It is no secret that Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils are currently in talks to investigate closer collaboration in order to compensate for the fall away in revenues that is being experienced by both councils.
There are various possibilities. We could simply share our top management teams under a single Chief Executive. Alternatively we could go for a fuller merger of activities. We already have a very successful shared Waste partnership with Mid Suffolk. These arrangements have saved a good deal of money for council tax payers over the years and have won awards and plaudits from those bodies who are concerned with such things.
A full merger of the councils to make one authority, stretching from the Norfolk Border to the Shotley Peninsular and down to Bures, is also a possibility. This is of course a more radical solution which raises some of the problems and advantages of the unitary council arrangements that might have occurred under the late and ill-fated Local Government Reorganisation. There would be fewer councillors and larger Wards. Residents might feel remote from decision making, and in order to promote 'localism' it may be necessary to insert additional layers of government in the form of ‘community boards’ and the like. Depending on how these bodies are organised and funded, these may compromise the available cost savings. A full merger would need parliamentary, or at least ministerial, approval, and it is not certain at present how the new Government would react to such a request.
It is certain that this is one of the issues that will occupy Babergh during the last year of the current council (elections are due in May 2011). I am personally convinced that there is no alternative but to release the cost savings available from shared services. I am a little more cautious about rushing into a full merger, but think that in the longer term such a move is very likely. Many uncertainties remain but I will try to keep readers up with events.
