Ribble Valley Council taking on extra staff
It's as bosses deal with demands of local government shake-up
Ribble Valley Council is looking to employ extra temporary workers because current staff are facing a mounting workload with a local government shake-up expected in 2028.
Councils across Lancashire face potential mergers or abolition under the government’s English Devolution White Paper. The government wants to end the current two-tier county and district council system which has operated in parts of England, including much of Lancashire, since 1974.
Instead, the government wants larger, brand-new unitary councils which would run all council services in each area, potentially covering populations of 500,000 people. But the government has also said it is open to ideas and possibly some flexibility with sizes.
Lancashire councils have been told to send the government their detailed ideas and business cases for their preferences by November. The Red Rose county could be potentially have one, two, three, four or five unitary councils. But nothing has been decided yet.
Ribble Valley Council’s first choice is to keep the current county and borough system. But if that is not possible, it’s next choice would be to join with Lancaster and Preston councils in one future authority. Ribble Valley and other councils are working with consultants called 31Ten-Metro Dynamics on a detailed business case.
At their latest meeting, Ribble Valley councillors on the Policy & Finance Commitee agreed to allow the chief executive, Marshal Scott, working with chairman from two key committees, to appoint temporary staff.
Conservative Coun Sue Bibby backed the recommendation and said: “We need extra staff to allow for business as usual. Requests are coming in, two a week, from government officials and others, asking the council for information of one type or another.”
A report for councillors stated: “The work of the council continues despite the large number of meetings and additional burden placed on staff by collating information, evidence and data to put forward the best possible submission of our unitary council case.
“This additional workload is likely to increase once the secretary of state has
determined the new shape of local government in Lancashire, as councils prepare to move to the new authorities.
“To ensure we continue to provide good quality services, we may need to appoint temporary staff to cover some of the work that will suffer as key staff are involved in local government reorganisation. Finance, legal and I.T. in particular are areas where local government reorganisation will place additional burdens on staff.”
Regarding finance, the report said no specific budget has been made at this stage for the costs of working on local government reorganisation. The government has made £449,000 available across Lancashire to support council’s submissions. This is being used to fund consultancy work. The transitional costs of moving into new unitary authorities will be assessed as part of the various options.
Councillors also discussed future elections, public access to councils and local democracy if the changes happen, an expected fall in the number of elected councillors, government support for cabinet-led councils rather than committee systems, and what many felt is a lack of clarity about the future role of town and parish councils (see separate report).