I thought it would be worth summarising the whole business of where we are with the local government reorganisation (LGR) and the politics involved.

Who started it and why ?

The Labour government are the driving force. They argue that they can make things more efficient by having less tiers of government and a Mayor at the top of the pyramid.

They offered the chance for some authorities to go on a “fast track” route to LGR. Hampshire’s Conservative Councillors agreed to this. The Lib Dems were against.

Why were the Conservatives in favour ? I think it is largely to do with the situation they found themselves in. Social Care and Children’s Services are taking up around 75% of the budget, everything else that Hampshire County Council has been doing is under managed decline. They can’t even maintain the roads satisfactorily. I think they saw LGR as the only way of avoiding an embarrassing situation whereby they can longer deliver a balanced budget (as required by law).

The Consultation : LGR required a consultation. No surprise really that the Leaders and politicians in different areas could not agree on a favoured option for change. New Forest District Conservatives wanted something different to Hampshire Conservatives. Eastleigh Lib Dems wanted something different to New Forest Lib Dems.

There was also a public consultation. This received a very low response rate and again, mixed messages.

All this allowed the Labour Minister to decide a new structure that involved splitting the new Forest district into two. To what extent this was influenced by Labour Councillors in Southampton we will never know but they are, of course, very keen on the idea of a “Greater Southampton”, taking in Totton & the Waterside.

Almost everybody was pretty shocked that the decision made by the Minister involved splitting governance arrangements for communities as it goes against on of the criteria Government laid out in the consultation “keeping existing communities together”.

In this part of the New Forest district just about everybody is opposed to a forced arrangement with Southampton, hence the popularity of the campaign group “New Forest Together”.

Will the Campaign to fight the plans succeed ?

Nobody can be sure. Let’s assume a petition reaches 25,000 signatures… that’s a very strong message and hard for any Government to ignore. It is not unknown for this Labour government to undertake a U-turn.

The current position is a number of different authorities are taking legal advice on whether it would be worthwhile to press a legal challenge – possibly a Judicial Review, (JR). The weakness with this is that a JR is normally about process, not changing the decision itself. My feeling is that if the Government lost a a court case they would simply re-run the consultation properly but still arrive at the same decision.

No pre-election pledges to pursue a Judicial Review count for anything. They are expensive. No legal advice has yet been obtained. Whoever is in charge post election will have to consider the advice, the costs of the challenge and whether they want to do it alone or in concert with other parties similarly affected.

I have heard it suggested that there is a game that could be played, using delaying tactics to stop it happen before the next election. This isn’t all realistic.

Officers who work for the different authorities have to move swiftly, organising a huge amount of different work streams if all the services are to keep running seamlessly, whether it is integrating new Social Care teams, Waste collection, Highways, working out how to split assets, defining a common standard for contracting and service standards. There is so much work that the two years before Hampshire County Council and New Forest District Council are abolished will hardly be long enough.

It is estimated that the cost involved in progressing LGR will be somewhere in the region of £80 – £120 million.

I have also heard it send that there won’t be any savings realised for at least ten years.

Is there anybody who follows my FB Page that thinks it is all still worth it ?