You can download an acrobat copy of my submission here

London SW1P 2HW

Dear  Archie

Please find attached my personal response to the Boundary Committee For England’s [BCFE] consultation exercise for LGR in Norfolk.

I have laid out in painstaking detail why I feel that LGR as proposed by the BCFE is wrong and suggested what in my opinion you should do next.  I tell you now that you have followed the wrong path.

For the avoidance of Doubt, I reject the two consultation options for the reasons I have described and propose an alternative outcome that will suit everybody.

It is now too late to correct what you should have done and you will have to answer for that in due course but the best option for Norfolk is for you to decline to give structural advice to the Secretary of State but to set in motion a series of events that will lead to Norwich being divested of its Council Housing Stock, a move for which the most vulnerable citizens of Norwich will thank you for generations to come.

John Fuller

Leader of South Norfolk Council

1         Introductory Remarks

In  December 2008 Mr Justice Cranston clarified the law in making a judgement in the case of East Devon DC vs The Boundary Committee [BCFE] & others in which he very pointedly remarked in his summing up that he felt that “In my view all these matters deserve the closest attention of both the Boundary Committee and the Secretary of State” and “For East Devon, Councillor Randall Johnson is in a sense the most important consultee, elected by her constituents, and then by her colleagues to be leader of the council. “.

So I will take my lead from Cranston J and indicate where I consider that the Boundary Committee has failed to give the closest attention to the shortcomings of its first consultation attempt and then give my detailed reasoning and personal views on the consultation document and finally suggest exactly what advice the Boundary Committee might wish to make to the Secretary of State.

      46.     In a significant passage Councillor Randall Johnson wrote:

"[Leadership] brings with it an understanding or acceptance that concerns are shared and understood and that the leaders are not so far removed from those that they govern that a sense of alienation and disempowerment or irrelevance is experienced. On this basis it is my genuine belief that a unitary County Council would be too big and too remote to provide effective leadership …"

In my view all these matters deserve the closest attention of both the Boundary Committee and the Secretary of State. For East Devon, Councillor Randall Johnson is in a sense the most important consultee, elected by her constituents, and then by her colleagues to be leader of the council. I hasten to add that there is no reason for me to think that her response will not attract that attention. But I make these remarks because of what I said at the beginning: this is an area where legal sensitivity to meaningful consultation is heightened – the future of local, representative assemblies is at stake.

I am the Leader of a different Council in a different county but, taking my lead from Justice Cranston, I now intend to give my personal views as the Elected Leader of some 120,000 residents as to why I believe that the Boundary Committee has taken the wrong path in what they have proposed and what they should have done when they had the opportunity and what they should now do.

In due course I fear that we will need to dwell once more upon the procedure and lawfulness of the Boundary Committee’s process.  But for my part let me just observe that it is a source of incredulity to me that The Committee chose to embark upon this latest round of consultation even before Lord Justice May and his colleagues had clarified the law in the Court of Appeal.  That in itself was a brazen Contempt of Court that ignored ‘legal sensitivity’ referred to by Cranston and is in direct contravention of his instructions [which at that stage had not been overtaken by the Court of Appeal Judgement.]

There was no legal sensitivity to this process, in fact quite the reverse.  The law exists in part to protect individuals from Government and their civil servants who choose not follow the will of Parliament as set down in Statute.   But, to use words of Lord Justice May, “That is all for the future”.  For the moment let us look at the consultation exercise and my views upon it and the proposals suggested.

2         Principles that Guide this Submission

I take as my starting point in this submission analysis of several separate sources of information

·         The Local Government & Public Involvement in Finance Act

·         The instructions from the Secretary of State and the five criteria by which your advice will be judged

·         The July 2008 Green Paper on Local Government “Communities in Control’

·         The notes of the various meetings that I have held with officers and members of the Boundary Committee,

And in addition I will also refer to some of the original research that South Norfolk Council undertook to justify its submissions to the Boundary Committee back in November 2007 and again April 2008.[1]

2.1       Not against Unitaries on Principle

And you will see from the South Norfolk Council submissions that neither myself nor South Norfolk Council are against Unitary Authorities on principle.  After all, the Conservatives introduced Unitaries in some tight urban-based areas in the mid 1990’s.

2.2       Change should reflect the pattern of life 

My view is that if there is to be a change, it should reflect the pattern of life in our county.  As I will explain, your proposals do not in any way reflect the way of life in our county, either commercially, socially or practically and particularly your proposals do not reflect a pattern of representational democracy founded on historic boroughs and their hinterland that has existed for over 800 years.

2.3       Importance of evidence over assertion

In October 2007, Mr Caller and colleagues assured us that, in coming to a conclusion, the Boundary Committee was not interested in assertion, they wanted evidence to back up their cases.  It was a theme that I further developed with the Committee in a meeting at The Maids Head hotel in Norwich during July 2008.

So, my first point in this submission is to ask where the evidence exists that the creation of a ‘doughnut’ or a ‘Single County’ authority in Norfolk would best reflect the needs and aspirations of our County.

2.4       Evidence trail contradicts the proposals

Because the evidence I have found tends to suggest the contrary view.  Firstly, I wonder why the Boundary Committee asked for interested parties to submit ‘patterns of Local Government’ and then ignored them all 23 of them in coming to the patterns published on July 7th 2008.  Clearly they disregarded the evidence submitted by interested local people in coming to their own conclusion.  The only logical conclusion is that the BCFE had an overwhelming evidence base to override the various concepts local people had suggested.  If such evidence exists, it remains to be published.  So we can only assume that we are in this situation because the Boundary Committee only  assert that this is the best option. 

And of course, there may be individual reasons why Pattern A or Pattern B is more affordable or Pattern B is more suitable over Pattern A in another regard.  But there is no evidence other than the BCFE’s assertion that on-balance and in-the-round either A is preferred over B [or vice versa] and in any event both are preferred over any other pattern that was rejected.

2.5       BCFE’s arbitrary rejection of such evidence does exist

I take as my evidence for my assertion the fact that the Committee rejected the evidence and recommendation of their own officers in May 2008 that any pattern of unitary Government should at least recognise West Norfolk exists in a unitary pattern. 

And it is a matter of record that the two submissions that South Norfolk made were rejected out of hand without any substantial published reasoning or evidence to the contrary and other interested parties were given similar short shrift so I also take as evidence that the July 2008 draft proposals did not adequately critique any of the concepts that it rejected.  And certainly it did not according to the five criteria that the Secretary of State required.

2.6       Failed to correct the omission & retrace its steps

And, whilst it is now a matter of record that the BCFE misdirected itself as to what it could or could not consider, in this second consultation they have failed to correct this omission save for recognising the madness of incorporating Lowestoft into Norfolk, which led to the deletion of the wedge, which thereby became unviable.

The Boundary Committee had a chance to retrace its steps and re-visit the merits of each of the concepts presented including the financial details before embarking on this latest consultation.  They failed to do so and so I reject two options that are on the table in the absence of any meaningful evidence that they have been scored on an equitable basis against other options.

