By Local Democracy Reporter Simon Finlay
Kent could be carved up into three large geographical areas under changes to local government, new papers reveal.
The proposed abolition of the county’s 14 councils would see the formation of a trio of new, much larger unitary authorities.
The report, from Kent County Council’s new leader Linden Kemkaran, will go to the newly-established Devolution and Local Government Reorganisation cabinet committee on Monday (July 28).
The Labour government announced its “devolution revolution” last December, effectively ordering authorities to dismantle themselves and come up with a plan to reorganise into new areas.
For Kent all 14 authorities are tasked with finding a preferred option.
Preferred option for KCC
KCC prefers an option where ‘north’ would comprise Dartford, Gravesham, Medway and Swale; ‘west’: Maidstone, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Malling and Tunbridge Well; and ‘east’: Ashford, Canterbury, Dover, Folkesone & Hythe and Thanet.
Cllr Kemkaran’s report says the preferred option “best fulfils” the government’s requirements of a minimum 500,000 population size.
North would have an estimated population of 663,000, west 551,000 and east 661,000.
The report says this model would create “the most equitable income scenario” for Kent and Medway, in terms of council tax yield, and deliver “high quality and sustainable” public services.
It would also hope the new clusters’ component councils would have a “good alignment” with “established identities and ways of living”.
The new system would be able to support the creation of the office of an elected mayor, sitting above the unitaries.
The local government minister Jim McMahon has given Kent until November 28 to submit its final set of proposals, which will have to be agreed by the leaders of the existing authorities.
Mr McMahon is expected to deliver his verdict between May and August next year. Elections to a “shadow” unitary would take place in May 2027 and the new authorities would go “live” by April 2028.
The government hopes the new unitaries will make decision making quicker, be cheaper and more efficient.
Earlier this month, Cllr Kemkaran, of Reform UK, said she has already “pushed back” against Whitehall’s council reforms, asking local government minister Jim McMahon for a four-month extension to the November deadline.
He delivered a “hard no”, said the leader.
Cllr Kemkaran added: “Naturally if something is going to be done to you as a county, you want to have some say in how that is done.
“I think for us to refuse to co-operate would be very foolish in the short term but long term, I keep hoping the government will realise that local government reorganisation will probably not give them the power they hoped it would when they introduced it.
“It could be that they carve Kent up into three unitary authorities. Each of those could come under Reform control quite easily and with devolution we could get a Kentish mayor and that could easily be a Reform person. Does the government want to give Reform even more power?”
Her leader Nigel Farage, on a visit to Maidstone on July 7, said the issue of local government reorganisation should be put to a referendum.
He added: “I just think that with an historic county like Kent, people have a very strong county identity. If you told them KCC was to go, to be broken up into three or four or five unitaries, I think they would ask real questions why that’s happening. We should fight this tooth and nail. It’s absolutely insane.”
Green Party leader of Maidstone Borough Council, Cllr Stuart Jeffery, said KCC’s analysis was broadly in line with his.
A study by management consultants Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC) three months ago was in favour of three unitaries in Kent.
Cllr Jeffery said: “I am very comfortable that the KCC scoring is in accordance with PwC.”
I fail to understand how making organisations bigger, and presumably more bureaucratic as a result, will increase decisions and make them speedier?
It’s meant to save money by reducing duplication of senior officials
Indeed. Makes perfect sense to me.
Utter drivel from Reform as usual. No-one’s going to be outraged by the abolition of KCC. It’s far to big, far too remote. The unitary model makes sense. Less burocrasy, quicker decision making. What’s not to like?
Reform are just doing their usual protest against anything. They’re not a serious party. They’re the old “fruitcakes and loones” as David Cameron put it.
The whole thing sounds like a pointless, timewasting, expensive political whim.
Hurry up already. Can’t wait until Thanet Council is consigned to the dustbin of history. They’ve had over 50 years to prove themselves as a competent body and have failed miserably.
You think it will be better when Thanet is fighting for resources, priority and funding from Ashford, Canterbury, Dover and Folkestone?
It can’t be any worse. All of those Councils run vastly better services than Thanet (and have toilets open all year round as well which will hopefully be an added bonus of reorganising)
Agree totally. Things can only get better (in Tankerton their weekly roadsweepers even pull weeds out of gutters, imagine that in Thanet!).
Sounds good to me! Bye-bye TDC, hasn’t be great to know you.
No referendums get on with it.Yes, bye bye to TDC.
It’s not devolution but is instead reorganisation.
It will not be perfection and it may not save vast amounts of cash, but the one Unitary councils will cover most bases.
What there should be is local devolution for each town and parish.
In the end, success or otherwise will depend on the amount of money that central government will send to the new local councils. For decades , the national government’s of either Party have starved local councils of funds, so that local councils all over the country have given the residents the impression of being poorly-run, always short of cash, never able to make real improvements. If central governments carry on in the same way(and I think they will as all potential governing Parties are stuck with the same failing economic model of thinking we should be run like an impoverished household) there will be no benefits to be gained from re organisation. It will just be a case of re arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. And daily life will continue it’s relentless deterioration.
All sounds wonderful, but in reality the majority of the current staff will just transfer to the new entity, they’ll be working from home whereever possible ( allows for easy cost savings, which will be the reason for allowing wfh) the higher management structure will be further detached and as a result the departmentsl fiefdoms at local level will flourish.
Just look at the shenanigans that prospered under EKH, the disputed 1 plus million paid out for works that either weren’t done or were grossly overcharged under the local plumbing contract etc etc.
Former councils aren’t going to want to see their budgets used to bail out thanets historical financial ineptitude.