Lancashire leaders urge delay to council shake-up over fears for vital services

The government has been asked to delay a shake-up that would see all of Lancashire’s councils axed and replaced, amid a warning that key services could be put at risk if the process is “rushed”.

The leader of Lancashire County Council and several opposition group leaders on the authority have written to Whitehall calling for the controversial revamp to be carried out over a longer period.

On the current timetable, the existing 15 authorities would be disbanded in April 2028, but a letter to local government secretary Steve Reed – seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) – requests that the changes are held off until 2029 or 2030.

The correspondence cautions ministers against their existing trajectory of redrawing council maps across almost two dozen different parts of the country in one go, urging that more time be given to consider the implications – including for the “viability” of social care services – in areas of greater size and “complexity”, like Lancashire.

The government announced last December that it planned to end the ‘two-tier’ system under which responsibility for different services is divided between Lancashire County Council and a dozen district authorities – Preston, South Ribble, Chorley, West Lancashire, Fylde, Wyre, Lancaster, Ribble Valley, Burnley, Hyndburn, Rossendale and Pendle – across most of the county. Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen councils operate as standalone – or ‘unitary’ – authorities, delivering all services in their own areas.

The overhaul would mean merging existing council geographies to create a handful of new unitaries to serve the whole county – but Lancashire’s leaders have acknowledged there is no consensus between them over the places that should be bound together as part of that process.

Lancashire – along with 20 other English counties – has been given a deadline of 28th November to present a proposal to the government. The county is likely to submit as many five different suggestions for ministers to mull over – ranging between the creation of two and five new councils, with two versions of how the four-authority option could look.

However, the letter to Steve Reed – dated 8th October – has urged him to focus first on delivering local government reorganisation (LGR), as it is known, in those areas where it is suggested it will be a simpler undertaking than in Lancashire.

The missive has been signed by Lancashire County Council’s Reform UK leader Stephen Atkinson – a longstanding opponent, in principle, of scrapping district councils – the leader and deputy leader of the Progressive Lancashire main opposition group, Azhar Ali and Gina Dowding, Conservative group leader Aidy Riggott and Gordon Johnson of the Our West Lancashire contingent on the authority.

It warns of the serious impact the changes could have on adult and children’s social care – as well as services for youngsters with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) – if they are implemented in haste.

“As you will be all too aware, the delivery of sustainable, high quality adult social care, children’s social care and SEND provision is a major challenge across the sector,” the letter states.

“At a time when we are working hard to improve these services and the value for money we can deliver for our residents, undertaking changes to local government structure…risks imposing serious disaggregation costs in these services that will threaten their viability and ability to deliver safe and legal provision to our most vulnerable residents.

“This risk…is amplified by the potential that this process becomes rushed, in your seeking to deliver this change to local government across the whole country at the same time.”

Social care and SEND services are currently provided by the so-called ‘top-tier’ authorities of the county council and Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen councils.

If more than three new local authorities were created to cover the county, that would require the establishment of an additional set of major services – like social care – compared to the trio that currently exist at the top-tier level.

That “disaggregation”, as it is termed, not only increases costs, but also has the potential to pose recruitment challenges – because of the need to find more staff to fill sometimes specialist posts across an area that previously might have needed fewer of them.

The LDRS understands that consideration could be given in Lancashire to the possibility, in a four-council scenario, of the new authorities grouping together in pairs to share social care services between them in an attempt to address the issue.

The government has said its ideal minimum population size for replacement councils would be 500,000, which would mean Lancashire’s 1.5 million residents being split across three new local authorities – and so nullifying the disaggregation issue, as there would be no need for a net increase in social care teams.

However, the majority of the existing 15 Lancashire councils that have declared a public position on LGR are pushing for four or five new authorities.

The results of a “high-level” analysis supplied by the County Councils Network earlier this year suggested that the establishment of four new councils in Lancashire would have a recurring additional cost to the public purse of £11.5m a year after five years. In contrast, three new authorities were forecast to save £6.4m in running costs after five years, while two would generate savings of £21.2m.

Since then, Lancashire’s current councils have commissioned a joint economic evidence base which the LDRS understands is being used by each of them to construct business cases for their own preferred options – enabling them all to do so from the same starting point and reducing the chance of wrangles over the reliability of data.

Mr. Reed’s predecessor, Jim McMahon, told the LDRS during a visit to Preston in February that residents in places like Lancashire were paying a “premium” under the current system, which was poor value for money because of issues such as duplicated overhead costs.

However, the letter to Mr. Reed warns him of the particular difficulty that lies in redrawing the council map in Lancashire, with its “dispersed population across a very large area” – and an attachment to “towns and villages”, rather than borough and district building blocks that will dictate the reorganisation process.

It notes that in a public survey carried out last month, two in three respondents wanted to retain the current council arrangements in Lancashire.

However, the letter stops short of calling for reorganisation to be abandoned altogether – although there is a perhaps telling reference at one point to “if” it happens – because County Cllr Atkinson’s outright opposition to the changes is not shared by all of his co-signatories.

Instead, it stresses the need for the existing authorities not to be diverted from “pressing matters and priorities” like improving services, adding: “For areas of greater complexity, such as Lancashire, we would ask that, if reorganisation is to go ahead, that any implementation is carefully phased and that more time is afforded to manage the risks outlined above – whilst still providing us with clarity on the process and avoiding any damaging periods of uncertainty.

“This could mean more direct engagement with you on the proposals to be taken forward. It could also mean phased implementation depending on the complexity of change required, with vesting days for new councils across England in 2029 or 2030 as well as 2028.”

Commenting on the letter, County Cllr Atkinson told the LDRS: “”It is important that any reorganisation is done with the interests of our residents and businesses at the very heart of the decision making process.

“Also, any transition to new authorities must be carefully managed, taking care of vital local services on which some of our most vulnerable residents depend.”

County Cllr Ali said that while he was a supporter of creating unitary authorities, he shared concerns about the timetable and also the cost of implementing the changes.

“Who will foot the bill?” he asked.