It is my reading of Lord Justice May’s judgement that the Committee should go back in some measure to the initial concepts and make it clear why some were rejected to assist the public in forming their own view as to the proposals before us.  But of course, the BCFE jumped-the-gun in the current round and that opportunity was denied.  That is an omission that, even at this late stage, should be corrected.

2.7       How Consultation Should Work to be Sound.

And this is more than mere assertion.  I am currently engaged in an even more controversial public consultation in my own area to address the thorny subject of providing adequate accommodation for Gipsy & Travellers in our district.  South Norfolk is one of two authorities that is leading the whole country in this regard.  Without a pattern to follow last Autumn we conducted a public consultation process on a short-list of proposed sites but it was clear that we had mis-stepped in a number of ways.  So in the second round, we addressed the objectors concerns, went back to all the sites and scored them and made that scoring public, embarked on a set of public exhibitions and meetings and a number of other significant changes.  Had we failed to do all of this, I was advised that the consultation would not pass the Test of Soundness.

So now I apply those principles to your exercise.  It’s clear to me that your second round has insufficiently addressed the concerns raised in the first round [except in the narrow point regarding Lowestoft] and in any event, lacks the evidence for interested parties to make an adequate  judgement and thereby fails on the legal test that would apply to planning [Jane Earl, please note], to be Sound.

And having failed to take into account of the totality of the Court of Appeal clarification of the law, I invite you to explain what steps you will now take to correct these points.

3         The Two Patterns

Now let me explain why both patterns for consultation are wrong and neither of them can be supported.

3.1       The Importance of West Norfolk as a starting point

Much of this debate has focused upon whether or not Norwich should have its own council or not.  It’s an interesting point of debate but in my view comes secondary to the issue of West Norfolk.

It seems to me unarguable that West Norfolk has a distinct identity within Norfolk.  And it’s not just a mindset in the local imagination.  Although my business is based in Great Yarmouth, I have traded throughout West Norfolk for nearly 20 years and know every road and byway in that area and I can see with my own eyes that West Norfolk is differentiated from the rest of Norfolk by

·         The pattern of work & shopping that reflects in a distinct local ‘Travel to Work Area’.  The pattern of transport that is distinct from the rest of Norfolk with train service goes from Kings Lynn to Kings Cross as opposed from Norwich to Liverpool Street.  The main economic links are with Cambridge, Peterborough and the A1 to the west.  There is little interaction with Norwich, much less Great Yarmouth.  The Travel to Work areas demonstrates quite clearly that Kings Lynn is economically independent from Norwich.

·         The Court & Justice system has a hub in Kings Lynn. 

·         The delivery of public services. 

o   It is interesting to note that the BBC has studios in Norwich and also Yarmouth & Kings Lynn.  They understand the need for local based production in the boroughs even though their regional centre is comparatively close at hand  in Norwich.

o   The Health Service eco-system is clustered around Kings Lynn’s QEII hospital and is distinct from the rest of Norfolk.

o   The delivery of Policing and Justice is managed at a local level in Kings Lynn & the west.

·         A thriving arts and cultural scene that is based around neighbouring authorities to the west and around The Wash rather than the rest of Norfolk.  The Kings Lynn festival is a case-in-point.

·         The Norfolk Watershed, which in turn has given rise to differing land types, land tenure and land use that is wholly distinct from the rest of the county and has led to a quite distance social pattern in ‘High Norfolk’ and also in the lowlands of Marshland and The Fens.

I could go on as I am sure many other locals in the west will have done so but in my opinion any pattern of unitary government that fails to recognise the ‘separate community of interest’ that exists in West Norfolk, fails to be a credible.

So my first substantial point is that neither the A or B patterns proposed by The Committee are acceptable in any way because they have failed at the outset to recognise the separate nature of the western part of the County as a starting point for the deliberations.

3.2       The Importance of Communities of Interest

And this is more than mere assertion.  In referring to my notes of a meeting with the Boundary Committee in October 2007, I can see that Mr Caller was at great pains to explain that any pattern of unitary local Government should reflect the ‘communities of interest’ that exist in Norfolk. 

There is no evidence whatsoever that there is a common ‘community of interest’ between Kings Lynn and the villages around Great Yarmouth, for example.  Yet the BCFE explained that this was the most important principle.  And by ignoring this principle they highlighted above all others at the outset, exemplified by their ignorance of the separate identity of the west, the two options presented for consultation fail to comply with The Committee’s lofty ideals at the start of the process and should be rejected.

3.3       The BCFE’s Evidence that West Norfolk should be a Starting Point

And we have still not been given an adequate explanation why Tim Atkinson’s recommendation to the committee that there should be at least a western segment to the proposed patterns was ignored.  That in itself is a further reason to reject the two proposals on the table.

3.4       A False Choice

3.5       The Wrong Question

None of the material published by the BCFE [and my wife is a Parish Clerk so I have seen much of what has been sent to the lowest tier of elected government] has made it clear during this consultation that, although the BCFE did not have to consider Status Quo itself, it did have a duty to explain to the Public that they were entitled to reject both options and retain the Status Quo if that’s what they preferred.   That is a serious omission.

3.6       Misdirection of Consultees

So by failing to make this clear, I know that many Parish Councils bodies were forced to express a preference for one of the Unitary patterns when they actually preferred the Status Quo.  They did not express that preference for the status quo because they were told, falsely, that that option was unavailable to them. 

My evidence for this assertion comes from the meetings with Parish Council chairs held at South Norfolk house during this consultation period.  It’s not that the Boundary Committee ‘misdirected’ itself.  The Boundary Committee’s publicity has misdirected those consultees as to what they could or could not say in response.

3.7       Confirming their choice.

My view is that the BCFE should now write to those who expressed a preference for one of the two patterns proposed and ask them to confirm that they were aware of their right to prefer the Status Quo and to confirm that, in the light of this, they are happy with their stated choice.

It is fortunate that many of the responses coming from the independent Norfolk mind have worked out for themselves that the SQ was a possibility.  But a significant minority were advised not to and no reliance should be placed upon those responses that expressed a preference until they have confirmed that they understood that Status Quo was an option for them

3.8       Broad Cross Section of Support

So this leads me onto the Broad Cross Section of Support issue, one of the five criteria on which you will be judged by the Secretary of State.  It is premature to tally-up the responses to this consultation exercise but I do know that the overwhelming balance of opinion in South Norfolk  and in wider Norfolk is against your proposals.

But it’s more than anecdotal evidence.  With neighbouring authorities we conducted an opinion poll from respected pollster YouGov.  The results showed 84% against change.  Quite coincidentally, an online straw-poll for the Eastern Daily Press two months later showed a similar proportion backing the Status Quo.  I do not believe that a wide cross section of Norfolk is interested in change at all.

On 8th May 2009, I wrote a column in the Eastern Daily Press encouraging people to respond to the consultation and asking them to copy-me-in on their observations.  There was not a single response in favour of your proposals. Every single one of them was against your plans. 

Given that Lord Justice May has determined that there must be a true majority in favour of change for it to be lawful and that just a few stakeholders [even in aggregate] would be insufficient to justify a change, I will be interested to see that, with the majority of local people and elected members of Parish & District Councils opposing the proposals, how this is to be communicated to the Secretary of State.  For it seems to me that if the ‘Broad Cross Section of Support’ cannot be demonstrated then the BCFE will find itself unable to recommend to the Secretary of State that any structural change is possible, necessary or desirable.

