’re elected and can help on a number of local issues, like providing:

allotments
public clocks
bus shelters
community centres
play areas and play equipment
grants to help local organisations
consultation on neighbourhood planning

They also have the power to issue fixed penalty fines for things like:

litter
graffiti
fly posting
dog offences

63 unitary councils
33 London boroughs
36 metropolitan boroughs

Their responsibilities include:

education
transport
planning
fire and public safety
social care
libraries
waste management
trading standards
rubbish collection
recycling
Council Tax collections
housing
planning applications

11 Combined authorities and combined county authorities

Combined Authorities or Mayoral Combined Authorities: formed of 2 or more local councils, either led by a directly elected Mayor (Mayoral Combined Authority) or without a Mayor (Combined Authority). They support councils to work together across a wider geographic area on issues such as transport and housing. Any “lower tier” authorities (districts or borough councils within a county council area) are included as members.

Combined County Authorities or Mayoral Combined County Authorities: formed of 2 or more local councils, either led by a Mayor (Mayoral Combined County Authority) or without a Mayor (Combined County Authority). They support councils to work together across a wider geographic area on issues such as transport and housing. Any “lower tier” authorities (districts or borough councils within a county council area) are not included as members.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) is the regional governance body for Greater London. Established in 2000 it is different to other institutions in England with devolved powers. It consists of 2 political branches – the Mayoralty, which holds the decision-making power, and the 25-member London Assembly, which serves as a means of scrutinising the mayoralty. The Mayor can take decisions without the involvement or approval of the 32 borough councils and City of London, whereas Combined Authorities (which exist elsewhere in England) have a formal role for the local councils in their areas.

There are multiple webpages on the government websites about the local government.

Gov UK – Understand how your council works

Gov UK Guidance - English institutions with devolved powers: Plain English guidance

Local Government Association - What is local government?

Local Government Association - How is local government organised?

In the Republic of Ireland, there are 31 local authorities that are responsible for a range of local services, including:

Housing
Roads
Recreation and amenities
Planning
Libraries
Environmental protection
Fire services
Register of electors

Most (26) local authorities are county councils. There are also 3 city councils (Dublin, Galway and Cork) and 2 councils that oversee a city and a county (Limerick and Waterford).

Also in the Republic of Ireland, social care is provided by the government, one example is the Child and Family Agency, known as Tusla, which is overseen by the Irish Government’s Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

You can read more about the responsibilities of local authorities in other parts of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, Scotland (second link) and Wales.

Reforms to local government in the past decades.

There have been reforms to the local government in England and Scotland in the past decades, as part of the Conservative Party manifesto commitments in 1983 and 1992.

Which includes the government takeover of London Transport from the Greater London Council (GLC) in 1984. Then in 1985, the government imposed rate capping on the local authorities and later abolished the GLC and the Metropolitan County Councils in 1986.

After the abolition of the GLC, the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) continued as a directly elected authority until its abolition in April 1990.

In 2000, a Londonwide government for Greater London returned as the Greater London Authority, which included control of London’s Transport services by establishing Transport for London (TfL).

In 1994, the government passed new legislation to abolish the two-tier structure of regions and districts in Scotland, except for islands council areas. One council named "Lothian Regional Council," which was abolished and split into four local authorities named East Lothian, City of Edinburgh, Midlothian and West Lothian, occurred in 1996. The publicly owned Lothian Regional Transport (currently Lothian Buses) was saved from privatisation despite protests by local residents to keep the bus services publicly owned.

In Ireland, back in 2014, the Irish government made reforms to the local government, which included a few areas that merged the number of councils to create a larger council area. This included the abolition of city councils. Then on the 11th June 2024, one region in Ireland had its first directly elected Mayor for Limerick City and County Council.

Since the 1980s, local government services have been contracted out to private companies as part of the policy on public sector procurement to ensure that local authorities obtain goods, services, and work in a transparent, fair, and cost-effective manner to meet the needs of their communities. First, it was applied to maintenance and highway work in 1980, then extended to "blue-collar" services such as refuse collection in the late 1980s and then "white-collar" services such as housing management in the 1990s.

Reforms to control of bus services

During the year 1986, alongside the deregulation of bus services in Great Britain (except Greater London), public transport executives (PTEs) were compelled to transfer their bus operations to "arms length" public transport companies. Which meant they no longer had the power to regulate the routes and fares of the bus operators, nor could they prevent (legal) competition from external operators.

The concept of bus deregulation was about the abolition of Road Service Licensing removed the public sector's role in fare-setting, routes, and bus frequencies and returned those powers to bus operators.

However, local authorities can tender out a bus service that is deemed to be socially necessary by subsidising a bus service.

As for London, the takeover of London Transport by establishing London Regional Transport was part of the government’s policy on contracting out London’s bus services to the private sector. However, I did mention in my previous article when the issue of London Bus service changes to routes 38 and 55 was raised in the House of Commons.

The reform of the administrative regions and services

It's time for fresh ideas on how the local and regional authorities in England and, from a perspective, the rest of the UK administrative divisions could be reformed.

I suggest that the next government propose a major review of the current structure and layers of the administrative regions in the UK to reduce confusion and simplify services for all people, irrespective of whether they live in the city or the countryside.

