Data ‘vital’ in council shake-up as Devon poses five reorganisation options

Data has to be the driving force behind Devon’s upcoming local authority shake-up, according to the county council’s outgoing leader who has warned against hopes of “massive savings”.

A report outlining five potential ways that Devon’s 11 existing main councils could be merged into either two or three new, larger ones has been published, with a special meeting of Devon County Council planned this Thursday to debate the proposals.
A sixth option of one Devon-wide council is acknowledged, but “only for benchmarking purposes” rather than being viewed as a viable option.
Cllr James McInnes (Conservative, Hatherleigh and Chagford), the outgoing council leader, said his plan is for all five options to be submitted to the government this week, with a pledge that data would be gathered over the coming months to help identify which make the most sense.
Jim McMahon, minister of state for local government, had asked councils to submit interim reorganisation plans by Friday, but Cllr McInnes said Westminster’s emphasis had changed slightly in recent weeks.
“The government has shifted its position, which I’m aware of as I wrote to Mr McMahon asking various questions, one being whether 21 March was a decision point,” Cllr McInnes told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“But he quite clearly said that it was not a decision point and that he merely wanted to know what we had been up to so far.”
The move to submit five proposals differs from the strategy of Devon’s eight district councils, which have all coalesced around one idea known as the 1-5-4 proposal.
That would see Plymouth remain a unitary council with potentially expanded boundaries compared to now, while Devon’s other councils would be merged into one of two new unitary councils.
That idea is included as one of Devon’s five suggestions.
Cllr McInnes said third parties are collating data for the county council to work out which proposal would be the most effective, and this would be shared with district councils.
“I support the principal and advantages of a unitary in terms of residents knowing who to go to and get support, or complain to, and it would be better for one organisation to oversee housing and social care, for instance, compared to it being split between two different councils now,” he said.
“But we need to use data to make sure we make the right decisions for the long-term sustainability of services.”
Fears have been raised that the government views reorganisation as a way to save money, but Cllr McInnes said that is optimistic.
“If you think how much money has been taken from local government since 2009/10, through austerity, the pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis and the spike in inflation we’ve had, there simply isn’t the meat on the bone to make massive savings,” he said.
“I think we can make efficiencies in terms of having one front door and integrating services [that are currently split across two councils] but we cannot make savings and if someone thinks they can take millions of pounds out of local government, it’s already been done.”
The government announced in December that it wants to abolish the two-tier system of local government whereby district and county councils are responsible for different services in the same geographic area.

Devon’s five suggestions for local government reorganisation are:

Two unitary authorities – one covering Plymouth and another covering the rest of Devon.

A two unitary north Devon/South Devon split, with one council for Plymouth, Teignbridge, South Hams and Torbay, and another for Exeter, East Devon, North Devon, Torridge, West Devon and Mid Devon.
A two unitary south west and north east split, with one council for Plymouth, South Hams and West Devon and another for Exeter, East Devon, Torbay, Teignbridge, North Devon, Torridge and Mid Devon.
A three unitary option of Plymouth, greater Exeter (formed of Exeter, East Devon and Mid Devon) and the rest of Devon.
A three unitary option, with Plymouth remaining on existing boundaries, a new unitary council formed of Exeter, East Devon, Mid Devon, North Devon and Torridge and another made up of Torbay, South Hams, Teignbridge and West Devon.