3.9       The Wrong Path

And this leads me on to my next point, which is having ignored its own principles established at the start and proceeding on assertion rather than evidence, the Boundary Committee, to use the words of Lord Justice May, set off down the “wrong path”.

In my notes from meetings with the Boundary Committee it is quite clear at the outset that the they intended that to have a process by which the concepts suggested by interested parties would be short-listed down to, say half a dozen, in May 2008 for a cursory financial appraisal followed by publication of, say, three options in July with a detailed financial appraisal upon which the Public could comment.  That was clearly the intent at the outset. 

But then in April 2008, the goalposts changed.  My notes of a meeting with Archie Gall & Tim Atkinson show that legal advice, subsequently proved in the High Court and The Court of Appeal to be wrong, meant that the initial shortlisting step for the options submitted by interested parties was omitted entirely and the Committee then went ‘blind’ for an option with two reserves all of which were wholly uncosted.

It is now a matter of public record that not only did the BCFE fail to do this because they followed bogus legal advice, but when they did eventually publish the financial information, not only was it after the Public Consultation period had closed, then the figures lamentably underestimated the costs of change and supposed benefits.

Crucially, for whatever reason, in the current round, the BCFE then restricted themselves to the July 2008 options [excepting the Lowestoft/Wedge pattern] when a financial assessment should have been made on rejected concepts from interested parties, not least the East/West one that the BCFE officials recommended to the Committee in the first place.

3.10  The Knock on Consequences from the bogus legal advice

So my next substantive point is to see how the consequences of that wrong-headed action not to re-trace steps to the point at which the bogus legal advice was received and walk forward from there on the initial plan, knocked-onto the current consultation paper. 

I ask myself whether steps were taken to correct the premature dismissal of various options before the current process commenced and to place the reasons for them on the public record.  Because if the missteps of April 2008 - Summer 2008 were not adequately addressed, and the Public cannot see why certain patterns were included or not, it is difficult to see how the substantially identical Spring 2009 process can be meaningful.

To explain, if we take my first premise that a Unitary pattern of local government should recognise West Norfolk as a separate entity, and my second premise that, as a result of the incorrect legal advice it led to a premature narrowing of the field, it follows the Boundary Committee failed to adequately consider all the options that might have been looked at on a financial basis and subsequently given over for public consultation if the incorrect legal advice had not been received. 

And then when it became clear that the wrong process had been followed, by failing to revisit the initial sifting process and to reconsider and consult on alternative and additional patterns of unitary Government that were submitted in April 2008, and because evidence to the contrary has not been published, the public has not been given a choice of candidates that would otherwise have come forward. 

 I raise this point because it seems to me that, if the Boundary Committee had been correctly legally advised, then it’s likely that a number of other patterns would have seen the light of day and been consulted upon.  These patterns would have given the Public a real choice in how they wanted to see public service evolve.

But they did not. And the consequences of the failure to re-examine the initial concepts has meant that we have just two options for consideration and if you live outside Norwich or the dozen or so parishes that surround it, there is no choice being provided at all:  the Public outside Norwich have been presented with no choice other than to be collectively bundled-together from Great Yarmouth to Kings Lynn in either of the two patterns on the table.  And This Is Wrong.

And it’s uncomfortable to go back to the drawing board and then reconsult again when everybody says, with evidence, that you’ve got it wrong [including MP’s, Peers, Councillors, Business & The Public] as I know to my own political cost in relation to the Gypsy & Traveller site issue.  But it is right to do so.  And by failing to do so itself, the BCFE has failed in its duty on something Cranston J says is so important.

I have made these general and procedural points before and no doubt will have to make them again in another place but I now address in detail what I consider the flaws between the options that you have presented.  But it may help you to have understood the points I have made because I intend to rely upon them at a later date.

3.11  The rationale for the proposed options

Now, let’s move on to my notes of a meeting between Archie Gall and Tim Atkinson [I wonder what happened to him?] in April 2008.  In painstaking detail, Mr  Gall outlined the reasons what they were to depart from the initial process in the light of what turned out to be bogus legal information.  And then   he went onto explain how the various bids from interested parties would be scored.  He said that concepts for Unitary Government should be [and I quote from my notes]

·         Innovative in taking the public services forward in ways not considered before within and across local authority boundaries;

·         Holistic in that governance and democratic accountability works at all levels from quite small neighbourhoods to across counties; and

·         Has a number of unique selling points, not least the best chance striking a balance between achieving value for money in the public services and ensuring democratic accountability with neighbourhood empowerment on boundaries that makes sense to people.

Quite how the creation of monster authorities achieves any of these lofty ideals has not been adequately explained by the Boundary Committee.  The Secretary of State, will want to have demonstrated how the five criteria have been addressed.  In particular he will want to see how the proposals “achieve value for money in the public services and ensuring democratic accountability with neighbourhood empowerment on boundaries that makes sense to people.  That is not self-evident at the moment.

I am left with the impression that the initial ideals were sacrificed to get lowest cost option without any objective consideration of whether the ‘cheapest’ option was better or otherwise that what was replaced.  The fractured two-step process splitting the five criteria into two blocks meant the full range of options was not explored adequately and in any event, there was confution between the comparisons between affordability and value for money, a  tension that I will address later.

3.12  The Remarks of Sara Randall-Johnson

But before I move on, it goes without saying that I fully endorse the remarks highlighted by Cranston J of Councillor Randall Johnson.  Whilst the BCFE may consider that it has addressed some of the points with extensions to consultation period etc, I do not see that the substantive point that Randall-Johnson raised and that the Judge highlighted has been given the serious attention that he directed should happen.  For it is undeniable that the consultation responses received in the current round make it abundantly clear that a “sense of alienation and disempowerment or irrelevance is genuinely feared and has failed to be addressed by the committee”

She wrote

"[Leadership] brings with it an understanding or acceptance that concerns are shared and understood and that the leaders are not so far removed from those that they govern that a sense of alienation and disempowerment or irrelevance is experienced. On this basis it is my genuine belief that a unitary County Council would be too big and too remote to provide effective leadership …"

4         The DoNut Option

Let me first address the Do-Nut option.  I don’t intend to dwell at this stage at the manifest shortcomings of the current arrangements in Norwich City.  Suffice to say that, it would be naive to think that destroying the city and re-creating a replacement unitary would solve the structural problems in the city and, in any event, the disruption to the rest of the county insodoing would be unreasonable when other solutions that I will lay out later are open.

My first observation is that the do-nut option would provide the worst of all worlds.  To begin with, it would create two authorities with a structural imbalance in terms of economy, population and representational democracy. 

4.1       Creating by design a structural imbalance

It is to address and correct structural imbalances that is the primary purpose of the Boundary Committee so you’ll excuse just about everybody from thinking how odd to say the least it would be for the body that exists to ensure equality of representation, to recommend the creation by design of a pattern of local government that contained, say 220,000 people in one part and then 660,000 residents in another part of the same county.  I think we are owed an explanation from the supposed experts in the field as to why they have chosen a DoNut pattern that embodies everything they were established to prevent.

