Council merger could save £35m: council boss (From Bucks Free Press)

Buckinghamshire County Council's chief exec speaks out over council merger

2:00pm Sunday 12th September 2010 in Beaconsfield By James Nadal

MERGING Buckinghamshire's major councils into one single authority could have saved an estimated £35m a year, the Free Press was told this week.

The idea of rolling the five existing district councils and Buckinghamshire County Council into one was thrown into the spotlight again on Tuesday.

Lib Dem Cllr Julia Wassell called for a review to look at the prospect again as a way to save cash amidst huge cuts in public spending.

Chris Williams, Buckinghamshire County Council's Chief Executive, told the Free Press research into creating a single authority carried out four years ago showed “substantial” savings could have been made.

The report estimated savings of about £6million by reducing the number of top level bosses and a further £29m for sharing services, he said.

Other savings were forecast in terms of management of services, he added, although all of these figures will now have changed because of reductions in the number of managers since 2006.

However, Mr Williams said: “We researched the option of a single new council for the whole of Bucks, to do away with the council and district.

“At the end of the day county council didn't support it and it was for political reasons.”

Instead, councillors voted for the 'Pathfinder' project, designed to save money by sharing services.

But the scheme has now been scrapped – despite about £1.2m being spent.

Reviving the single authority plan seems unlikely because the Government has indicated it will not look at structural reform in the first parliamentary term.

Asked whether the idea could be ruled out entirely, Mr Williams said: “I can never say never because it's a Government decision.”

However, Mr Williams said the council is looking at working with neighbouring counties such as Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire for buying services like highway maintenance and computer software.

It is looking at following the example of South East Seven – a loose affiliation of local authorities in South East England.

“We are looking at every possible thing we can do, joint working with fire service, police and all other public sector organisations.

“We are all intent of protecting front line services so the more we can take out the cost of back office operations the better it will be.”

He cited I.T systems, human resources and financial management as 'back office' functions and child protection and home carers as 'front line services'.

The number of BCC directors has already been reduced from seven to four and the heads of services from 21 to 16 in the past 18 months.

Mr Williams, who has been Chief Executive for ten years, said: “I have spent that time making it the best in the country and it's really disheartening to have to dismantle it.”

He said the need to cut could not have come at a worse time, with the number of vulnerable elderly people requiring care increasing.

But it is these people the council aim to protect from the cuts, he said.

Mr Williams said the cuts signalled a significant shift in local Government.

“I personally think this is a fundamental redesign of public services.

“As a society we have developed a dependency culture. People expect the council or Government to do something about things but 20 or 30 years ago people would expect to do a lot more things for themselves, to look after their elderly parents, people with disabilities,” he said.