Local Government Reorganisation Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Lord Laming
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Local Government Reorganisation
Lord Laming Excerpts(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
A large number of areas in the country already have town and parish councils, although I accept that some do not. But town and parish councils are not in scope for local government reorganisation; they will continue to operate as they do now. Central government has no role in funding town and parish councils, but local government reorganisation should facilitate better and sustained community engagement. We need a clear and accountable system of local area working in governance. Local authorities may wish to collaborate with their town and parish councils to determine how they can most effectively contribute to the delivery of services in future arrangements. Those arrangements for town and parish councils are well established and work well at that very micro local level. So it is not the Government’s intention to do anything with town and parish councils at the moment.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, in recent years there has been a growing concern about the failure of front-line range of local services to collaborate effectively with each other to exchange vital information. Will the Minister ensure that, during this transition period in local government, every effort will be made not only to preserve collaborative working at local level but to build on it, so we can continue to learn from the failures of the past?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
Collaboration is clearly a very important part of local government, but it is not helped by the confusion between the tiers of local government and over who does what at which tier. For the 20 million people who currently live in two-tier areas, where services are split across county and district councils, which can lead to fragmented public services, this reorganisation will help to drive that collaboration across areas and bring services together into one local authority, so that everybody knows which council to talk to when they have a problem with their service.