Of course, if the BCFE were mad-keen on giving Norwich its own council, then they could have examined an ‘Eastern DoNut’ arrangement with a separate West Norfolk and based on the historic boroughs, which at least would have addressed the population imbalances.  But they did not.  And now it’s too late.  A serious omission that was the logical outcome of the botched legal advice that was never re-addressed.

4.2       Equality of Representation

My view is that in any proposed pattern of local government an elector’s vote should carry approximately the same weight.  An analysis of unitary authorities has shown that a ratio of 3500-5500 electors per councillor exists, although this falls to about 2800 in Peterborough.  Whilst this ratio might be possible to achieve in a Norwich City unitary, it would be out-of-range in a RestOfNorfolk unitary unless the rest-of-county unitary was to have a ridiculously high number of councillors, a factor in itself that conspires against ‘strong and stable leadership’.

So the Do-nut model and in a sense the Single County Unitary model both fail on the grounds that the representation at local Government level is either inconsistent or too far removed from the numbers that exist in other parts of the country.   The following table illustrates the point nicely.

Of course, there are other evidence sources that amplify this point that are referred to in our Best4Norfolk submission, not least the research evidence from the DCLG about the optimum population sizes for authorities is inconsistent with patterns A & B.

If the committee has set its heart upon recommending a unitary Norwich, then it really must address the imbalance of representational democracy in the do-nut model, in particular.  Otherwise it must reject to advance the pattern.

4.3       The Downstream Consequences of unbalanced Authorities

And this is important because the downstream consequences of an imbalance in representation will naturally impact upon the way in which each authority sees itself.  Either too small to count or so large that it can overwhelm. 

By definition, in a do-nut model, where one surrounds the other, both authorities will require an element of joint working on planning and transport in particular and for the sake of good governance, then they should be balanced in terms of size, resources and influence.  To do otherwise would perpetuate a sense of inferiority in the junior partner.

Yet this conspires against your consultation document where you say that you’re trying to get a pattern where partnerships are minimised.  What a conceited view of local Government this is!  It is to suggest that only authorities within a single area can influence and shape their districts and that the private sector or third sector can have no input.  If, as appears to be the case that minimising partnerships was one of the guiding principles for your deliberations, then it was wrong and, incidentally, is incompatible with the creation of area quangoes, of which more later.

The BCFE should have formulated an option for consultation that produced a pattern where a number of authorities were proposed that carried equal populations & representational weight perhaps a selection of two, three or four.  For reasons I will give below, a single authority is unacceptable and in restricting itself to two viz the Do-nut, the BCFE has failed to do address the representational aspect so both Patterns A & B should be rejected on that point.

4.4       Norwich in isolation

It seems to me that the Committee have simply looked at the case of Norwich in isolation without considering the effect on the rest of Norfolk.  They clearly mi-interpreted the SoS’s guidance.  The irony of this is not lost on me because my notes make it absolutely clear that Mr Caller warned the districts not to follow this path.  He said that concepts had to work for the whole of Norfolk, not just the bits individual proponents were interested in.  And of course, correspondents to South Norfolk have made the same point. 

And the focus on Norwich misses a crucial point about poverty and deprivation in the rural areas.  Poverty and isolation is bad enough in the city but it’s worse in the rural areas where it tends to be diffuse and unnoticed unless the granularity of local government is fine enough, which of course it could not be in a monster single unitary or rest-of-Norfolk.

4.5       In aggregate

If find it unacceptable that the Donut proposal is considered risky but then expects the rest-of-Norfolk with problems of its own to cross subsidise the urban centre.  It’s bad enough the rural Norfolk subsiding the city in the first place given that rural poverty is diffuse but the BCFE failed to answer adequately whether there  is  any realistic chance of the city being able to stand on its own feet in due course.   Is it sustainable in the long-run and within 5 years?  We should be told.

And there are services that would be operated by the city for the benefit of people in the County [eg park and rides] that would be out of the democratic ambit of those that need them most.  It’s just not right to surgically remove Norwich from Norfolk unless into councils of equals.

I do not criticise the BCFE on its interpretation of In Aggregate.  But I do suggest that you should choose reject the notion entirely as a late attempt to gerry-mander the process in favour of the Donut.  I would observe that the Electoral Commission exists to destroy exactly that sort of political abuse.  That in itself is grounds to decline to give advice, a subject I will return to later.

4.6       The Strong & Stable Mandate

I realise that this is something for the electors of Norwich but I suppose that you have looked at the electoral map of the City.  It’s a fact that Norwich is mostly ‘hung’ at the moment with a minority administration.  I just wonder whether the BCFE has thought that there’s a ‘reasonable likelihood’ of their proposed changes making this situation any better, or worse.  It’s something I’d expect you to comment upon on July 15th.  It’s a practical matter and the Commiittee is probably the one most-able to address this point.

My view is that any change of boundary in Norwich is unlikely to give any party a strong mandate given the nature of the suburbs and the historic political colour.

4.7       Summary

5         Participation & Representative Engagement

Most of these points are mainly addressed at rejecting the notion of a County Unitary or a Rest of Norfolk rump, which I consider to be the least-worst option of the two.  But as I explained in my EDP article, I did not come into politics to settle for the least-worst option.  Only the best.  And by rejecting your options, I express my preference for the Status Quo, which is improving all the time.

5.1       The White Paper – Communities in Control

Councillors and Civic leaders like Mayors are drawn from the communities that elect them.  So it’s important that the widest range of local people can stand for election.  It’s a theme that was developed at length in the DCLG White Paper, Communities in Control in July 2008, ironically just a few days before publication of your initial draft proposals. 

Let’s just now examine how the BCFE proposals utterly fail to address the whole thrust of Government policy as it relates to community empowerment and community leadership.

It’s worth repeating verbatim the first four paragraphs from the DCLG summary paper because reading it reveals the fundamental incompatibility between the principles of the Communities in Control and what is being proposed by BCFE.

1.       Communities in control: real people, real power aims to pass power into the hands of local communities. We want to generate vibrant local democracy in every part of the country, and to give real control over local decisions and services to a wider pool of active citizens.

2.       We want to shift power, influence and responsibility away from existing centres of power into the hands of communities and individual citizens. This is because we believe that they can take difficult decisions and solve complex problems for themselves. The state’s role should be to set national priorities and minimum standards, while providing support and a fair distribution of resources.

3.       A vibrant participatory democracy should strengthen our representative democracy. The third sector – through charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises – has much to offer from its traditions of purposeful altruism and selfless volunteering. Equally, we believe that political activity is a worthwhile and essential part of British life, and we want to restore people’s faith in politics.

4.       In the White Paper, we address seven key issues which we treat from the perspective of individual citizens: being active in your community; access to information; having an influence; challenge; redress; standing for office; and ownership and control.

