In the previous piece, I looked at governance at the community level. Today, it goes up a level to counties and regions.
In practical terms, this could either retaining the current system of unitary authorities and just changing boundaries (if deemed practical):
It could also mean returning to a form of two-tier local government. Or, transforming the city regions and corporate joint committees into a more formalised tier of regional government and mixing and matching beneath it.
Once again, I’ll be looking at the financial issues, the reform process, and political/electoral implications in later parts:
Similarly to Part V, I’ve matched each map to what I think is the most suitable form of local government. Again, I’d recommend viewing them in a separate browser tab.
I’ve only presented a select number of options in each case; Wales could mix and match however we saw fit – particularly in the case of two-tier local government.
First up, some of the options for single-tier authorities.
Most of the arguments here have been done to death during the Williams Commission process and it’ll be very difficult, if not impossible, for you to come up with a map that everyone agrees with.
It’s down to simple numbers and whether the size of the council area suits the responsibilities and capabilities of the council, board or commission elected to run services there.
Moving on, two-tier authorities offer the most flexibility.
Again, you can mix and match – for example, returning to the pre-1996 counties and districts or opting for something a bit more English in having a mix of unitary authorities for the larger urban areas and two-tier authorities.
Finally, regions.
The options here are to either play it safe by picking an existing template to use – such as the Corporate Joint Committees or Senedd electoral regions – or to be
more radical.
Those radical options could include reducing the number of regions to just 3 (if aligned with fire authorities) or forming regions based on cultural, economic and possibly even linguistic ties.
Plaid Cymru has previously proposed an “Arfor” economic region made up of most of Y Fro Gymraeg, while there would also be an opportunity to create a “Valleys Mayor” and regions based within primarily Anglophone “British Wales”.
