Sole local authority for Surrey could ‘save more than £30 million a year’

Streamlining Surrey’s local government to just one local authority could save £30 million – equivalent to the extra amount Surrey taxpayers are being charged in council tax this year.

This is according to Surrey County Council (SCC) leader Tim Oliver, who is in conversation with Boris Johnson’s government about abolishing the 11 district and borough councils in favour of a single unitary authority.

Councillor Oliver said: “By not having 12 chief executives, 12 finance directors and so on that would generate a saving in excess of £30 million every year, which is the equivalent of about 4% on the council tax, so it’s a sizeable number.”

Council tax is set to raise the county council £765 million this year, a 3.99% increase on last year.

“What I’m very keen to do is deliver good quality services to residents at a lower cost,” said Cllr Oliver.

“I would hope absolutely that we would be able to find a way of, what has been an annual increase in council tax, I would hope that we wouldn’t have to do that each year.”

Buckinghamshire Council, which serves about half the size of Surrey’s population, estimated annual savings of £18 million when it became a unitary in April.

At the moment there are two main levels of local government, with the county responsible for things like education and social care and the boroughs and districts dealing with things like planning applications and housing. In many areas there are also parish and town councils. A unitary would bring all services together under one roof.

There will not be a public referendum on the proposed shake-up, but an online survey will be held to gauge public feeling after the Government publishes a white paper on devolution and local recovery.

The survey will include a debate on an elected mayor, which Mr Oliver did not personally think was appropriate. “Surrey is a very diverse county,” he said.

“We don’t even have a city, so I don’t think that centralised mayoral model would necessarily be the right one for Surrey, but we’ll see what residents think.”

The SCC leader refuted claims of a “secretive and underhand process”, made by Residents Association Epsom and Ewell borough councillor Eber Kington.

“In some commentary from districts and boroughs and others it suggests there’s some sort of done deal, which is complete nonsense,” said Mr Oliver.

“This is just the start of a conversation and we’ll see where that goes.”“This is just the start of a conversation and we’ll see where that goes.”

He said the timeframe would depend on the Government.

Their minister for regional growth and local government, Simon Clarke, made it clear in July that their plan included more unitary councils.

Cllr Oliver expected all local elections scheduled for next year to go ahead, “unless the Government changed that position”.