A councillor has today suggested that £27 million a year could be saved by replacing existing councils in Notts with a single unitary authority
Cllr Richard Jackson, who is chairman of Nottinghamshire County Council’s finance and major contracts committee, made the claim in a video released earlier today.
He said an outline business case for a unitary council published several years ago demonstrated that a £27m annual saving could be delivered if plans to create the single authority were approved.
He said: “That is £27m I want us to be able to spend delivering services that people rely on in the county.”
The video has been released a day after eight council bosses in Nottinghamshire voiced their their opposition to Nottinghamshire County Council’s ‘super council’ plan.
They wrote: “Our localities are very different, and the political leadership of our councils is very different, and yet we are united in our opposition to a single unitary council being the only option on the table.
“A single unitary council for Nottinghamshire would attempt to serve 828,000 people.
“This is way beyond the acceptable size threshold that you have articulated and that we expect to be confirmed in the forthcoming white paper.
“Only Birmingham City Council would represent more people.
“Scale can deliver economies, but too big breeds bureaucracy and inflexibility.
“Nottinghamshire County Council is already a very large organisation that struggles to react swiftly and responsively to local needs.
“Our residents deserve so much better.”
Nottinghamshire County Council is yet to comment on the letter.
£27 Million savings really! That figure will look like peanuts after the costs of council employee redundancies and other factors have been accounted for. It’s estimated that reorganisation of local government across the UK will cost over £19.1 billion, costing taxpayers much more money.
Residents will pay more and get a lot less. It’s a massive and unnessary distraction at a time when we should be concentrating on local recovery. Reorganisation will also create a massive democratic deficit and centralise power taking power away from local communities making decision making feel remote from the people. Bigger is not better, evidence shows that as authorities get much larger service delivery gets bogged down in more committees and layers of management that work against efficiency savings and the ability to respond quickly to local events or the needs of residents and local businesses. In short creating a Unitary County Council will cost residents far more money than the present structure!