Ipswich: A Unitary Authority.
After months of debate, Ipswich Borough Council may soon be granted unitary status and become fully responsible for all local authority functions within the boundaries of the town, independent of the County Council.
Ipswich’s bid for unitary status has been fraught with contention and denouncement by Suffolk County Council as a “waste of money”, costing an approximated £43 million over five years in order to undertake the changes and restructuring required.
Ipswich Borough Council were certainly right to label this as scarmongering given that the benefits may well come to outweigh any initial costs involved. Regardless, I’m still not fully in support of the bid’s approval yesterday.
In general I’m largely in favour of devolution as its purpose is to increase flexibility and adaptability by administrations to local needs and requirements more effectively than a large central agency might.
Clearly this idyllic portrait would bode well for Ipswich, but the devolution of administrative powers will only benefit the people of Ipswich if the counsellors and senior managers in all departments truly listen to their needs. Unitary status is currently planned to come into place in 2009, which gives Ipswich Borough Council two years for each department to comprehensively assess their services’ provisions.
A vote is now being held by one of the local papers that allows merely a yes or no response to the question “Ipswich Borough Council has won its bid to take over county council services in its area. But is the decision the right one?” As with many areas of social policy and politics, the answer is never as straightforward as the question as it all depends on how the Borough Council approach this approval and what they choose to do with local services.
Most current unitary authorities across Britain already have chosen to run a variety of their services on a joint basis with the larger County Councils in the area; effectively maintaining the same structure of service provision, management, and control as was present prior to unitary status. So, while many in the County Council are fidgeting in their seats at the word ‘unitary’, the outcome of the decision may prove to have very little impact on both organisational structure and the experiences of local people.
Anyone interested in reading up on the development of unitary authorities might want to take a look at the Redcliffe-Maud Report.
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5 Responses to “Ipswich: A Unitary Authority.”
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I’m not so sure I like this idea. Of course the closer we can get decision making being done to the people it concerns than the better for everyone. In this case however I can’t help but feel it is a complete waste of money.
My understanding of bureacracy is that, for example, it might cost suffolk county council £10 million pound to establish a social services department to serve 500,000 people. Yet the bulk of that cost is the upfront expense of establishing the department - and for the department to begin serving 750,000 to a 1,000,000 people it will cost comparatively little extra because the basic foundations are already in place
So why are we now going to have to deprive suffolk of many of its customers and establish a second department for everything suffolk already does, and merely for the 150,000 or so people of Ipswich?
It seems like we are just going to have almost twice as many local government jobs to fill. Government jobs, which in economic terms, are horribly unproductive.
Who is picking up the bill? It certainly isn’t the tax payers of Ipswich that’s for sure.
You are completely right in what you say. I’d genuinely hate to think that with their new powers, the Borough will go through the motions of creating a whole other tier of department. I believe it was this potential outcome that led Jeremy Pembroke, head of the Council, to denounce the decision as a waste of money.
Hopefully, fingers and toes tightly crossed, the bureaucrats and managers will not be so foolish. Instead they have an opportunity to make minor alterations, such as adapting the level and direction of funding to better serve the needs of people in Ipswich.
Indeedy, on a reread of your original post I now notice the importance in their being other counties and unitary towns that colloborate to ensure, what I suppose is in essence, the best of both worlds.
Here’s hoping.
Unless Suffolk was to become a series of unitaries ridding so the county of an unnecessary layer of district councils, with all their associated costs, I see little value in depriving the county of its major urban driver -Ipswich.
There has been little local public interest or support in Ipswich becoming a unitary, and little evidence of the borough council providing effective leadership in the past. What are the benefits except to Ipswich politicians and officers, where are the savings when we already have a rather good couty council administration?
If we need to get rid of the county structure rather than try to manipulate political interests, then lets do this root and branch, not when Ipswich bid does not meet any of the criteria suggested by Government to determine the success of the bids
In theory a unitary authority is better suited to catering for the needs of people within its locality on the grounds that there is a reduction in centralised governance and by extension costs. I have a suspicion that they will intend to keep many of their processes the same, contracting out to services already administered by the County Council. this would likely happen due to the costs involved in establishing new contracts and the possibilities of them falling through in conjunction with a potential disruption to services during transition.
It’s very early days but it will prove immensely interesting to see which direction everything moves in. It could be that an increase in political autonomy will be of benefit to Ipswich with local voices being heard and more likely to be put into practice.
The Secretary of State’s view toward Ipswich’s proposals can be seen here.