UNITARIES' TIME MAY AT LAST HAVE COME; BUT DON'T GET BOGGED DOWN IN MINUTIAE!

With Derbyshire talking about 'Home Rule' according to the recent article in the Derby Telegraph and Northants Lib Dems advocating what appear to be three Unitary Authorities to replace the present three tier system there, it would appear that we in Lincolnshire are ahead of the curve for a change.

Abolishing Lincolnshire's County and seven District Councils and replacing them with one, two, three or even four Unitary Authorities was in the Lincolnshire Lib Dem Manifesto for the 2013 County Council Elections. Indeed, over two years ago, the Leader of the then Conservative controlled County Council, came out in favour of a single unitary for Lincolnshire, which he mysteriously quickly withdrew, probably because he was got at by his fellow Tories who ran all but one of our District Councils!

The case for Unitary Councils is well known. They avoid duplication and they are more cost effective. It no longer requires explaining to people when they ring you up which council does what. Why should, for example, District Councils collect your rubbish and County Councils dispose of it? It's just a pity that so few parts of England have them, compared with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which went 'unitary' some years ago. That's surely one of the reasons why it is easier to devolve power to these nations than to us here in far more populous England, with no uniform system of local government.

A year before the 2013 County Council elections, following a suggestion from myself, my colleague, Cllr Jim Charters, and I were tasked by our local Federation with putting together a discussion paper on how we could achieve Unitary Councils in such a large geographical and sparsely populated area as Lincolnshire where your allegiance to either the East Midlands, East Anglia or South Yorkshire varies depending on where you live.

Jim and I did a fair amount of research. I contacted Lib Dem colleagues in places like Cornwall, Shropshire and Wiltshire that had recently gone 'unitary' and presented our findings, which, we thought, represented a strong economic and democratic case for change if that were ever again offered to us by central government.

To our amazement all members seemed to be worried about was where we proposed to draw the boundary lines between the councils. I guess a further problem might occur at District level for some of our Councillors in that, as they say, turkeys don't vote for Christmas. I doubt whether the few Lib Dem councils that we actually run, such as Oadby and Wigston, would take kindly to being abolished after all the hard work they have put in over many years getting to where they are now. But it's not about political advantage, it's about the survival of local government as we know it.

As a matter of interest the 12 strong Labour Group is the only one on the 77 member Lincolnshire County Council that still will not support unitary authorities in any form probably because they are afraid of losing the Lincoln City Council, which is the only major council in Lincolnshire that they control.

So, my message to the doubters for what it's worth is: Don't worry about the details. Look at the big picture. If we are to prove to central government that we are capable of running more of our affairs, we need to get our own house in order first. If you really care about the future of local government you will not allow parochial concerns or party political advantage to stand in your way.

Cllr John Marriott

Lincolnshire County Council