Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats

White Paper on Local Government

The long awaited White Paper held no surprises as much of it has been talked about for some time. On arrival it was seen by many as a damp squib and a missed opportunity. From the Liberal Democrat standpoint it certainly failed to encourage democratic renewal and does nothing to introduce fair local taxes based on ability to pay, and also a lost opportunity to bring in a fair voting system. No transfer of powers or money from Whitehall or quangos. No mention of scrapping Council Tax or Business Rates and also premature that this has been published before the Lyons report.

However, we must surely welcome the proposal to reform the Standards Board and local councillors' rights to defend their local communities on planning decisions. We also welcome the Government's conversion to "localism" and decentralisation whilst remaining sceptical of their real intentions. We also welcome measures to strengthen scrutiny including new powers to scrutinise outside bodies including the police - however, noting all reference to education establishments eg. Academies are missing (especially in the light of new foundation status schools).

But I would wish to concentrate my speech this afternoon on the question of unitaries and again this is the debate we have been having for some time with our district colleagues. Many of us will remember when this came up before, and my colleague Cllr Roaf reminds me of this many times. Again, a missed opportunity - do we wish to miss it again?

The deadline for submission of proposals is on 25th January and as our colleagues in the City have rushed to meet this deadline - what does that mean for the rest of us? What it has meant is that some district colleagues have already realised that in the short timescale this will be unrealistic (Vale & South dropped their proposal), and although I am unaware of the current thinking of Cherwell and West, it does not seem very likely that splitting the County into these 3 separate unitaries will find favour with the government.

So where does this leave us at the County Council. Joanna kindly briefed us on Friday and gave us some of the new proposals within the new Bill, and if we believe what we have been told (and there is no reason not to believe this), then the govt. could essentially 'require' us as a County Council to become unitary.

As the costings within the Cabinet report show, the payback to the County Council if all facts are taken into account would be within 2 years, all other options would never pay back. So surely on efficiency and economies of scale alone there is some merit on giving a County unitary further thought? The big question has to be - how do we devolve down and compensate for this large County body with its hugely strategic role, functioning efficiently with its 'joined up' powers - whilst achieving localism within communities?

I am sure our Chairman will not mind me quoting some of her words from Friday's meeting which talked about the importance of communities - and what communities mean for Oxfordshire - I think most people would look immediately to their towns and parishes. The town hall has survived generations - this is where most people look for help within their communities - but if we are to devolve to our parishes then we have to be brave - we have to be able to trust them to deliver. And deliver they must and have devolved budgets to do so.

When I spoke on this last time at Cabinet - I talked about a County Unitary, but had not had any proposal except perhaps area committees to devolve down - and I agree with Keith that they work in some places and not others, so we may have to think through a good model to work with - so why reinvent the wheel - why not stick to what has been tried and trusted over the years?

So I would like to suggest that the Cabinet think this through very carefully and ask our Chief Executive to explore a County Unitary model based on the detail of how we would devolve to parishes and towns. And indeed, in case anyone is worrying about Oxford - as I have said previously, a County unitary has to include Oxford as its heart and take care of its hinterland. The bill gives powers to parish some urban areas, so in Oxford there are already some parishes we could create more if we wished to - but what we would not wish to do is to divorce ourselves from our City. I think Oxfordshire needs to have courage, and explore this exciting opportunity before it is too late, or worse, we shall be required to do it and we shall not be sufficiently prepared. I hope we can give authority today to our CEO to investigate this further, because I believe this will provide Oxfordshire residents with better joined up services and delivery through our local towns, parishes and neighbourhoods