darwin Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 London super-council 'could save £100m a year' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11603545 Three Conservative London councils have announced plans that could see them merge all their services and create the UK's first "super-council". Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster say the move could save £50m to £100m a year. Under the merger, each authority would retain its political identity with its own elected leaders and councillors. But critics argue a wholesale merger would damage the local provision of services and standards would fall. They say fewer staff would be trying to cover a bigger area. In a joint statement, the councils' leaders said the inititative would soon become the norm for local authorities looking to keep costs down while delivering quality services. Efforts are already under way to merge the three children's services departments, which cover education, but now the authorities are considering whether to go further. The plans will be formally announced later and if they are adopted could create a local authority bigger than Glasgow or Leeds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blankster Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 (edited) The government should pass legislation abolishing district councils and summarily handing all their assets and powers over to county councils. This should be done at short notice, and then the county councils, as unitary authorities, could set about rationalising their activities. All that would be neccessary would be thhe formal legal handover and the standing down of all district councillors. If three major London Boroughs, which are already unitary authorities, can see benefits in pooling all their activities, surely there's no need for two-tier local government in rural areas. By the way, I live in a rural area, so I'm not taking a 'townie' view on this. Edited October 22, 2010 by blankster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Miyagi Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 The government should pass legislation abolishing district councils and summarily handing all their assets and powers over to county councils. This should be done at short notice, and then the county councils, as unitary authorities, could set about rationalising their activities. All that would be neccessary would be thhe formal legal handover and the standing down of all district councillors. If three major London Boroughs, which are already unitary authorities, can see benefits in pooling all their activities, surely there's no need for two-tier local government in rural areas. By the way, I live in a rural area, so I'm not taking a 'townie' view on this. Have to agree with this point. There are far to many councils, for example in Gwent there are 5 unitary councils with all the costs that go with that. One large unitary could do the job. It would save millions over the long term. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liquid Goldfish Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 How about some sort of Greater London Council? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahBell Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 How about some sort of Greater London Council? ;-) You could have a greater manchester one that only had one set of managers (but kept all front line staff, and call centre staffing levels to deal with enquiries.... heck you could outsource them to India if we weren't so desperate for the jobs here) If it's done right - ie: cutting duplicate management staff numbers massively then it's got to be done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHERWICK Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 I've often wondered why the 33 London Councils each have separate CRM, Financial, HR, Procurement, Social Services, Planning, Environment etc. etc. systems... (other than providing more Local Government jobs and contracts for numerous IT providers). Heck, why do all 400+ national Councils have all these separate systems and processes (*that can't talk to each other without substantial integration costs)??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecrashingisles Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 How about some sort of Greater London Council? Who is the man we all need? Ken! Who is the funky sex machine? Ken! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pilchardthecat Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 Under the merger, each authority would retain its political identity with its own elected leaders and councillors. Why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahBell Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 Why? I see no problem with areas having councillors still but the whole idea of needing some sort of identity is twaddle. OIdham spent 50k on designing a new logo. Fine. Only 50k you might say but rebranding every single bit of paper, badge, sign, van etc must have wasted millions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hilltop Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 So this is the Big Society! The LibDems particularly trumpet 'localism', how long will they complacently hand over their values to the Tories? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormymonday_2011 Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 (edited) London super-council 'could save £100m a year' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11603545 Or it could cost a great deal more. I find it bizarre that some of the people on this site so eager to destroy local democratic institutions are usually the same ones who bleat loudest about the wasters in the EU If big is better then why not get get rid of Westminster and have everything run from Brussels Edited October 22, 2010 by realcrookswearsuits Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnionTerror Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 I've often wondered why the 33 London Councils each have separate CRM, Financial, HR, Procurement, Social Services, Planning, Environment etc. etc. systems... (other than providing more Local Government jobs and contracts for numerous IT providers). Heck, why do all 400+ national Councils have all these separate systems and processes (*that can't talk to each other without substantial integration costs)??? It's being done here in Somerset. South West One (including IBM) currently run "shared services" for Somerset County Council, A&S Police & Taunton Deane Borough Council. I put a thread on here a little while ago, which announced that SW1 had made a loss of £40m (I think it was). On those sort of figures, would there be any takers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim123 Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 The government should pass legislation abolishing district councils and summarily handing all their assets and powers over to county councils. The Government doesn't want to do this It stopped the two that were already planned (but not completed) with the bogus excuse that they wanted councils to focus on "cost cutting" not spending money on merging (guess what the original motivation for the merger was?) Of course the real reason is political patronage. When there are 600 councils there are 600 council leader "jobs" for your friends. If there are only 200 councils then there are only 200 "jobs" for your friends tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim123 Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 Or it could cost a great deal more. I find it bizarre that some of the people on this site so eager to destroy local democratic institutions are usually the same ones who bleat loudest about the wasters in the EU That's because we can't vote out the time wasters in the EU. They are appointed official and nothing (short of us leaving the EU) can stop them meddling in things that the population think shouldn't be meddled in. tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darwin Posted October 22, 2010 Author Share Posted October 22, 2010 I've often wondered why the 33 London Councils each have separate CRM, Financial, HR, Procurement, Social Services, Planning, Environment etc. etc. systems... (other than providing more Local Government jobs and contracts for numerous IT providers). Heck, why do all 400+ national Councils have all these separate systems and processes (*that can't talk to each other without substantial integration costs)??? Absolutely. The sooner they make a start on this, the better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
profitofdoom Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 Why? Nice Cat! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timak Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 I love stuff like this.... Hang on we could save money by centralising the back office functions Hang on these decisions should be made on a local level - far more lean and efficient than centralised functions Hang on we could save money by centralising Currently the Tory policy seems to be: Local councils - centralise NHS - local level Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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