What is Local Government Reorganisation?
Local government reorganisation basically means changing the way local government is structured – the number and size of councils and who is responsible for what.
Right now, in many parts of England, there are two or more levels of council:
- County councils: These cover larger areas and deal with things like education, social care, and transportation.
- District or borough councils: These cover smaller areas within counties and handle things like local planning, housing, and waste collection.
- Unitary councils: These provide all council services in a given area.
- Parish and town councils: These councils may look after very local amenities such as allotments, public clocks, play areas and equipment.
In Staffordshire, we have:
- Staffordshire County Council, which covers the whole of Staffordshire.
- Eight district and borough councils. These are South Staffordshire District Council, Lichfield District Council, Cannock Chase District Council, Stafford Borough Council, Newcastle Under-Lyme Borough Council, East Staffordshire Borough Council, Tamworth Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council.
- 180 town and parish councils.
- We also have a small unitary council - Stoke-on-Trent City Council. They are responsible for providing all council services in their area.
Local government reorganisation aims to simplify the way local government works by:
- Creating unitary councils: These would be single councils responsible for all local government services within a particular area, replacing the two-tier system.
- Ensuring councils are a suitable size to be efficient and effective: The government thinks that there should be at least 500,000 residents in most new unitary councils.