This does beg the question why, having followed the bogus legal advice which had led to the wrong path being followed in July, why the opportunity was not taken in the current consultation to, not only revisit the concepts that were rejected, but also to match the Consultation options to the thrust of the White Paper   

I clearly remember that Mr Caller explained to local authority leaders and chief executives in July 2008 that the White  Paper had been given no consideration in BCFE’s proposal despite having been widely trailed in the months before.   It does strike me as a somewhat Courageous decision especially as John Healey MP has told me personally ‘that the proposals that came forward weren’t  exactly what we were expecting.’

5.2       Representation

In Norfolk, there are 420 councillors who represent 8 authorities.  Quite how reducing this to somewhere between 84 and 150 in a single or do-nut arrangement can “generate vibrant local democracy in every part of the country” is an interesting question and one which I expect the BCFE to address and explain. 

The paper goes on to talk about ‘local councils have a duty to promote democracy’.  The proposals hardly encourage more people to stand for office.  In a telling paragraph it says

The proportion of councillors who are women, under-25 or from black and minority ethnic backgrounds is far lower than their proportion of the population. We want to see a wider range of people standing for election to their local council.

With your proposals leading to fewer councillors representing large numbers of electors, experience elsewhere tells us that the opportunity for local enthusiasts to stand for Council is reduced.  There will be no room for the local businessman who can combine a commercial life with public service in their local council.  Work in any large unitary council is a full time role.  But in a rest-of-Norfolk Council you propose the geography provides additional barriers to service.

So the logical conclusion is that you’ll create a new corps of Professional Politician on bumper salaries with the time to devote to running the Council.  And in case you hadn’t noticed, the creation of full time politicians with an unhealthy alignment with a civil service is not exactly what is best for effective Governance at any level as the current expenses scandal shows.

Truly your proposals to create more full-time politicians could not be more against the grain of public opinion.

5.3       Reducing the number of Councils and Councillors

The BCFE will want to make comparisons between Wiltshire, Shropshire and Northumberland when looking at Norfolk.  But these are false comparisons.  Firstly, in these counties the former districts were small, much too small so the need for some consolidation was obvious.  In many cases districts comprised just 40,000 population.  But in Norfolk, our authorities are of a larger scale c120,000 and the populations are rising fast as a result of Growth point status.  I am unconvinced by comparisons between other area of the country and our own county – they had more to save that we do and our authorities have more scale in terms of population and extent.

Creating an authority with the population of Birmingham in twenty size the times in a rural area is incompatible with the White Paper objectives and I reject your proposals on that basis.

5.4       The Cost of the Area Quangoes and Partnership Boards

Now I wish to respond to the creation of an extra tier of area quangoes to replace the districts you seek to destroy.  There does seem to be a conflict between what you are proposing and a “vibrant local democracy in every part of the country.” referred to in the White Paper..  And of course, the cost of the creation of area quangoes is wholly missing from the financial figures coming too late to be included in the consultant’s workbooks.

Because remarkably the creation of area boards and community partnership boards [I thought we were meant to be doing-away with partnerships] actually increase the layers of government in our county from three to four, an increase of 33%! 

And yet this increase is unfunded and absent from the financial case.  Is it any wonder that LGR in other parts of the country has underestimated the costs so badly when the small matter of creating, servicing and giving meaningful powers to a completely new tier of local government has been omitted from the practical and financial calculations?

We know that in Bedfordshire they halved the number of authorities but the new bodies doubled the salaries of the senior officers who replaced them.  And in Cornwall they are recreating the jobs that were deleted by the Districts.  The truth is that the BCFE plans for neighbourhood management are half-baked and uncosted and increase rather than reduce bureaucracy.  

The BCFE methodology has separated the first four criteria from the affordability and the financial case.  So it’s easy to see how the financial consultants have failed to consider the costs of the area arrangements but it does not excuse it.  Until the neighbourhood arrangements are fully costed, no weight can or should be given to the financial case at the very least.

5.5       The Area Boards

Clearly the execution of statutory regulatory functions like planning & licencing should be performed at a local level just as it is currently done by the districts. 

It’s a practical convention in most authorities that Cabinet members do not sit on planning or licensing committees through lack of time, so your proposal for a c90-120 member authority implies that just about every backbencher will be a member of the licencing committee in addition to the other responsibilities.  Let’s hope that no-one gets convicted for drunk-driving or other criminal offence!  So, I wonder if everyone is going to serve on licencing, can the Boundary Committee tell us who is going to populate the planning committees… or is that everybody as well?  This just hasn’t been thought through on a practical level in a county the size of Norfolk.

The proposals for Area Cabinet members also troubles me.  We know that the cabinet is restricted by law at ten members.  Most unitary and County authorities have nine or ten in the cabinet so I am puzzled as to where the extra five area members can come from.  Let’s think it through.

Clearly for political accountability and legitimacy it’s desirable for an area cabinet member to be drawn from the area he is elected.  The Widdecome rules would indicate that such a committee should be politically balanced, which raises the practical point as to whether this would force an opposition member into the cabinet from an area that voted the other way?  Has the BCFE considered this point?  If not, I require an answer to it.  And then, how would you address the internal conflicts that would conspire against strong leadership and accountability.  In fact, you would by design structurally weaken the authority. 

Moving on, let’s see how a Leader selects his cabinet.  Call me old-fashioned but a Leader selects his cabinet from the best candidates available.  Yet the logical outcome of what you propose is that, regardless of personal merit, there should be one cabinet member from each area.  What a practical nonsense!  It’s just not been though through.  It’s surprising that a committee dominated by political scientists and former local chief executives has failed to see through unworkable and impractical.  Has there been no critical analysis at a practical level of the County Council’s proposals?  If so, the work is of extraordinary poor scholarship.

Or it because the committee is packed full of political scientists and former chief executives that they wish to see a diminution to political discourse, member accountability and input by keeping everyone so busy.

5.6       Community Boards

I now want to direct my attention to the Community Boards.  First of all, we have no suggestion as to how they will be constituted to give them democratic legitimacy.  My own experience of such arrangements is that it is difficult to defend simple appointments on the basis of patronage.  We need to be told whether [more] elections will held or not.

And whilst we’re on elections, I seek the BCFE’s response to the suggestion that, if enacted, the proposals would see three local elections in three years on varying boundaries.

Returning to the boards - There’s a helpful list of the sorts in the BCFE document of things that the community boards might be expected to be involved in.  I would characterise these functions as allowing people to busy themselves with the critically important local control of dog fouling so all the big decisions can be made safely in County Hall.

Had the Boundary Committee not looked at the map?  Have they not seen the inequalities that exist within Norfolk?  I’d direct them to A vision for Norfolk and the accompanying map book where the differences in the various indexes of deprivation are laid out in full colour. 

These lay-out the critical issues that The State is there to address at a local level with local accountability.  A super-sized Single County or RestOfNorfolk just would be unable to achieve this degree of local control backed up by solid resources, particularly with a reduced number of ‘front-line’ councillors to act as eyes and ears.

Has the BCFE not recognised that the big strategic decisions should be made locally?– And that they’re different for each part of our county?  For example, a focus on coastal defences in the north & east, whilst addressing immigration and it’s knock-on effects in the south west.  Tourism vs rural deprivation.   Your plan takes strategic empowerment away from those who need it the most buying-off communities by promising control of pooper-scooping and other such trivia with the big decisions taken elsewhere.  It’s just not good enough.  It is an unacceptable diminution the sort of local that the White Paper directs should happen.

