In case it wasn’t obvious, the chances of any significant local government reform – considering the current and expected state of local government finances – are as good as dead, rendering this whole series of posts more pointless than usual.
If you weren’t bored by the financial stuff in the previous piece, then prepare to be further underwhelmed by this examination of “the even-more-boring” practicalities of reforming local government.
The only figures that have been published were concerning the Williams Commission proposals (reducing the number of unitary authorities to between 10-12 – Part III).
The WLGA’s analysis at the time (carried out by Deloitte) suggested an upfront cost of anything between £200-£400million. The expected savings – which the Williams Commission suggested could be anything between £60-80million a year – were disputed.
Remember though that this was only a cut in the number of existing local authorities – arguably the “easiest” version of local government reform. Returning to a two-tier system or creating municipalities or alike (as suggested in this series) would come with a different bill.
Establishing between 4-7 devolved provincial assemblies (A Federal Wales) would come with a fairly sizable price tag in their own right.
The Senedd costs around £63million a year to run for a 60-member legislature, working out at around £1.05million-per-member, per-year.
Provincial assemblies may be a little less expensive to run if there were lower salaries, less generous expenses and backroom savings (i.e. only recognised political groups having access to pools of staff rather than individual members hiring their own staff).
If the cost of a provincial assembly member was, for argument’s sake, 25% less than an MS (£788,000), then based on the proposal I put forward in A Federal Wales IV, the total annual running cost (206 members in 4 provincial assemblies) would be at least £162million, which would likely be top-sliced from any block grants the provinces receive.
Local government reform shouldn’t just be approached from the perspective of “we can cut costs”; local democracy and accountability in Wales are dire. The standard of scrutiny within councils isn’t great. Local government officers increasingly direct and shape policy instead of imposing it and turnout in local elections is so low that it verges on rendering the whole idea of “local government” pointless.
All of those things are as big an issue as budget pressures and economies of scale.
