Letter: Local Government Reorganisation Is Good News

Published on: 17 Jan, 2025
Updated on: 17 Jan, 2025

From Brian Creese

Guildford Labour activist

Having campaigned over many years on the merits of scrapping Surrey’s inefficient, expensive and bureaucratic two-tier (sometimes three-tier) system of local government, it is wonderful to see decisive and swift action from the new Labour government to reform local government.

The current system is simply not fit for purpose: almost no residents have a clear understanding of which council is responsible for what, councillors are constantly bombarded with complaints about matters they have no responsibility for, while the various councils wrangle between each other to avoid taking responsibility.

One council means one administration responsible for every aspect of local government, one set of councillors who have no excuse for not sorting out issues.

The current system involves Surrey having 12 [one for each of the 11 borough or district councils, plus one for the county council] council offices, 12 senior executives – many on five-figure salaries – and over 500 councillors paid allowances, ensuring that our democratic system is really very expensive. A system of unitary councils will be more efficient, more accountable and cheaper to run.

The Government Bill however, offers us something more – the possibility of a regional mayor – our very own Andy Burnham – to represent the regions at the highest levels of government and on the national and international stage.

The devil of course is in the detail:

should there be two unitary authorities or three?
what do we do with Woking’s debt?
who will we share a mayor with?

There is plenty left to decide and argue about, but abolishing the current cumbersome system, and sweeping away the out-of-date Tory county council is great news for all Surrey residents.