Council bosses will write to the Government to ask that the authority is reimbursed for the costs of a stalled council shake-up, saying ‘residents should not be left to pick up the bill’.
South Holland District Council is set to call on the Government to give back the money the authority spent on Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) – a process of major change which could see smaller councils scrapped in favour of larger replacements, writes Local Democracy Reporter Oliver Castle.
In September, the Government announced that it was pausing the process and said it would review its decisions, following complaints from many councils across the country about how the process had been conducted.
The motion was put forward by Coun Margaret Geaney, who argued that the money paid out by the council to put forward its preferred bid for a new-look political map of Lincolnshire could have been used towards providing better services for residents.
At a full council meeting on Thursday (15) Coun Geaney said: “Local residents should not be left to pick up a bill for a process which the Government has now chosen to pause.
“At a time when council finances are already under enormous pressure, every pound unnecessarily spent on local government reorganisation is a pound which cannot be spent on services our residents rely on.
“It should be democratically-elected local councils, in consultation with local residents, to decide whether or not to put forward locally-led proposals for restructuring and should not be imposed by Whitehall as a requirement for local government funding or devolution deals.”
Council leader Nick Worth backed the motion and said he was concerned about how the Government had carried out the process.
He added: “I think some of the biggest issues are just around the uncertainty. I would like to get some certainty as to what we’re doing.”
As part of the motion, councillors and the authority’s chief executive will work out ‘full costs’ of LGR for the authority.
The council leader will also write to the secretary of state, calling on the Government to reimburse the authority for all costs incurred as a direct result of the LGR process and for it to provide ‘clear answers’ on the future of LGR before councils are expected to spend any more money on it.
Lincolnshire County Council has said it spent £2,131,337 on the process.
