Plaid Cymru South Wales East AM Lindsay Whittle has urged local authorities in Wales to stand up against what he describes as ‘back door’ reorganisation by the Welsh Government.
Local Government Minister Carl Sargeant wants some council services to be shared across local authority boundaries in the hope it will improve them by cutting overall costs.
The former leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council said: “Carl Sargeant and Leighton Andrews, Education Minister, have adopted a bludgeoning attitude to local government.
“I always found the council leaders from all parties to be of the highest integrity and I believe they should be working together to prevent back-door local government re-organisation.
“If the Welsh Government’s agenda is local government reorganisation let them come forward with clear proposals so we can have a proper debate. I’m not happy with the way Ministers are behaving, there is too much hectoring. Let them be upfront.
“There is talk about that there are too many councils and, therefore, too many chief executives and other senior offices. But up until 1996 there was 37 district authorities and eight county councils all with their own chief officer teams.”
I agree with Lindsay, this `re-organiation` of local councils by dictat, and by what appears to an undemocratic decree, is unacceptable, not least because Councils are already engaged in awarding much of its usaul day to day responsibilities to what it calls, "THE THIRD SECTOR", charities and others who will assume much of the work previously done by the `the council`.
Council`s are also already systematically dismantling much of its provisions by awarding contracts to private companies and groups to provide services it previously provided, the latest, by Caerphilly Council, being the Childcare provisions it has a statutory responsibility to undertake on behalf of all citizens, it has already awarded contracts to many other agancies and private companies to provide other services.
I am not suggesting this is a good or bad thing, my concern is, similar to Lindsay`s, that no proper democratic debate or consultation appears to be taking place in this dismantling process, and to suggest a return to what `appear` to be the old `Shire` county councils bounderies is another example of this totally undemocratic process, we have come, over the years, to expect Tory Governments to privatise this and that, they make no excuses for doing so, but we do not expect this sote of dictat, by decree orders from a Labour administration. Or then again do we?
Lets hope Lindsay and his colleagues both in his party and other opposition groups can ensure that before Carl Sargent decrees anything in line with that being proposed is properly and publicly debated.
I disagree, I have always felt that the old County Council and Urban District arrangement was far better than the various "Reforms" we have had since 1974. The current system duplicates services, and is not very user friendly,for example, closing a footpath alongside the Owen Glyndwr fields for the Welsh Proms. Even allowing for the Stalinist domination of the old Glamorgan County Council by the Labour party was better than what we have now. The "Reforms"have mostly been carried out by the Conservative Party in order to destroy local Government, and its probably too late to change. I feel that the Caerphilly Counry Borough Council is too remote, and the District Council toothless on the one hand and too parish pumpish on the other. But in the last twenty or so years, I`ve had three gurus, Aneurin Bevan who said, said "Dissenters are born and not made", Anna Goldman the Lithuanian born anarchist, who said, " If voting changed anything they`d ban it", an opinion slighty modified by P J O Rourke, the American columnist, who said, "Dont vote for the bastards it only encourages them". So I dont, but I still worry about the mistakes they make.
I believe that the, long defunct, Caerphilly Urban District Council (CUDC)was, despite its flaws, better than the system we have now. This was because the council based its spending plans on needs within its boundaries; removing boundaries, still further, separates the elected council from the service provision they were elected to oversee.
Local government seems to be deteriorating even further, with faceless interference by the, frankly useless, Welsh Assembly. If changes are to be made they need to be debated before more, ill thought out, reorganisation robs us of locally controlled, locally accountable services.