Two of Wales' most senior councillors bite back against MSs who want to change the system

Wales Online

8 hours ago

Two of Wales' most senior councillors bite back against MSs who want to change the system
Councils are already collaborating and Senedd members with a 'cushy' job should keep out, according to local authority leaders
Andrew Morgan is leader of the Welsh Local Government Association
(Image: WalesOnline/ Gayle Marsh )
Cutting the number of councils in Wales would likely not save money as authorities are already collaborating to save money, a senior Welsh council leader has said – while taking a pop at any Senedd members who suggest otherwise.
The Welsh Local Government Association – the body which represents Wales' 22 councils – is currently meeting for its annual conference in Llandudno.
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Ahead of that some of its most senior members spoke to journalists about the challenges facing councils and were asked if the long-discussed topic of local government reorganisation remained on the table.
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The answer was an emphatic and defiant 'no'.
The current local government structure in Wales was established in 1996 and the debate about whether the number of councils in Wales needs to change has been ongoing for years since. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here.
After the 2016 Assembly election current finance minister Mark Drakeford was given responsibility for councils and said while 22 authorities could remain as the "front door" to which people would access key services there would be an "enhanced level of mandatory and systematic regional working" with the aim of ensuring greater resilience and better planning and delivery of services regionally
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A year later, following a cabinet reshuffle, Alun Davies was appointed to the local government role and indicated he wanted to see 10 local authority areas. However he then rowed back and said he was no longer pursuing compulsory mergers, making him the third Welsh Government minister to abandon reorganisation plans. You can recap all that here.
When, this week, a question about whether the number of councils should be cut from 22 was put to the head of the WLGA and leader of Rhondda Cynon Taf council Andrew Morgan, because the topic continued to be discussed by some Senedd members, he bit back.
"Some of the people, sometimes, who say about local government organisation, perhaps maybe they should just try spend some time as a councillor. Maybe if they understood what day to day goes on in a council...it's all very well a backbencher in the Senedd [saying that] but I think they've got a cushy life compared to most council leaders and the work and effort has to be put in.
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"I also would say maybe sometimes they don't speak from a point of evidence."
Cllr Morgan said slashing staff and setting up large super-councils could make initial savings and he accepted there was an element of "spend to save" but said there is a £1bn-plus shortfall predicted over the next three years for local government. "If you could make £200m saving over the long term, that doesn't cover the shortfall in funding for one year," he said.
Cllr Morgan said there were now plenty of examples of different councils working together. For example Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan, and Bridgend share regulatory services while RCT and Merthyr have shared youth services and community safety resources.
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"Every local authority can identify lots of savings where we reduced officers and we are now covered in a bigger geographical area in terms of our services," he said.
"We're constantly trying to reduce down those savings. If you go back a decade and say a decade ago that £200m could be saved – although we questioned at the time it was feasible – I would argue an awful lot of those savings have already been made through the changes and the collaborations we've done.
"I would say to anybody who thinks that local government reorganisation is a silver bullet – I would suggest it's like putting a plaster on someone who has just lost their arm. It really isn't going to save us long-term. I would really question those people who think that this is the way forward."
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Mark Pritchard, the leader of Wrexham council, said he believed reorganisation was "a vanity project – one of many from the Welsh Government".
He said: "Whether you have 11 local authorities in Wales, or 15 or 18 or 22, you still have to fund them accordingly.
"Is there a possibility of savings? Maybe. I don't do knee-jerk reactions, I never have, but there has to be a strong business case."
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He said there was little evidence of how money would be saved.
"If you're going to change something you have to change it for the betterment of the services and if you can save money at the same time why wouldn't you want to do it? Absolutely," he said.
But he added: "Wales is a very diverse place, different cultures – different languages, different understandings. It's not a Manchester, it's not a Birmingham or London.
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"Look at the health board [here] – big is not always better. The reason why the health board is in a mess, in my opinion, is because they've created a monster. It's too big and the sooner we reduce it the better".
Of Senedd members advocating reorganisation he said he was "against throwaway remarks", adding: "It's a little bit rich when they're increasing the MSs to 96 when we don't need them."