5.7       The Size of Norfolk

The physical size of the county is one factor.  But it is aggravated by the poor road infrastructure and further by the lack of public transport.  In Best4Norfolk last year, I used GoogleMaps to tabulate distance and journey times by car between places in Norfolk.  Public Transport is either not available at all or does not run at times when public meetings occur in the evening.

5.8       Discrimination against those who cannot drive

Put simply, your RestOfNorfolk proposal discriminates against those who cannot drive.  It discriminates against those with limited time or family commitments.  It discriminates against those who are of restricted mobility.  It’s a charter for the rich-and-retired to stand as Councillors.  For the Boundary Committee, part of the Electoral Commission to propose a change that is so discriminatory betrays the statutory principles upon which it was founded.  I expect this point to be addressed.

And how extraordinary that you plan to create by design an authority where the private car is the only practical mode of transport within its boundaries.  Have you really not considered that reducing car use should be something that we should be aiming at, not the reverse.

5.9       The Effect on Visible Leadership

Because I know from my personal workload that I attend official or community functions in my role as Leader of the district Council on about four nights a week.  And my other District Leader colleagues do likewise.  In a member-led authority, that’s what happens and that’s what hundreds of people have said to you.  They value the personal contact with The Leader and they are unhappy tjay this is at risk.

And that is in addition to my full time career.  For a Leader of a RestOfNorfolk to be as visible and accessible [one of those criteria again] across a whole county is unrealistic for anyone who does not wish to spend the whole day driving and then home again, perhaps 70 miles at 10pm.  I value the local connection with my electors and the way in which I can give personal attention to their needs wherever they live in South Norfolk.  Your proposals would see a dilution of local accountability and visibility.  Another good reason to reject them. 

The physical size of Norfolk militates against the Highly Visible Leadership that the Boundary Committee is required to demonstrate to the Secretary of State.  It seems to me that the BCFE has failed to appreciate the inverse relationship between size of authority and the visibility they propose.

5.10  Now let’s move on to views of residents and parishes in South Norfolk.

At South Norfolk we pride ourselves on providing excellent services at a price residents can afford.  In the early meetings with the BCFE, we were presented with a series of Key Lines of Enquiry in which it said that weight would be given to CPA scores and other performance metrics.

South Norfolk is CPA Excellent.  In the last 12 months we have received a number of national awards.  Out of nearly 400 councils we are Number One for the efficiency by which we process benefit applications for the most vulnerable in our community.  We are Number 8 for the Best Council to Work For.  We are Number 5 for the way in which we are driving sports participation.  We have won the Scott Trust award for the accessibility of our Website.  No other authority is advanced as we are with developing a plan for Gypsy & Travellers that is fair to them and the settled community.  Last year we froze Council tax whilst delivering the manifesto upon which we stood.  And we have the resources and drive to transform those parts of the district like market towns.

5.11  What’s in it for my residents?

So it’s really difficult to see what’s in it for local residents or businesses from an unnecessary structural change.  So it’s easy to understand that not a single parish council out of the 119 in South Norfolk has agreed with your proposals.  Every single one of them has preferred the current arrangements, recognising that we are working more closely with neighbouring authorities and businesses where it makes sense to do so.

5.12  Pervese Incentives & Moral Hazard

Clearly, no weight has been given to rewarding those councils which are beacons of best-practice and performance.  Rather, conversely, promotion of the Do-Nut seems to want to reward failure.  And I reject the Do-nut on that ground too. 

Rewarding feckless behaviour is one of the reasons that this country and our economy is in the mess it is.

6         The importance of Civic Life

My next point relates to importance of civic life in the County. 

When we won the election in South Norfolk I was resolved to do-away with the post of ‘Council Chairman’ and introduce a Civic Mayor with a much higher profile to embody the Council as an organisation and to have a more visible platform with which to engage with residents and business.

 But I was advised that it would be unlawful for this to happen. It turned out that by law, only city & borough councils can have Civic Mayors.  Districts can not.  In a Do-Nut model, the Rest-of-Norfolk unitary would be without a highly visible civic leader and that is unacceptable.  This is no small point.

Your consultation paper suggests that the LGPIH Act makes “specific” provision for the protection of ceremonial & heritage issues.   You say

The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 specifically provides for the Secretary of State to implement such means of protection and ensures the retention of ceremonial traditions and privileges. New unitary authorities established as a result of the structural review process are encouraged to give early consideration to such matters.

But I can find no such reference in the Act.  A full text search shows that the words ‘ceremonial’ ‘traditions’, ‘ civic’ or ‘heritage’ and the word ‘Mayor’ [except in the case of ‘elected mayor’, which you are not proposing] are wholly missing..  So, you should substantiate this comment. 

6.1       The Valuable Contribution of Mayors or Chairmen

When I look at Norfolk I see that the contributions that the Mayors of Norwich, Kings Lynn and Great Yarmouth boroughs make are extraordinary.  In Great Yarmouth, the Mayor’s Cadet gives opportunities to a young person to shadow the Mayor each year.  In all three principle towns, the Mayor led the celebrations for the safe return of our troops from Afghanistan.  Mayors and their consorts perform work of inestimable value during their years of office supporting young people, charities, appeals & business.  They are part of the social fabric and should not be done-away with lightly.

But in any event, it is unsatisfactory to leave this fundamental point hanging in the air.  Your responsibility is to explain precisely how you expect these arrangements to operate and exactly how a single person might be able to perform the ceremonial & civic functions.  This must be part of your July 15th report.

To assist you, I include as an appendix to this response the list of engagements performed in South Norfolk by the Chairman in the last year in addition to her committee and ward responsibilities.  And then I invite you to explain how a single individual might perform these in a county the size of Norfolk. 

It’s just not good enough to assert that arrangements might [although I can find no specific reference] be put in place.  You should be telling us. The fact is that there is no statutory provision for a Mayoralty in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act.  But even if there were, how could a representative elected in Kings Lynn credibly lead a civic event in Great Yarmouth or be as active as I know the Mayors are in the Charitable and Third Sector community in a place the size of Norfolk.

6.2       Ignorance of the Historic Boroughs in our County

Again, you’ll forgive me for repeating the assertion that a pattern of local government that is not at the very least based upon the historic boroughs in our county is simply unacceptable and represents a dismissal of 800-900 years of our history in an act of wanton vandalism.  I put it as strongly as that.

 You have failed to take this into account and so I reject both your proposals on this count too.

7         The Financial Projections

With the whole country having been bankrupted by the creation of a massive bureaucracy without the resources to fund it, we should just beware of financial projections for a similar proposed enterprise in our own County. 

7.1       The Figures are Out of Date

I am fortunate that we have financial experts in our local councils who have examined the workbooks and will report separately but fine detailed work misses the substantive point that the base figures on which the workbooks are based are now two years out of date.

And furthermore, the financial environment in which we are operating has changed.  And the assumptions that underpin the financial models are no longer valid.

