An examination of the issues, lack of reform and international comparisons are out of the way. So it’s time to get to the “meat” of local government and look in more detail at options for reform or, indeed, keeping things as they are.
Some of you will be waiting for the money stuff and the politics (i.e. number of councillors), but I’ve decided to look these separately:
Starting at the bottom and working upwards, here’s what could happen at community level – currently the responsibility of town & community councils (where they exist).
Probably the one you’ve been waiting for….and it’s not an easy question to answer.
I’ll be going into more detail on finances, electoral methods and constitutions etc. later on:
Going back to the point on form, the number of community-level units for local government will partly depend on the capacity, scale and functions assigned to them.
We could have have lots of units if community-level local government wasn’t directly responsible for much and acted in an advisory or advocacy role. A good geographical unit to use would be council wards or the existing community areas.
The maps below show the current 762 council wards, the 852 pre-2022 council wards and the 878 community areas in Wales. Once again, I’d recommend viewing the following graphics in a separate browser tab.
When it comes to town & community councils, we already have the 878 community areas – though only ~730 of them or so actually have community councils.
There’s no way I’m going to go through every single community area and redraw the boundaries for the hell of it, but I can use an area I know well (and is 100% covered by town & community councils) – Bridgend – to give you an idea of what changes could be made.
This could also be used as a template for area committees too – so each of the redrawn/existing community areas could have an area committee made up of county councillors elected to their respective wards.
Finally, options for the municipalities.
Given that a municipal council would have statutory duties and a wider range of general responsibilities – a big step up from town & community councils – they could justify covering larger areas.
The issue is trying to figure out a “natural fit”. The other forms of community-level local government don’t have this problem as you can have as many or a few as a community wants as the stakes are lower. A municipal council with wider-ranging multi-million pound responsibilities, however, would need a decent tax and socio-economic base.
So I would envisage a Welsh version of municipal councils having (what the Institute of Welsh Affairs’ Understanding Welsh Places project calls) either:
- At least one “Independent to Interdependent” or “Interdependent” settlement within its boundaries.
- Or containing between two and six settlements categorised as being either “Interdependent” or “Interdependent to Dependent”.
The IWA describe this as meaning:
“Independent to Interdependent places have a good number of assets in relation to their population. These places have a good diversity of jobs, and residents on the whole travel shorter distances to travel to work and services. These places attract people from neighbouring places to access some of their assets and jobs.
“Interdependent places have a medium number of assets in relation to their population; average diversity of jobs; and residents travel a mix of short and long distances to travel to work and services. These places are attractors of people from neighbouring places who come to access some assets and jobs but they are also reliant on neighbouring places for other assets and jobs.”
“Interdependent to Dependent places have a low number of assets in relation to their population. They have some diversity of jobs; and residents travel largely longer distances to work and services, although some travel shorter distances. They are reliant on neighbouring places for some assets and jobs.”
In practice, this could mean that a large town which acts as a sub-regional centre – including its outlying smaller settlements – justifies being a stand-alone municipality (i.e. Barry, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil, Llandudno, Llanelli).
In most cases, a municipality would be made up of a traditional rural district, a rural town and its satellite villages or a collection of closely interconnected smaller towns and villages that don’t have a single principal settlement (i.e. Rhondda Fawr). You can also take geography and population density into account (i.e. the direction of main roads, valleys and railways).
Your first thought looking at the maps below may well be, “I thought we were supposed to be cutting the number of councils, not increasing them! How’s this an improvement or any more efficient/cost-effective than what we have now!?”
Remember, that this would replace 730+ town & community councils, with municipalities taking on some statutory services provided by the current 22 unitary authorities. So overall it would be a reduction in the number of councillors and councils (by up to 80%+).
