Queen's Speech - Local Government Bill
Tuesday 25 May 2010
“Legislation will be introduced to stop uncompleted plans to create unitary councils.” The purpose of the Bill is to: Revoke structural change orders that established Exeter and Norwich as Unitary Councils from 1 April 2010 and prevents the implementation of the Suffolk unitary proposals that remain outstanding. The main benefits of the Bill would be: [...]
“Legislation will be introduced to stop uncompleted plans to create unitary councils.”
The purpose of the Bill is to:
Revoke structural change orders that established Exeter and Norwich as Unitary Councils from 1 April 2010 and prevents the implementation of the Suffolk unitary proposals that remain outstanding.
The main benefits of the Bill would be:
- Stopping expensive and unnecessary restructuring plans enabling £40m restructuring costs to be saved.
- Avoiding the disruption of reorganization for the councils concerned and remove the risk of fragmenting major local services, such as children’s services, in those areas.
- Giving certainty and stability about local government structures for the statutory consultation on the local government financial settlement.
The main elements of the Bill are:
- To prevent any further orders to be made implementing unitary proposals received before the Bill’s commencement date.
- To revoke the orders that create from 1 April 2011 unitary councils for the cities of Exeter and Norwich.
- Where any councillor’s term of office has been extended by one year by any order, the Bill would allow such extension to continue. This avoids by-elections on the revocation of the orders with the associated costs that would arise.
Existing legislation in this area is:
- Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007
The Bill will revoke the following secondary legislation:
- The Exeter and Devon (Structural Changes) Order 2010 (S.I. 2010/998)
- The Norwich and Norfolk (Structural Changes) Order 2010 (S.I. 2010/997)
Devolution:
Applies to England and Wales only.