Let’s just recap the process so far.  As late as December 2008 when the recession was in full flood, IFS told us that the costs of change in Norfolk would be in the order of £20m.  When people expressed scepticism they were told that the ‘independent consultants’ had calculated the figures accurately.  So there was a little surprise when the same consultants refreshed the figures inflating the costs threefold.  That may be closer to the mark but why should we believe these figures over the others?    It’s hardly surprising that local people are sceptical about BCFE financial forecasts from the same people who totally failed to assess the risks to the macro economy and failed to mitigate the effects.

7.2       Incomplete Work & Omission of Latest Data

But we know the assumptions have changed.  Let’s look at some of the financial pressures identified by the LGA in October as affecting all authorities but bizarrely have been omitted from the analysis.

·         Revenues to offset cost rises are falling away with reduced interest rates and reductions in ancilliary income from planning and land-charges. 

·         Capital land values have fallen meaning that predicted land sales will be unlikely to fill the funding gap and any assumptions about re-renting freshly abandoned council offices to commercial tenants in the grip of a savage recession must be questionable.

·         And of course the Capital reserve amounts have materially changed since the base-figures were tabulated.  In the case of Norfolk, Breckland & Yarmouth, reserves are on-risk in Icelandic Banks.

·         In the case of most Norfolk Councils, revenue budgets are under threat from falling income so that potential economies and efficiencies that might have been counted on to justify a reorganisation have already been made…. And you can’t count the economies twice.

·         And of course in the City, the emerging financial horror story will see their reserves totally wiped-out by November/January 2011 if they continue to burn cash at the current rate.

·         We know that the stopping of building projects has frozen the S106 money that would have been counted on.  The list goes on and on.

·         And in the current low-interest environment it doesn’t seem that the Boundary Committee has considered the cost of breaking long-term contractual deals.  In fact, now is the worst possible time to crystallise break clauses or to novate long-term contracts.  District Councils were advised by independent specialist SOCITM that the costs of breaking the City Council’s IT contract were £60m alone, yet this figure is wholly absent from any of the financial analysis. 

How can we believe the figures when we now have the experience of other authorities that demonstrates just how ‘consultants’ misunderstood the costs. 

The Risks of change

I know from my own private & commercial experience that wholly unexpected costs in the new Cornwall Unitary continue to come out of the woodwork that simultaneously prejudice the ability to realise capital assets that were relied upon to fund the costs of transition.  Oh dear.  The sums don’t add up already.  The same unforeseen risks apply in Norfolk too.

And in the current situation It is quite inconceivable that the payback within 5 years is foreseeable or achievable.  And why should we rely on the same consultants who as recently as two months ago were asserting that the cost of change would be £20m when the whole fiscal environment has changed.

We are in this national position because ‘financial consultants’, investors and bankers misunderstood the risks they were taking and failed to price those risks adequately.  And now we risk compounding that error in a process with poorly understood risks and uncertain outcomes.  The Boundary Committee can have no confidence that the figures that they have received from consultants are realistic or achievable.

The only crumb of comfort I take from the consultation document is an appreciation that the Donut is considered risky.  If it’s high risk based on two-year old figures, you should reject it out of hand today.

7.3       Financial Case on Different Basis

But then this glimmer of hope is undone by the revelation that the Donut Unitary figures were formulated on a different basis to the County unitary ones.  For Goodness Sake.  It just  beggars belief.  For how can the public be expected to make a financial choice along the lines stereotyped by Lord Justice May when the basis of those figures is incomparable?  It invalidates the process.  Pure and Simple.  How on earth did you allow that to happen?

We know that costs have increased but deterioration in asset values will reduced the capital receipts that have been counted upon to make the figures add up.  This whole process has been characterised by over-optimistic assessment of savings/revenues and a woeful underestimate of costs.  So, on the basis that I have no confidence in the financial case for either of the options, I reject both the Boundary Committee’s proposals.

7.4       The Distinction between Affordability and Value for Money

So this brings me to my next substantive point.  The Boundary Committee has confused or otherwise failed to demonstrate that it has understood the distinction between affordability and value for money.  Perhaps that’s not surprising because the Lord Justices were also confused on this point in the Court of Appeal.  The BCFE certainly seems to use affordability and value for money interchangeably.  But this is wrong and simply another example of how, in my opinion, they have misdirected themselves.

My explanation is as follows:  Affordability is all about cheapness.  It’s about trying to make sure that the entire change can be made without increasing council tax within five years.  But affordability isn’t a measure of value for money. 

We know that to remain within the ‘affordability envelope’, Northumberland had to fire 800 front-line staff in addition to those they planned to get rid of anyway.  And Council tax still went up!  That may be ‘affordable’ but it represents poor ‘value for money’ to cut services to meet it.

In Cornwall, they have abolished the district councils and readvertised for highly paid Area Supremos to recreate the links they’ve just destroyed.  Poor value for money there.

In Befordshire the old District Councils paid ‘Directors of Resources’ about £70,000 per year.  Both the new Bedfordsire unitaries advertised the same posts at £140,000pa.  Appalling value for money in that case.

There is no evidence that the BCFE has understood this distinction between cheapness and value for money although they seem to have accepted uncritically the County Council’s assertion that 500 jobs would be lost in the coastal communities that can least afford increases in unemployment as if that is in the public interest.  Hardly a Value for Money assessment in that case either.

So, by failing to demonstrate an appreciation of the difference between affordability and value for money and failing to address the uncertainty around the effect and risks of the financial case and economic situation, I fail to see why we should accept either Boundary Committee options preferring instead the existing arrangements.  Any advice that is to be made needs to demonstrate that the tension between the two has been addressed.  They are not interchangeable.  They were, after all in separately numbered criteria./

8         My Advice on the Boundary Committee’s Advice

So, now I come to my suggestion to you.  I have seen no evidence from the Boundary Committee apart from a dogged desire to provide a unitary pattern, any pattern to the Seciretary of State in due course, regardless of the heartfelt strength of feeling against it.

They seem to have seen it as their remit to recommend a pattern of unitary government at any cost when, of course, it is open to it to choose to decline to give any advice whatsoever for all the reasons that I have set-out above.

However much I feel that the BCFE should decline to give advice, I think it likely that the committee will want to at least recommend something, so I turn to this point now.

8.1       What’s the Problem?

I approach this whole LGR issue by considering what the problem is that needs solving.  And then having identified that  problem, I think how I might solve it.

It seems to me that Unitary Government is an attempt to solve a problem that does not exist.  In Kings Lynn, Breckland, Broadland, Gt Yarmouth, North Norfolk & South Norfolk, we all celebrate our achievements and take pride in our communities.  And of course, Norfolk County Council is a four star authority too.  There is little evidence that the current situation is broken.

8.2       The Structural Problem in Norwich

So if local Government is working well in Norfolk, where’s the problem to be solved?  And the answer is to be found in Norwich, ironically the Council that has spawned this whole process.

And when you look at Norwich, what do you see?  You see an authority that is failing simply because it is overwhelmed by the enormity of the task of addressing housing need and inequality amongst those residents that live in its 18,000 council houses.

