Surrey County Council spends £250K on "failed bid" for unitary authority

Hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money has been spent on unitary authority plans that now look doubtful to get government support.

Surrey County Council (SCC) spent nearly £250,000 after the Government said in July it was keen on a unitarisation agenda in England.

The 11 boroughs and districts also approved a combined £300,000 budget for consultancy fees to research an alternative proposal of their own, of multiple unitaries rather than one “monster authority” as the Liberal Democrats refer to it.

They have already spent some, but not all, of this budget.

Now it appears the Government has done a u-turn and Surrey and Woking councillor Will Forster condemned SCC for “wasting” several thousands of pounds on a “failed bid”.

He said: “What a waste of money this has been not only for the county council but also for Surrey’s borough and district councils, whose much smaller budgets are already stretched to the limit having to deliver extra services during the pandemic.

“They didn’t even have a response yet from the Government – which I think is awful with Surrey being a big economic powerhouse.

“Even if they’d had a response they don’t have the unity of the public and the boroughs and districts.”

He added: “It is not surprising this Government has made another u-turn on policy proposals, but in jumping the gun it turns out that Surrey County Council has not only made a serious error of judgement in attempting this undemocratic power grab but has also overestimated its influence with Government ministers.”

SCC spent £71,000 on a review of alternative scenarios and options, £107,000 on developing a business case for a single unitary, £30,000 on evaluating the financial resilience of local government in Surrey, and £38,000 on commissioning a research company to survey residents’ views.

Leader Tim Oliver said the work done had been highly valuable, whether or not any reorganisation takes place in the future.

He said: “The money spent on research looking at more effective community engagement and the structure of local government in Surrey will be essential to our future work – particularly on local community networks – regardless of any reorganisation.

“It has provided valuable insight into upcoming challenges across Surrey and provided useful feedback from residents, which was mostly positive.”

He said the county council had shared work with districts and boroughs and the “decision to spend further money on similar activity was entirely their own”.

Nick Prescot, chair of Surrey Leaders’ Group representing the districts and boroughs, said: “A very strong proportion has not been spent, and will not be unless the momentum of the unitary debate starts again.”

They have instructed consultancy firm KPMG to instead look into an enhancement of the status quo.

“The money already engaged will now be spent looking at forging closer relationships with SCC, parish and town councils and neighbourhood forums.”

The cash was spent after Simon Clarke, minister for local government and regional growth, told the Local Government Association 2020 conference: “Our transformative plan will include a clear, ambitious strategy for strengthening our local institutions, with many more elected mayors and more unitary councils following in the footsteps of Dorset, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire.”

The minister, keen on driving further devolution, has since resigned “for purely personal reasons” and the devolution and local government white paper setting out the plans has been put on the back burner.

A letter addressed to Boris Johnson leaked to The Guardian this week, the Conservative group head at the County Councils Network warned that delaying the abolition of the smaller councils would not be helpful for their party.

According to The Guardian David Williams wrote: “It is no surprise to me that many of those celebrating reports of delays are Labour and Liberal Democrat district councillors who regard the prospect of strong county based unitaries as threats to their strongholds.

“Conservative representation at the county level remains strong but even in solidly Conservative counties like Surrey, only just over a third of local councillors within district and borough councils are Conservatives.”

Jonathan Pillow, who works for a private company securing land for house building, hinted on his LinkedIn page that Conservative local planning authorities had not reacted well to unitarisation and as a result would not be forced into restructuring.

Councillor Oliver said in a private email to Surrey Conservatives that “no 10 were not prepared to progress a local government restructuring as part of the Devolution white paper… confirmed at the County Council Networks AGM.”

It continues: “I will confirm the position for definite if and when Jenrick answers my letter but quite why this government keeps starting fires and then walking away I really don’t know. Disappointing.”

Robert Jenrick, housing, communities and local government secretary, has still not responded to the council leader’s letter sent on July 10 asking him to invite SCC to submit a business case for a unitary.