This includes the creation of regional transport authorities (includes control of regional railway services and full control of surface transport, infrastructure, etc.), and reforming the way local services (such as waste, social services, etc.) are provided by removing the boundaries.

I would establish local bus authorities, which can be run in conjunction with the parish or town councils to provide local bus services. This could include creating a bus operating company or contracting a route to a private bus operating company, which is currently proposed in Strathclyde, Scotland and Wales.

The local police in England and Wales are not like the police in the United States of America, where I tend to see the Essex police in Havering, and the Metropolitan Police tends to serve the entire UK for national security reasons.

The local services should have no boundaries, and I believe that boundaries are artificial. I believe that the reforms should remove such restrictions and allow the residents to access services irrespective of their local residency. One example is the Gerpins Lane Reuse and Recycling Centre, which is in the London Borough of Havering (and inside the ULEZ area), but is close to Aveley, which is in Thurrock. Unfortunately, the residents of Aveley have to travel to the Linford Household Waste and Recycling Centre, which is on the other side of Thurrock. That is why these geographic restrictions need to be removed to allow the residents to use a service that is close to them, regardless of the local authority boundary.

I suggest looking at models of regional services from other countries, such as France, Germany, etc., as they have a larger area. I would be in favour of reforming the mayors, etc., into new regional governors with an assembly similar to the London Assembly and some form of legislative power similar to the Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish devolved administrations. I am not advocating for the abolition of the Mayor of London.

The local authorities may have different names and branding, but they should all work together, regardless of the political makeup of the councils.

Over on X (formerly known as Twitter), I did raise an issue about the disabled and older residents in Epping Forest district. Despite the fact that the area is served by TfL bus services and the London Underground Central line, they refused to join the Freedom Pass scheme, which would enable free TfL and National Rail travel for them.

How would the reformed local authorities be funded?

The concept of taxation can be controversial; I leave my ideas to the decision makers to propose, which can include abolishing the council tax, reinstating the rates, or bringing in a land value tax.

The reason is that in recent years, despite the government's funding package, the local authorities have been facing financial issues, which led to the rise in council tax, with a number of councils (irrespective of political party control) declaring bankruptcy, which causes reductions and cuts to local services provided by the council, especially with the government’s policy on austerity, which started in 2010.

I recommend reading a report from the House of Commons library on What happens if a council goes bankrupt?

Should the boundary of Greater London be reformed?

The current boundary for Greater London has been established since 1965 as part of the creation of the GLC; you can read the full history on Wikipedia.

Does it mean the (re)creation of the Greater London Council subsuming the responsibility of London Boroughs (while retaining the City of London) and districts inside the M25 as a first-tier local authority (while retaining names such as Havering, Hillingdon, Newham, etc.)? And a shared responsibility of London's transport services with the prospective South East Regional Transport Authority.

The second-tier regional government should have new regions similar to (Metropolitan) France and Germany, which have regional responsibilities that include economic plans, housing, education, transport, police, social services, etc.

Which responsibilities could the newly created administrative divisions have?

As I said, I’m not an expert in the field of local authority. I have provided an example below.

The first (local) tier would have responsibility for :

libraries
housing
planning applications
Council/local Tax collections
allotments
public clocks
community centres
play areas and play equipment
consultation on neighbourhood planning
Street names (in collaboration with the regional transport authorities)

The second (regional) tier would have responsibilities for:

education
transport (as part of my idea for a new regional transport authorities for England)
planning
fire and public safety
social care
waste management
trading standards
rubbish collection
recycling

I would like to have a regional assembly with powers similar to the London Assembly in terms of investigating policies and scrutinising the governor and mayor in any of the local and regional governments.

New ideas are needed to help simplify local government services and the economy. The reason is that the current devolution arrangements for England are too complex, with different layers of authorities and districts with their own types of responsibilities, which prompts confusion and increases administrative costs at a time when overall funding for essential services is stretched.

Such changes will require change to the legislation in Parliament.

I will remain with my ideas and suggestions solely on improving transport, anyone is welcome to take on my ideas.

For further reading

We Should Learn About The Critical National Infrastructure And Why Public Transport Is Important For The Economy And Society

Suggestion: Why Inclusive Surcharge-free Data Roaming on Smartphones is Important for Overseas Tourists (& Vice Versa) to Navigate Public Transport, and To Purchase E-Tickets etc.

I have also posted multiple articles with my suggestions on improving public transport in London.

Why is Creativity in Public Transport Important, Including Bus Route Planning and Branding?

Suggestion: Transport for London Should Revive the Old Speedbus Proposal From the 1970s as Part of Phase 2 of the Superloop

Suggestion: London Passenger Transport Area Including London Country Buses Should Be Revived To Enhance Cross-Boundary Connections

Suggestion: I Believe It’s Time for a New Regional Transport Body for the South East of England? (This will require change to the legislation in Parliament).

I Believe TfL Should Reform The Travelcard Agreement To Offer Smart Flexible Ticketing Options

Making A Case For New Rapid Transit Lines (Including New Tram Lines) By Increasing Bus Priority Measures

I invite you to follow me on X by searching for @CLondoner92 or by clicking on the direct link to my X page here. I'm also on BlueSky and Mastodon.

Image attribution
By DAVID HOLT from London, England - London June 1 2016 018 Islington Garbage Truck VK57 ULS, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49633258

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