And that’s because they are a rotten landlord.  Don’t take my word for it.  Ask the Audit Commission. 

So if you want to improve Norwich, you must address the social housing issue and all the problems that flow from inadequate provision of decent homes that are attractive to live in and cheap to run.

Simply distracting everyone from that critical task whilst focusing on LGR has led to the situation getting worst in the City during the last to ‘lost’ years.  And another 5 years of turmoil is unlikely to make the situation any easier.

And changing the nameplate on City Hall isn’t going to address the structural problem in Norwich’s suburbs.  In my view, what is needed is for Norwich to be forced to divest themselves of their social housing.  It should be confiscated.

We know that the Audit Commission has excoriated the City Council for their inability to manage their housing estate.  We know that the tenants have no confidence in their landlord.  We know that the Council has been brought to its knees by a series of housing-related scandals.

If we’re to recommend “Community Governance Reviews”, this is where we start.  Before we look at Structural Change in Norfolk, we must address the structure of Norwich.  Until that is achieved, LGR would deliver nothing.

You only have to drive to Costessey to see how Social Housing can be transformed by an LSVT process whereby a Social Landlord [Saffron Housing] takes over a council’s housing stock and invests in it in a way that a council would find it impossible.  The difference between former council houses in Costessey and Norwich’s houses in neighbouring Bowthorpe is remarkable.  You should go and see it if you are really minded to address the ‘structural’ issues in Norfolk.

In Costessey every house has new windows, bathrooms, kitchens and front doors.  The houses are now effectively insulated so families that find it hard to get by now spend less money on heating.  Social problems are reduced.  There is a sense of ownership and community pride resulting from the pride that’s been invested in the housing stock itself.

So my solution for Local Government Reorganisation is for the Boundary Committee to decline to give Boundary Advice to the Secretary of State on structural change.  My solution is for the Boundary Committee to realise that there is a problem in Norwich, but that a boundary change will not fix that fault and, in any event, to do so would destabilise the rest of Norfolk. 

My solution for this whole process is for the Boundary Committee to make the observation that forcing the City Council to divest itself of its Council Houses by an LSVT or ALMO [and the legislation is in place to enable this] process would give those people with the poorest outcomes in Norwich the best chance of improvement whilst allowing local government in the rest of Norfolk the incentive to continue to evolve. 

And the £120m [minimum] capital receipt the City would receive in exchange for the houses would unlock capital improvements to address the poor crime levels, deprivation and environment.

Structural Change is unnecessary to effect transformational change in Norwich.  An LSVT is exactly what is required.   And you can’t do both at once.  We need to make a choice as to which of the two is most urgent.  And a ten minute walk in a City Council Housing estate will provide the answer.

And then, when the City is back on its feet, they can apply for Unitary in ten years time if that’s what they want.

But if the Boundary Committee sees its remit just to provide a pattern, any pattern of Unitary Government to the Secretary of State and that’s it, it would be missing a once in a lifetime generation to help those people in Norwich onto their feet.

9         My  final words

In the last 30 pages or so, I have executed  the right and responsibility I have been elected to perform as a Leader of a Council, elected by my constituents and then chosen by my peers [and reconfirmed this week at our annual meeting] to promote the health and well-being of my district.

I have laid out in painstaking detail why I feel that LGR as proposed by the BCFE is wrong headed and why your proposals fail to meet the tests and suggested what in my opinion you should do next. 

For the avoidance of Doubt, I tell you now that you have followed the wrong path.  I reject the two consultation options for the reasons I have described and have proposed an alternative outcome that will suit everybody.

It is now too late to correct what you should have done and you will have to answer for that in due course but the best option for Norfolk is for you to decline to give structural advice to the Secretary of State but to set in motion a series of events that will lead to Norwich being divested of its Council Housing Stock, for which the most vulnerable citizens of Norwich will thank you for generations to come.

10    Appendix One – Text of EDP Article 8th May 2009

Text of my Eastern Daily Press Article published on Friday 8th May 2009 and which many public consultees have referred to in their own submissions.

Seven Days to Save Norfolk

I’m born and bred in Norfolk. I’m proud of our local traditions and the decency of our local people and I’m afraid that the distinctive way of life in our County is under threat from government plans to abolish our local councils.

Let’s be clear.  Faceless Boundary Commissioners from London are advising the Government to create a single council in Norfolk that is twice the size of the Luxembourg and twenty times the size of Birmingham or a worst-of-all-worlds ‘donut’ arrangement that would surgically remove Norwich from the rest of Norfolk.

Under both plans, market towns and villages from Kings Lynn to Great Yarmouth, from Cromer to Diss have no choice and would be bundled together casting aside proud civic traditions and community interests by creating a “local” unitary Council that would be over 70 miles wide.  

We know that creating these one-size-fits-all councils is horrendously expensive.  When they did it in Northumberland last year the original cost of £18m escalated to £55m.  When they created a unitary authority in Cornwall the costs rose from £19.3m to almost £60m.  And, by law, local people have to pick up the bill at a time they can least afford it.  Everybody I speak to knows that now is the worst possible moment to embark on yet another risky public sector reorganisation

The Government’s own expert has said that local government overhauls have never led to lower council tax bills.  And it’s easy to see why:  Last week the new unitary council in Cornwall advertised for a series of area supremos as they desperately sought to recreate the links with local communities that they had just abolished!  In Bedfordshire they halved the number of local councils but then doubled the salaries of the senior officials that remained!  What a waste of time, effort and money!

But it’s not just about the money.  Local councils do so much more than collect the bins or sweep the roads.  When times are tough local people need local Councils and local Councillors to fight their corner.

In a Norfolk council 70 miles wide, there would be no room for the single parent with family commitments or the well-meaning local activist with a few hours a week to serve by standing for election as a councillor. We know from elsewhere that large Unitary councils would be run by a new class of full-time, professional politicians on bumper salaries.  That’s the last thing anybody wants.

And when I talk to people around the county about the government’s plans for Norfolk they almost all say exactly the same thing... “John, we agree with you!  The present system works well and is improving all the time but because the government is determined to introduce unitary status, we have no alternative but to sign-up for the least-worst option.”

Well I have a message for the naysayers and the pessimists.  I didn’t become a local councillor to settle for the “least-worst” option.  I won’t settle for “second best” and I don’t see why anyone else should either.

Quite simply, The Boundary Committee have taken the wrong path.  They have failed to understand that people near Thetford don’t care too much about sea defences along the coast or that residents of Winterton aren't really concerned about economic development in King’s Lynn. 

They have failed to realise that now is not the time to reward those who have comprehensively mismanaged the city of Norwich being rewarded with even more responsibilities.  Most importantly, they have failed to understand the value of the representational democracy based on historic boroughs and their hinterland that has served Norfolk people for almost 900 years.

So now it’s is the responsibility of all of us to tell the Boundary Committee that we will not settle for either of their plans.   We all have until next Friday to tell them that we will not accept their second-best.

Simply stated, we have just one week to tell them that the present system of local government in Norfolk works quite well enough thank you and we will not stand for the pattern of life in our County being lost in an act of wanton vandalism that will ill-serve ourselves, our children and grandchildren.