Plans could see Chesterfield join new 'North Derbyshire' council
Its part of a wider shakeup of local government across the country, which could save up to £93 million over five years
New plans could see Chesterfield sharing a council with North East Derbyshire, High Peak, the Derbyshire Dales and Bolsover.
Its part of a wider shakeup of local government across the country, which could save up to £93 million over five years and would cost up to £25 million.
Derby city council and eight Derbyshire district and borough councils have teamed up to pitch a united front for local government reorganisation across the county.
They have now published a report detailing their preferred options and those which they have ruled out, along with how much money could be saved and how much it would all cost.
This is now being discussed by each of the councils over the next week before submission of initial proposals on March 21 and a public consultation later this year and final submission of their pitch in November.
Derbyshire County Council has been asked to provide its research for its rival pitch, which it is working on without the districts and city and says could save £133 million, but it has not released it.
The districts and Derby have put forward plans to split the entire county into two new councils – North and South.
They have devised two different split options for this plan with one seeing Amber Valley in the North council with the High Peak, Derbyshire Dales, Chesterfield, North East Derbyshire and Bolsover while the South would contain Derby, Erewash and South Derbyshire.
Meanwhile, option two puts Amber Valley in the south of the county with the remaining districts retaining their same spots.
The new report shows that either split for North and South leaves a northern council which would have a financial deficit – £1.5 million if Amber Valley forms part of it and £1.3 million if it does not.
The South council options would result in an authority with a surplus of £8.6 million if it does not include Amber Valley and £8.4 million if it does.
Furthermore, the North council would have reserves of £40 million and debts of £560 million if it includes Amber Valley and £28 million in reserves and debts of £542 million if it does not.
The South council would have reserves of £76 million and debts of £811 million if it does not include Amber Valley and £89 million in reserves and debts of £829 million if it does.
Under either option, Derbyshire would go from having 447 councillors and 10 councils down to two councils with 148 councillors, with each councillor overseeing 5,500 constituents.
If Amber Valley forms part of the north, the northern council would have 83 councillors and the south would have 65 councillors, and these numbers would be reversed if Amber Valley forms part of the southern authority.
In both options the reshuffle would save between £56 million and £93 million over the next five years, the councils claim.
They say annual savings from the changes would range between £15 million and £25 million per year.
The one-off cost of the changes would range between £15 million and £25 million, with 10 councils needing to merge IT arrangements, reassess staffing, reduce their building estate and much more.
Derby and the districts had considered 15 different options, the report shows, with some involving three councils – with the county council area split in two and Derby remaining separate.
However, all those three-council options have been ruled out.
The ruled-out options also included a scheme to form a new council out of North East Derbyshire, Chesterfield and Bolsover.
A county council post last week, which has now been deleted, had claimed the authority was pitching for “one Derbyshire council” and claiming the “one unitary council” could save £133 million over five years.
It claimed “dividing Derbyshire into two council areas would save £45 million, that’s a huge £88 million pounds difference”.
When asked for clarification, the council confirmed that it is still pursuing a model of two councils for Derbyshire, with one for the county council footprint and for Derby to remain separate – the “doughnut” approach.
This is two councils for Derbyshire – one old and one new.
The districts are pitching a model of two councils for the county council area and Derby to remain separate – three councils – and have shown their two council models would save £56 million to £93 million.
The council has also now concluded a public consultation on its two-council pitch with one broad question: “To what extent do you support keeping the whole of Derbyshire together by creating a single unitary council?”
County council officials were asked if they felt the “one council” phrasing was misleading and if they had changed their plans from a two-council model to just one.
A spokesperson said: “Our information is based on analysis of the savings from reorganising the two-tier part of Derbyshire (i.e. the area covered by the county council) which shows that our approach of keeping one council on the current county council footprint will return a far greater saving than if we split the council into two. In both of these cases, Derby city would stay as a separate unitary authority.’’
The council says it plans to release its financial information next week when it makes its own initial submission to Government.
It says posts relating to the “one council” pitch were removed to remove links to the consultation which has now closed.
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